Thanks for chiming in, Ted! Another happy customer here. Namecheap has been my registrar of choice, too, and I have slowly moved most of my domain names to it. I also believe that Namecheap is not involved in any shady practices.
In the light of this thread, I've shared my experience with domain names search and how to perform it securely without worrying that someone will grab your name https://stanbright.com/domain-name-search/
I currently use namecheap. Ironically it's actually one of their biggest mistakes that convinced me to stay with them.
When namecheap rolled out its custom 2fa authenticator app thing I started to look for alternatives but stuck it out long enough for them to switch to u2f and reading the 'we took the wrong turn' kind of explanation post they made was enough for me to have a bit of faith that they listen to their users AND act on it.
In the light of this thread, I've shared my experience with domain names search and how to perform it securely without worrying that someone will grab your name https://stanbright.com/domain-name-search/