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Retiring Tucows Downloads

tucows.com

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Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#11

Post by gmiller123456 »

Scoundreller wrote: post #4

> Old sites are a maintenance challenge and therefore a risk. Hard disagree unless you want/need to update it. They’ve moved it to internet archive, so I’m happy, but still a dumb statement.

Even if the software it was running on never had a bug finding, the hardware would eventually fail and it'd have to be updated to run on modern software. Coupled with the fact that bugs do pop up in operating systems, web servers, etc, it is no free to maintain. The Internet Archive screen scrapes everything and just saves the pages you see, but even that isn't free or trivial if you don't already have the software.

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#12

Post by jaredsohn »

Some related obscure nostalgia - I used to like downloading games from Happy Puppy.

https://web.archive.org/web/20000815211217/http://www.happyp...

"Happy Puppy was launched on Valentine's Day 1995, establishing itself as the first-ever commercial games site. It was an overnight success and has been the leading gaming lifestyle publication on the web ever since."

Related in the sense that it was another site I would download software from in that era. Disappeared in 2006.

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#13

Post by paxys »

tpmx wrote: post #10

> We’re pleased to say that much of the software and other assets that made up the Tucows Downloads library have been transferred to our friends at the Internet Archive for posterity. The usage of the word "much" makes it seem like IA crawled most of the archive, "probably". @ Elliot Noss: The real classy way to shut down something as historically important as this would be to transfer a 100% (edit: ~100%) dump to th…

Sites like this have a long tail problem. Yes doing a 100% dump would be best, but 90% of it is likely stuff that hasn't been accessed in years and never will again. So from a resourcing point of view it is better to save "most" than none at all.

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#14

Post by solomonb »

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #7

Wow, nostalgia, it's been years since even hearing about Tucows. Tucows was a huge part of my childhood from 10 to 18 years old. Good run and great early repository for software. Thanks Tucows.

Me too! I miss the era of the internet that Tucows represents.

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#15

Post by samsquire »

There was something magical about this era when I was a child downloading gameboy emulators like No$GBA.

I miss download.com

Is there fewer people making desktop software nowadays? It seems there is less software available. It's also very hard to be profitable and monetize software.

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#16

Post by wiremine »

This is the worst part of the internet: Tucows was such a bit part of life for so many people, and now it's just... gone. We have the internet archive, which is great, but it feels like there should be a way to highlight touchstones these sites.

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#17

Post by SummerlyMars »

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #7

Wow, nostalgia, it's been years since even hearing about Tucows. Tucows was a huge part of my childhood from 10 to 18 years old. Good run and great early repository for software. Thanks Tucows.

A former coworker of mine went to work there, and my immediate thought upon learning of this was "The download site?"

It turns out they're doing pretty well for themselves. They might not have much brand recognition these days, but they're a much bigger company than I thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucows

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#18

Post by disgrunt »

wiremine wrote: post #16

This is the worst part of the internet: Tucows was such a bit part of life for so many people, and now it's just... gone. We have the internet archive, which is great, but it feels like there should be a way to highlight touchstones these sites.

Tucows isn't gone. They're the second largest domain registrar in the world. They run OpenSRS and Hover, for example. They also run Ting.

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#19

Post by tpmx »

paxys wrote: post #13
tpmx wrote: post #10

> We’re pleased to say that much of the software and other assets that made up the Tucows Downloads library have been transferred to our friends at the Internet Archive for posterity. The usage of the word "much" makes it seem like IA crawled most of the archive, "probably". @ Elliot Noss: The real classy way to shut down something as historically important as this would be to transfer a 100% (edit: ~100%) dump to th…

Sites like this have a long tail problem. Yes doing a 100% dump would be best, but 90% of it is likely stuff that hasn't been accessed in years and never will again. So from a resourcing point of view it is better to save "most" than none at all.

I guess I'm mostly concerned about an authoritative dump from those first years until 1996/1997 or so, probably less than 1 GB.

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#20

Post by ai_ja_nai »

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #7

Wow, nostalgia, it's been years since even hearing about Tucows. Tucows was a huge part of my childhood from 10 to 18 years old. Good run and great early repository for software. Thanks Tucows.

I remember downloading GetRight download manager from there. Aeons ago, truly Internet 1.0.
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