The Deathwatch or Watchlist is a central indicator of websites and networks that are shutting down and serves as an indicator of what happened to particular sites that shut down quickly.

New sites should be added in chronological order, newest death date first. Forward-looking death dates should be added to the first list only. Sites large enough to warrant additional information will receive a dedicated page, linked from here and on Category:Closing projects.

(The content of the Getting Things Done table, merged with the In Progress table, can now be found on Small projects.)

Pre-emptive Alarmbells (Likely To Die)

Sunset Happy

Oath/Verizon Archive Team officially proclaims Yahoo! the least trustable host and its arch-enemy. Prove us different, Yahooligans. Or... don't. Expect anything in wikipedia:List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Yahoo! and wikipedia:List_of_Yahoo!-owned_sites_and_services to shutdown (if it hasn't already). Please follow the feeds! • • • & • • • AOL has decided to follow in Yahoo's footsteps by mass-closing websites at an alarmingly fast rate. Be careful not to leave any important data with them!

Nokia has recently been shutting down services at an alarmingly fast rate. Back up your data, Nokia users!

World2ch.org - "not dead yet!"

Reddit "quarantines" many controversial subreddits with up to hundreds of thousands subscribers each. Many of such quarantined subreddits have been deleted, so it is important to make backups of them. Here is a list of quarantined reddits.

Wikidot has not had development work for years, there is no official presence on their support forum, just many complaints about the difficulty contacted staff, even from those with paid accounts. Backup and wiki conversion tools are poor, services like search and anti-spam bots have problems for some time, and the site has been up for sale since February 2020.

Just When You Least Expect It

Archive Team keeps a list of "healthy sites" that could be fine today and not so hot tomorrow. We focus on ways to back your personal data off these sites so you don't put yourself at unnecessary risk.

Other endangered species and misc ideas

User-created content in video games are always in danger of a being lost forever. This includes: Over 100,000 levels made in games like the Little Big Planet series or Super Mario Maker series. Custom golf courses made in The Golf Club series. Various banners, spray paints, weapon skins, and insignias from competitive online shooters. Maps in multiple Halo games have been modified and shared with the Forge game mode. Specialized tracks built in car racing games. Almost everything made in the PlayStation 4 game Dreams.

Louis Rossmann's Youtube channel. He released a video on June 30th with strong hints his channel and business were being shutdown because of reasons he was not able to state. He runs/ran a business repairing Apple Macbook motherboards and making videos on how to do these repairs, business advice and related philosophy. These repairs are considered "unauthorized" by Apple and could the driving force behind the shutdown. There are approximately 700 educational videos on his channel that should be archived, please see the YouTube page on how to archive YouTube videos. His business websites could also be at risk https://www.rossmanngroup.com/ & https://mailin.repair/ & https://www.rossmanngroup.com/boards/

BitTorrent DHT - indexed by various projects who tend to get shut down sooner or later: BTDB - has had domain seized in the past, uses gmail for DMCA notices, no other contact info BTDigg - has had multiple domains seized in the past and died before. Twitter and Facebook is inactive. Contact page doesn't work, but allegedly uses email form Torrent Project - maybe dead, see Deathwatch#2017 for more information iTorrents.org - torrent cache, run by the operator of limetorrents.cc (see whois for contact information)

8chan disappeared from the clearnet in early August 2019.

SteamGridDB is unable to pay for its servers, and will shut down on 31st March 2020 unless there is some sort of miraculous Patreon/sponsor intervention.

We have even more small tidbits of information at Deathwatch/Misc.

Pining for the Fjords (Dying)

Websites (notable or ones with user-generated content) that are definitively shutting down. No speculation please! Sites that appear troubled should go on Fire Drill.

2021

December 31: iTunes U [1]

October 15: The Tor Project will release a new version of the client that drops support for version 2 of Onion Services, effectively rendering them inaccessible once the network upgrades. [2]

January 1: Twitch Sings is shut down completely and remaining recordings are removed.[3][4]

2020

2019

Unknown: Linux Journal (unmaintained since August 7)

Unknown: • • • , a discussion forum about celebrity pictures with about 482k threads and 3.56M posts as of 2019-11-12, is "closing down this month" as of late October, but no date has been communicated, and the owners are open to buying offers. [40] [41]

, a discussion forum about celebrity pictures with about 482k threads and 3.56M posts as of 2019-11-12, is "closing down this month" as of late October, but no date has been communicated, and the owners are open to buying offers. Unknown December 11 : Twitter will purge inactive accounts. [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47]

: Twitter will purge inactive accounts. December 31: BlackBerry World will shut down.

