Goodbye Download Squad! Content no longer accessible
The Download Squad, up until its shut down in April 2011, was one of the go-to blogs for tech enthusiasts. It concentrated on software reviews and news but also other things that the majority of popular tech sites out there don't cover anymore or only occasionally.
Up until its shut down it was one of the few sites that I visited regularly for "real" tech news and it was almost certain that I discovered something new or interesting.
The site lived on for a while as part of Switched, another of AOL's properties but that turned out to be only a temporary solution as Switched too was shut down eventually.
The Download Squad content itself remained online however which meant that most links that pointed to Download Squad articles worked fine even though they were displayed on other properties.
If you try to load an old link right now you will notice that this is no longer the case. Many of the former links seem to have been redirected to the Engadget frontpage instead, which is owned by AOL as well.
It is interesting to note that this is not the destination for all links though. While deep links seem to link to Engadget, the main domain link links to The Huffington Post website instead (you guessed it, also owned by AOL).
This means that all articles that were published by the Download Squad are no longer available on the Internet.
You may still get some back on Archive.org or other archival sites but there is no guarantee that these sites have backed up all articles.
A quick check on the Wayback Machine of Archive.org revealed that many of the articles are still accessible on it. Webmasters who have referenced the Download Squad in the past may want to replace the old links with Archive.org links instead as they provide value to readers while the plain redirect to Engadget does not at all.
As a tech enthusiast, it is sad to realize that all the great content that was published on the site by its many authors is gone for good. While some is certainly out of date, others are still great and useful.
Now You: What is your take on this?
That is definitely a bummer, I would still come across Download Squad links from time to time and be happy that at least the content was still online. Like you it was a site I checked frequently and almost always found something new or useful. You’ll be happy to know that’s how I feel about gHacks today!
Thanks Shawn ;)
they really screwed those bloggers too, that was the best site
I used to love going to that site too, but stopped going when the posts stopped. Shame it was dropped, far better articles than TechCrunch imo.
Yeah a shame ,But as long as we have ghacks ,,Im good
Agreed. Martin provides a great service for us all, even when we keep our appreciation, and comments, to ourselves.
Here the best way to get the pages.
http://web.archive.org/web/form-submit.jsp?type=prefixquery&url=http://www.downloadsquad.com/
This way you get a full list of all 86k available pages.
Shawn
Another of my regularly visited sites gone. As the years go by, I spend less and less time at my a.m. ritual of checking out tech sites for new software reviews and articles.
What a bummer. Was my favorite tech news site… I wonder what all the authors are doing now. Rest in peace DownloadSquad, you were one of the best tech-news-sites worldwide with far better quality than all the others. (IMO DownloadSquad was for software/tech what Androidpolice is for Android now).
DownloadSquad…… was one of my top 5 go to sites. Would check it out every single day. Wondering what are my most recent now TOP 6 software/tech sites??? MajorGeeks.com … Dottech.org … Filehippo.com … HowtoGeek.com … TheWindowsClub.com … and of course, Ghacks.net. Does anyone know where the writers of DownloadSquad are doing their stuff??? That would be good to know……..
Extremetech.com is one destination, but what they cover is different.
Thanks Martin… will check it out. By the way, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and thanks for all your tips and advice through this past year…..
George Melendez
Puerto Rico
I want to pay my respects to the legacy of this amazing website, I wish I could have done so sooner had I not been busier than usual over the last few weeks, better late than never right(?)
Back when the announcement of the site’s disbandment was made, I recall a few readers mentioning how they wanted to clone the entire site so that it’s articles could be made accessible to all well after the site was gone, lol, which just goes to show just how much everybody appreciated the sort of topics covered on the site.
I am very grateful to the former editors of Download Squad for keeping it’s readers informed of all the leading edge programs and breaking down all the technical gibberish and presenting it in a consumable way for your average tech enthusiasts, a great deal of programs that are indispensable to me today were programs that I first gain knowledge about from reading the articles on Download Squad, that is why I am so grateful to them for all their work, it was due to their diligence that they put into that site that ultimately helped expand my sphere of knowledge in respect to computing (the same goes for Ghacks, the contemporary watering hole).
Even though the site itself and all the work put into it has faded away into the ether of the internet, the legacy of the knowledge that was provided to it’s readers is something that is still very much alive in us up until this very day.