The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software goes offline for good
- Reference: 1611723729
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/01/27/tucows_downloads_closes/
- Source link:
Originally named “The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software” and launched in 1993, the site came along just as the web erupted into the public imagination and as shareware became a popular tactic for software distribution and marketing. Initially running from a single PC in a library, the site’s thousands of downloads were accessible without n00b-intimidating FTP tools.
[1]
As web publishing became easier and search engines made it easier to find software from its source, the site’s utility declined. But for a good few years Tucows was a reliable source of the myriad utilities needed to access and use the early web, or to help stabilise a Windows 95 PC.
Tucows itself recognised that the downloads business wasn’t going to be a long-term thing and in the late 1990s and early 2000s went through a series of acquisitions and strategic shifts, eventually emerging as a domain registrar second only to GoDaddy.
[2]
TUCOWs pawn in Internet.com domain theft [3]READ MORE
Through it all, the company kept the download service alive.
Until last week when the company [4]announced the retirement of the service.
“For the past several years, history, well sentimentality, has been the only reason to keep Tucows Downloads around,” wrote CEO Elliot Noss, who cited the hassle of running legacy tech as the main reason for the service’s demise.
“Tucows Downloads is old,” he said. “Old sites are a maintenance challenge and therefore a risk. Maintaining the Tucows Downloads site pulls people away from the work that moves our businesses forward.”
“Tucows Downloads has had an incredible run,” he concluded. “Retiring it is the right move but that doesn’t alter the fact that it will always hold a special place in hearts and our story. We’re thankful to the thousands of software developers who used Tucows Downloads to get their software in front of millions of people, driving billions of downloads over more than 25 years.”
[5]
Happily, much of the site’s content has made the move to [6]The Internet Archive . Noss’ post also explains that developers who relied on Tucows downloads have been thrown a lifeline by code signing supplier [7]Sectigo . ®
Get our [8]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YBFHx2dAqh2AOQUURh0xhQAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YBFHx2dAqh2AOQUURh0xhQAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2000/06/06/tucows_pawn_in_internet_com/
[4] https://tucows.com/retired/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YBFHx2dAqh2AOQUURh0xhQAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://archive.org/
[7] https://sectigo.com/
[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
A toast
Lets us all raise a beer in honour of Tucows.
So many memories!
Cheers.
I am the weird one for never remembering having using it?
Early on, from the early 1990s until I got Internet access in 1998 I got my shareware from PC mags CDs or copied it in floppies from friends.
Later, I even remember trying to set a site in Geocities, but for some reason I never ended using tucows and if I did it was once or twice.
Back before CD ROMs were a thing, in the late 1980s I remember writing off to ads in the back of PCW with a cheque to cover media and postage for 5 1/4” floppy disks of shareware.
The first disks I had contained EGA graphics demos and various character sets - some bit-mapped of dubious quality and the Hershey vector character set.
Wow..I hosted Tucows back in the early 90s at Phoenix.net....
Those days will never be forgotten Scott!
Nostalgia
Old souvenirs from a time when the Net was intended to share information and spread knowledge, wasn't yet a mix between a pr0n bazaar, a scam provider and a living display of the lowest instincts of the human race.
Idealism does not survive when exposed to reality.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
So long, and thanks for all the Milk... --TFTFY....
That was very Mooooving.
Walnut Creek CD-ROM
Another essential resource of the time
[1]https://archive.org/details/walnutcreekcdrom
In my case, it was the source for the Hobbes OS/2 collection
[1] https://archive.org/details/walnutcreekcdrom
Re: Walnut Creek CD-ROM
+1, and before Walnut Creek there was [1]simtel20.arpa , which I used over a 2400 baud PSN via a node at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment. In those high and far-off times, O Best Beloved, our pride and joy was a microcomputer running CP/M, with not one but two 5.25 in floppy disk drives!!1! This was necessary, because the OS itself was housed on the first, leaving the second for data transfer via TFN (Tossed Floppy Network). Many of the utilities grabbed from simtel20 improved our productivity enormously. I particularly recall one which was just called 'do'. It had sub-commands which achieved many of the things that sort, cut, join, and uniq do in GNU. Good times, looking back.
[1] https://www.cni.org/resources/historical-resources/farnet-stories-project/geographical-index/story149-nm
Re: Walnut Creek CD-ROM
The simtel FTP archive was hosted at White Sands, originally on simtel20.arpa and later wsmr-simtel20.army.mil ... there were what we now call mirrors, if you knew where to look.
Re: Walnut Creek CD-ROM
Also early FreeBSD, Slackware[0], the simtel collection, Project Gutenberg, X11R5 (and later R6), perl, the complete monstrosity known as ADA ... later, that new-fangled Apache & accessories for people fiddling about with the WorldWideWait thingie ... All available either on very inexpensive CDROM or a download via FTP to your shell account, then to your home computer over dial-up (quite spendy back when even local telephone calls cost money per minute ... was usually far cheaper to have the CD mailed to you, unless you lived near Walnut Creek. Or had a Fry's Electronics nearby, they carried most titles.).
[0] When Slackware 1.0 first came out, Volkerding was quite surprised to see his FTP server crash under the load. And then crash again. And again ... Walnutcreek CDROM volunteered server space and bandwidth on ftp.cdrom.com ... The rest, as they say, is history.
Farewell, tucows
The archive was usually a part of my answer to Windows users with problems, from its origin through the days of XP.
RIP, and thank you.