Invalid Security Issues with www.zeroretries.radio Published on Ghost
Updated 2026-02-24
Some potential subscribers to Zero Retries are receiving security warnings from their computer or other device when they attempt to access Zero Retries at its new domain name:
To the best of my ability to run down these issues, and the most qualified advice I’ve received to date…
such security warnings are false.
To be clear, I’m not saying that some individuals’ operating systems (Windows), security / anti-virus systems (Norton, etc.), browsers (Chrome), etc. aren’t providing warnings. Obviously warnings, and blocks, etc. are occurring - I’ve been shared screenshots of such warnings.
I am saying that there doesn’t seem to be any factual basis for such warnings.
There is nothing in the configuration of www.zeroretries.radio, either in the dotRadio domains’ DNS system, or Ghost’s hosting system that should be causing any reason for concern. There is no malicious content published in Zero Retries (no phishing scams, no “secret takeover”).
The primary cause for concern seems to be that the domain zeroretries.radio was recently registered (three months ago), and it’s an “unusual” Top Level Domain operated by an independent company (dotRadio domains).
Validation That Reported Security Issues with www.zeroretries.radio are Incorrect
The week of 2026-02-15, I received this from Ghost Technical Support with some clarity on the root cause of the issue:
Our engineers have had a look at this, and were able to determine that the site was marked as a phishing site by Cloudflare, as well as other providers.
You can see the results of a search here: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/b3a93580ea03db32ac5fec58a5b92149f35d300e00adeeae9326cb51367e5581/detection
While [Ghost has] applied to have this block removed (by Cloudflare, as we work with them), we aren’t able to easily remove this from the rest of those blocking it.
The reason it is sometimes returning a block for users, vs not loading for others, is because some users would have it being blocked at the DNS level (failing to load at all) vs the browser level (the red page these members are seeing).
As to why the site is being marked as “phishing” by some locations, is another issue. I do not see anything “malicious” on the site, though with newer TLD domain extensions I do know there are some restrictions. For example, a.radiodomain seems that it should be utilized for those in the “Radio” industry (e.g. broadcasters, radio journalists, and related services). When doing some digging on this, it does seem like that may be a potential reason for being marked as phishing.
In writing this article, to offer a bit more context to those that are experiencing this issue, I queried ChatGPT, and here are the substantive parts of that response:
Here’s what reputation and security blocklist tools show about www.zeroretries.radio and why some users see access problems:
🔎
1. ScamAdviser reputation check
According to ScamAdviser, zeroretries.radio appears very likely safe — with a low trust score indicating no known fraudulent behavior.
The site has a valid SSL certificate and is not flagged as a scam, but it does have relatively low traffic and a hidden WHOIS record, which can reduce automatic trust scoring.
Direct link to that check:
🔗 https://www.scamadviser.com/check-website/zeroretries.radio
🛑
2. Why some security systems block newly registered domains
Many DNS and security blocklists (like Spamhaus Zero Reputation Domain — ZRD) will temporarily block or flag newly registered domains as a defensive measure, because new domains are statistically more likely to be used for phishing or malware.
This type of blocklist listing can cause connection failures or “site can’t be reached” errors when accessed through certain corporate firewalls, security DNS filters, or browser reputation services.
About that blocklist:
🔗 Spamhaus Zero Reputation Domain (ZRD) is a real-time blocklist that lists recently registered domains (typically for about 24 hours) to help block fraudulent activity.
📌
In summary — why users see issues
No inherent malware or phishing activity is detected on zeroretries.radio by reputation checkers like ScamAdviser.
Some security systems block new domains automatically (e.g., Spamhaus ZRD or similar DNS/URL reputation filters), especially for freshly registered or low-traffic sites.
This results in intermittent access problems depending on the user’s ISP, DNS filter, browser reputation database, or corporate network policy.
Here’s what third-party reputation aggregators that do rely on VirusTotal engines and similar scanners are reporting about that domain:
🛡️ External reputation service result (Gridinsoft)
One reputation service that aggregates multiple security engines reports that “zeroretries.radio” has a very low trust score (1/100) and may be categorized as a phishing/malicious domain by some scanners. This assessment is based on automated heuristic and blacklist indicators, not necessarily active malware content.
🔗 This report is at: https://de.gridinsoft.com/online-virus-scanner/url/zeroretries-radio (third-party scanner summary).
🟢 Other reputation checks (ScamAdviser)
Another site, ScamAdviser, scores the same domain as “very likely safe” with a valid SSL certificate and normal hosting — noting only low traffic and hidden WHOIS data.
🔗 See: https://www.scamadviser.com/check-website/zeroretries.radio.
⚠️ What this means
VirusTotal-based or reputation-aggregated results can vary widely because some individual scanners (especially heuristic or defensive blocklists) may flag a new, low-traffic domain simply because it is new or obscure — not because there is actual malware. This is a common behavior of reputation systems that tie into threat intelligence feeds.
A low score or some flags do not necessarily mean the site contains malware — just that it’s not yet established and may trigger automated protections in some security products.
