Tucows' shutters popular software download site

Tucows Downloads, one of the most popular websites on the internet to download software for over two decades, has finally downed its shutters, the company behind the service has announced via a notice on the website, according to reports.

The site was founded back in 1993 on a library computer in Michigan in the United States, via the old bulletin board system (BBS) system which was used to share copies of software. “What started as a place for people in the know to download software, became the place to download software on the burgeoning Internet,” Tucows’ CEO Elliot Noss said in a post on the site.

Noss went on to state that Tucows business since then had evolved and that it was the second-largest domain name registrar in the world (after GoDaddy) also selling domain name and email services and SaaS platforms for businesses. Tucows is also the company behind Ting, which is building fibre-optic networks across the United States.

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“It’s been a long time since Tucows has been TUCOWS, which stood for The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software,” he stated, adding that sentimentality was the only thing keeping the Tucows Downloads site alive for the past several years. While they did consider shutting down the site in 2016, it was decided that the site would go ad-free instead, remaining online as a public service.

Tucows Downloads saw billions of download through their site during the past 25 years, Noss stated, adding that old sites like Tucows were a maintenance challenge and also a risk, pulling their people away from work on the company’s other businesses. The sites downloads will all be moved to the internet archive for posterity.

Meanwhile, users who relied on Tucows can either head over to FileHippo or go to Ninite for manual or automated downloads respectively, while those who want to stay away from using software from third-party sources should probably stick to the Microsoft Store, if you can find alternatives to your favourite software there.