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.
That is how I felt about the imdb forums and also ftp.cdrom.com. I was huge into Doom and Quake in the mid-late 90s and I used to get a ton of files from ftp.cdrom.com.
All the WAD hosting went to places like doomworld and one day they announced it was shutting down and I realized I hadn't been on it in 5+ years.
I've been selling Windows and Mac software online since 2005, so I remember them well. Tucows and similar sites were quite an important part of selling software online as an Indie back then. But they became less and less relevant as search engines improved. Eventually most of the download sites just became automatically generated online garbage heaps, trying to trick you into downloading things you didn't want, adding dodgy brower toolbar extensions and pushing fake awards ( https://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/16/the-software-award... ). In some ways it is good that download sites are less relevant, but we have just swapped one lot of gatekeepers for another (mostly Google and Apple).
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.
> Is there fewer people making desktop software nowadays? Yes. Developing native desktop apps is more work (Win32 and Cocoa, who even knows those? you'll have to implement the app in both) and these days you'll have to go through the app signing bureaucracy even if you're not using app stores. And good luck with the monetization, especially if you're not distributing through app store or other and paying a huge share…
I make my living selling desktop software for Windows and Mac. Yes, there are definitely less of us than there were 15 years ago, when I started. But there are still plenty of niches where desktop apps are as good as or better than web apps. I use C++/Qt to stay away from the horrors of the native Windows and Mac apis and avoid bloat. Code signing isn't a big issue. I don't sell through any app stores. Getting noticed is an issue, but it always has been.
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.
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.
I miss the walnut creek days of ftp.cdrom.com. Many an id demo and FreeBSD isos downloaded. Before that I knew of them from actually buying their CD's in the mid 90's before we had the internet.
ftp.cdrom.com was the fastest slackware mirror for me for all of my teen years.
this reminds me of poking around on my ISP's shell server to find warez drops other people had put there.
... now I can smell magic: the gathering cards for some reason.
Great memories of using Tucows. It was a dependable source of software.
Have a similar feeling using f-droid now. Look for a useful tool, and find something completely different, that is either useful or fun.
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.
That's sad, I was just thinking last week that I wish Tucows were still around so search for new interesting tools. I thought it was taken down ages ago.
The article doesn't link to the Tucows Downloads Archive, for whatever reason it only links to the archive.org homepage. Here's the direct link: https://archive.org/details/tucows It also appears that the archive wasn't manually reviewed; some items are just screenshots, and others are unrelated to software at all. Example (mildly nsfw): https://archive.org/details/tucows_71077_Sung_Hi_Lee_2
I, ahem, had to look into this as a matter of intellectual curiosity -- there is an archive file in the "DOWNLOAD OPTIONS" section which holds the .scr Windows screensaver file: https://archive.org/download/tucows_71077_Sung_Hi_Lee_2 (On another note, .scr-s are just renamed .exe-s, and it was a highly questionable choice to download and run those in their heyday as well.)
> it was a highly questionable choice to download and run those in their heyday as well
I never let that stop me! I was going to have my realistic fish aquarium screensaver, come hell or high water.
Besides, I could always reformat. I had that Windows XP serial key memorized, after all!
End of an era. I remember using them consistently in the mid- to late-90’s. Sad to see them go but change is the only constant in life. Goodbye old friend!