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Retiring Tucows Downloads

tucows.com

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Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#191

Post by Belphemur »

StavrosK wrote: post #174
ai_ja_nai wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh wow, GetRight... I don't know if it's just nostalgia, but the UI of those apps was much better than today's UI. Back then everything had a standard UI and you could count on menus and elements being Alt-accessible, nowadays everything is a hodgepodge of web apps and nothing works the same way as anything else.

And to add to it, it seems that none of them hear of keyboard shortcuts.

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#192

Post by StavrosK »

Belphemur wrote: post #191
StavrosK wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, GetRight... I don't know if it's just nostalgia, but the UI of those apps was much better than today's UI. Back then everything had a standard UI and you could count on menus and elements being Alt-accessible, nowadays everything is a hodgepodge of web apps and nothing works the same way as anything else.

And to add to it, it seems that none of them hear of keyboard shortcuts.

That is the worst offender. Keyboard is the best way of quickly navigating, but no, no keyboard shortcuts anywhere any more, and definitely no underlines on buttons so you can alt+key to them...

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#193

Post by hombre_fatal »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #119
arkitaip wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like native desktop development has stagnated a lot in the past 10 years. But Electron and other frameworks have enabled hundreds of desktop software that are basically web tech based.

And all those frameworks add so much bloat. Windows Calculator now consumes 12 MB of RAM. Sure, 12 MB is nothing when systems have 8+ GB, but if you think about the fact that it hasn't really changed much since Windows 3.1, you have to wonder why it takes a couple orders of magnitude more memory without having significantly more functionality. I bet if DOOM were to be written today, even using the same assets, it wou…

The bloat of abstraction is a small price to pay for the deathmarch of progress. When you look at the ever growing chasm that software needs to fill, it all makes sense.

Consider how the most modern computer most of us could even write an emulator for is over 40 years old. Abstraction is the only way we have a hope of meeting hardware where it has progressed.

Just compare the best game anyone could build with z80 assembly vs. Unreal Engine / Unity. It's easy to pick on a 12MB calculator app, but don't let that rob you of being truly humbled by what can be built today.

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#195

Post by codazoda »

janfoeh wrote: post #71
codazoda wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, my app listing for ButtonWiz is gone (maybe I removed it years ago). It was listed in Windows Magazine as one of the top 10 shareware programs sometime around 1998. That makes it sound bigger than it was, the Top 10 list was a small 1/4 page article that appeared in a bunch of issues.

Has your app been around for longer than '98? The screenshots I've found look familiar. If it was available around, say, '94 or '95, I am almost positive I had it installed at the time I started messing around with the Compuserve Homepage Builder...

Yes, I developed it for nearly a decade starting around 1994.

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#196

Post by Proven »

renewiltord wrote: post #85
soheil wrote: post #37

tucows and download.com were the "app stores" of the web before the walled gardens of the big companies today. You could distribute your app to one of these sites and have it be automatically syndicated to thousands of other download sites. This is how distributed web worked. We're making the web more centralized and it's not just social media and youtube.

They were such shit though, with the fake download buttons and everything.

downloads.com was much much worse, also few other sites I can't remember right now.

Overall Tucows was great, they helped so many people. Thank you guys!

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#197

Post by tenebrisalietum »

strictnein wrote: post #46
soheil wrote: post #37

tucows and download.com were the "app stores" of the web before the walled gardens of the big companies today. You could distribute your app to one of these sites and have it be automatically syndicated to thousands of other download sites. This is how distributed web worked. We're making the web more centralized and it's not just social media and youtube.

Yeah. Plus you'd have FTP sites that would mirror a variety of sources too. Now Chrome has removed FTP support completely.

This is the right thing to do. FTP should be handled by an FTP client, not an HTTP client.

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#198

Post by NicoJuicy »

ai_ja_nai wrote: post #20
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.

This hurts. You Remember getright aeons ago and I still remember JetCar ( the products name before that)

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#199

Post by rcostin2k2 »

mdtancsa wrote: post #111
MisterTea wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

my fingers still have muscle memory for "ftp ftp.uwasa.fi" which I think pre dated cdrom.com (for me anyways)

I would add ftp.funet.fi to the collection

Re: Retiring Tucows Downloads

#200

Post by Pick-A-Hill2019 »

renewiltord wrote: post #85
soheil wrote: post #37

tucows and download.com were the "app stores" of the web before the walled gardens of the big companies today. You could distribute your app to one of these sites and have it be automatically syndicated to thousands of other download sites. This is how distributed web worked. We're making the web more centralized and it's not just social media and youtube.

They were such shit though, with the fake download buttons and everything.

Tucows killed the goose that laid the golden egg with that change to shady downloaders and never fully recovered or were trusted again by a large majority of ex-users.

Still - at least Tucows left up their mia-culpa (entitled "Tucows Cuts the Crap") https://tucows.com/blog/2016/05/03/tucows-cuts-the-crap/

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