📌 Summary
No authoritative VirusTotal report directly accessible here, but reputation engines that use similar data show mixed signals:
• One shows a very low trust score and possible phishing category, likely due to age and low visibility.
• Another marks the domain as legitimate and SSL-valid.
Post Publication Update:
www.zeroretries.radio gets a “no problems found” from this checkup:
https://abongo.com/domain/zeroretries.radio
DOMAIN BLACKLIST STATUS
✓ Clean - 8/8 checked
Spamhaus DBL, SURBL Multi, URIBL Black, Spamhaus ZRD, URIBL Grey, URIBL Red, SURBL Fresh, SEM URI
Fear of Phishing?
Thus the issue seems to boil down to “fear of phishing” and manifesting in varying ways in some browsers, on some security systems.
Some potential subscribers have been able to “whitelist” www.zeroretries.radio (add an exception or mark it as a safe site) with no further impact. But, others report that they don’t have that option. For example, I haven’t figured out how to set Chrome that www.zeroretries.radio is a valid domain name.
To be clear, I’m not minimizing / trivializing / dismissing the experience and caution of those who have reported this issue.
But please understand, these issues are not universal.
For example, three of the browsers I have installed on my Mac - Safari, Firefox, and Duck Duck Go, are working fine. But (Mac) Chrome has a major issue with accessing www.zeroretries.radio:
This site can’t be reached
www.zeroretries.radio refused to connect.
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED
(Yes, I’ve tinkered with Chrome’s various security settings, and no joy at all.) Given the experience with the other three browsers on the same computer, same Internet connection, within minutes of each other, that message is clearly specious.
As far as I can tell, I’m doing everything right in setting up publication of Zero Retries on Ghost and dot Radio domains to use www.zeroretries.radio with Ghost, which Ghost Technical Support has confirmed, per the quoted email above.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the ability to do anything further on my end to deal with this issue (other than, perhaps, working with Gridinsoft - to be determined). If you’d like to help, perhaps filling out a review here - https://gridinsoft.com/online-virus-scanner/url/zeroretries-radio#reviews may help. Or not. I have no idea - this is all new to me
Otherwise, I have no influence on the organizations that have flagged www.zeroretries.radio. I can only hope that operating it for a longer period of time, with enough folks accessing it or whitelisting it in their security systems, to cause the concerns / blocks to be lifted.
I Won’t be “Falling Back” to Substack and www.zeroretries.org
I don’t consider it a reasonable option to “fall back” to Substack, and using www.zeroretries.org long term for reasons I’ve previously discussed in a number of Zero Retries issues. I plan to move ahead and continue using the www.zeroretries.radio domain and Ghost as a hosting platform.
That includes a mass import of subscriber email addresses from Substack to Ghost by end of 2026-02, and hopefully porting all the Zero Retries content currently on Substack, into Ghost, hopefully by 2026-03-31.
Remedy / Option 1 - Try another browser such as Firefox
For those of you who prefer not to attempt (or cannot) override your computer’s security or antivirus system or browser to access www.zeroretries.radio despite the warnings, the only substantive suggestion I can make is to try to use another browser such as Firefox (which, again, works for me on my Mac, where Chrome will not).
Remedy / Option 2 - On Request, I can Manually Add Your Email Address to Zero Retries Publishing on Ghost
If you cannot access www.zeroretries.radio, you cannot sign yourself up to receive email for email versions of Zero Retries to at least read the email version. In such cases, and you’d like to receive Zero Retries via email, please send an email:
zrnladmin@zeroretries.net with the subject of “Request manual email add”
and I will manually add you as a free subscriber to the Zero Retries email newsletter.
Remedy / Option 3 - Read Zero Retries Newsletter on Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC)
Zero Retries has its own “Collection” on Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC) - https://archive.org/details/zeroretries.
All of the issues of Zero Retries through 2025 are already in that collection. Soon I will add all of the 2026 issues to that collection, and then expand my publication process to create a PDF version to upload to DLARC each time I create a new issue of Zero Retries.
Unfortunately, these are not complete remedies
The above are not complete remedies…
There will be email links in the email version of Zero Retries that link to a previous issue of Zero Retries, or a page on www.zeroretries.radio,
The email version of Zero Retries often “overflows” in email clients, and
www.zeroretries.radio will soon be the only place a lot of good information is published such as events, information about Zero Retries Digital Conference 2025, etc. (migrated from www.zeroretries.org on Substack).
Long Term Fate of Zero Retries on Substack and www.zeroretries.org Domain
Long term, after all Zero Retries content is ported into www.zeroretries.radio I will either “mothball” Zero Retries on Substack with a pinned article directing to www.zeroretries.radio, or I’ll shut down Zero Retries on Substack and use www.zeroretries.org as a redirect to www.zeroretries.radio…
To be determined at some future date.
To Discuss This Issue…
If you’d like to interact with other users, or discuss this issue, please do so on the Zero Retries email list.
Thanks for your understanding and patience.
With some luck and greater use of the website (and, perhaps, in spite of warnings), hopefully the issues that some are experiencing in accessing www.zeroretries.radio will eventually “fix themselves”.
Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Editor, Zero Retries newsletter