I was just on GoDaddy this morning trying to change some DNS settings for one of my domains. I made the changes and clicked 'submit' only to find they pushed an up-sell ad in there and made me click another 'submit' button to make the changes. On a freakin' settings page!

What'd you end up switching to?

I'm not the OP, but I switched to namecheap and never looked back. They usually have a coupon for discounted transfers, if you decide to go for them. (Try RetailMeNot or just google "namecheap coupon february 2009")

I switched to dynadot.com. Love the clean interface, slightly more expensive. I did a gradual switch of my 30 or so domains. No problems in the past year I've been with them. I've also heard good things about moniker.com.

Here's a blurry screenshot of the control panel, no ads: http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/7423/dynadotnq4.png

Same here. I switched away from them back in 2003 when the "car salesman" mentality (an excellent and concise term, btw) really started to kick in. Went to Domainsite -- http://domainsite.com -- whose site is as poorly designed as GoDaddy's except for the fact that they don't have ads at every corner. That alone makes it worth switching, but Domainsite is also considerably cheaper and more up-front with their pricing.

I dare anyone to figure out how much it costs to renew a domain name with GoDaddy. It took me a full 5 minutes, and that was with a logged-in account.

I have a godaddy and a hostmonster account. hostmonster is VASTLY superior in my experience. They use cpanel for the backend interface so it's somewhat standardized. Also the call center is in the USA and they actually TELL you what number you are in line when you are waiting on hold. When you do speak to somebody, it's not usually that long of a wait and they actually know something about how to provide support.

name.com 9 bucks and free private registration combined with a simple interface wins for me

and their sneak attack auto-renew

sneak attack auto-renew? what's that?

The default setting on their domain registrations is to auto-renew them at the end of each year. Both good and bad parts but it certainly doesnt hurt their bottom line

I do not want my domains to expire by default -- the principal of "least harm" in defaults certainly applies. One accidental lapsing could cause more pain than a hundred accidental renewals.