December 12 : • • • , a collaborative story writing platform, will shut down. [48] will remain online and is supposedly safe for five years per an announcement in the forums on the site dated 23 Nov. [49]

: , a collaborative story writing platform, will remain online and is supposedly safe for five years per an announcement in the forums on the site dated 23 Nov. December 9 : SoundCloud will not [50] introduce new limits for the free accounts, which would likely have lead to deletions due to no longer being able to upload new songs without paying. [51] [52]

: SoundCloud will introduce new limits for the free accounts, which would likely have lead to deletions due to no longer being able to upload new songs without paying. November : G/O Media is considering deleting all Kinja user pages. [53]

: G/O Media is considering deleting all Kinja user pages. October 30 onwards: • • • (G/O Media) loses its entire editorial staff to resignations after the editor-in-chief was fired. The future of Deadspin is unclear.

(G/O Media) loses its entire editorial staff to resignations after the editor-in-chief was fired. The future of Deadspin is unclear. October 10: • • • (G/O Media) ceases publication. The future of the website is unclear. [54]

(G/O Media) ceases publication. The future of the website is unclear. September 20: Mozilla software community site mozillaZine's admin kerz announces that the site will be frozen; it is currently [2020-07-02] unclear when this will happen and for how long the site will remain online after. [55] [56]

unclear when this will happen and for how long the site will remain online after. September 6: ThinkProgress ceased publication but will apparently remain online for the time being.

June 16 : • • • was going to be frozen [57] but was then sold instead [58] . Its future is currently (August 2019) unclear.

: was going to be frozen but was then sold instead . Its future is currently (August 2019) unclear. June 1 : • • • 's • • • with over 2.2 million posts [59] . As of 2020-07-02, they are still online but appear to be read-only.

: 's with over 2.2 million posts . As of 2020-07-02, they are still online but appear to be read-only. March 30: goo.gl, Google froze their URL shortening service but existing shortlinks will continue to resolve.[60][61][62]

2018

2017

October 26: Xoom: websites frozen, only serving static files since. Probably preparing for closure. Still online as of 2020-07-02.

Date unknown: • • • published an announcement December 7, 2017 that the site would be decommissioned. On March 13, 2018, the site was converted into read-only mode; it remains online as of 2020-07-02.

2016

Date unknown: Pirate Bay image hosting site "Bayimg" returns after it shutdown in the raid. However, staff announced that the site would only be up for a week. [65] As of 2020-07-02, the site is still online.

As of 2020-07-02, the site is still online. January 1: AutoHotKey's older, IPBoards based forum has been made read-only, in favor of their new forums. Users were migrated but forum posts were not. [66][67]

Dead as a Doornail

2020

September 1 July 24 : Many sections of • • • related to sexuality were deleted after almost 20 years and tens of millions of posts due to a decision by the new owner. [68] [69]

: Many sections of related to sexuality were deleted after almost 20 years and tens of millions of posts due to a decision by the new owner. August 31: Discogs's smaller siblings • • • [70] [71] , • • • [72] [73] , • • • [74] [75] , and • • • [76] [77] all shut down.

, , , and all shut down. August 31: • • • shut down at 11:59pm PDT. [78] [79]

shut down at 11:59pm PDT. August 31 August 27 : • • • was originally set to shut down on August 27th [80] , but a comment on the site by the CEO claims that the shutdown has been delayed: "Due to ongoing interest and conversation with third parties about keeping the site live, the close down has been postponed. We will try to provide 24 hour notice in advance of a future shut down date." [81] The site shut down on the 31st without further notice.

: was originally set to shut down on August 27th , but a comment on the site by the CEO claims that the shutdown has been delayed: "Due to ongoing interest and conversation with third parties about keeping the site live, the close down has been postponed. We will try to provide 24 hour notice in advance of a future shut down date." The site shut down on the 31st without further notice. August 26 [82] "End of July" : OpenStreetMap's • • • was retired and put into read-only mode. [83]

: OpenStreetMap's was retired and put into read-only mode. August 16: • • • and • • • [84]

and August 14: Clutch [85]

August July 1 June 1 : Bitbucket deleted all Mercurial repositories. [86]

: Bitbucket deleted all Mercurial repositories. July 31: Discogs's sibling site for comics, • • • , shut down. [87] [88]

, shut down. July 22: Kongregate removed non-gaming forums, made most other forums read-only, and removed nearly all chat rooms. [89]

July 22: Mixer [90]

July 20: Soup.io [91] [92] [93]

July 13 July 1 + "a few days more" [94] June 6 : • • • shut down [95] , but the forums live on under the same domain [96] [97] without the old discussions [98] .

: shut down , but the forums live on under the same domain without the old discussions . July 10: Facebook shut down Hobbi [99] and Lasso [100] , its failed TikTok and Pinterest clones.

and Lasso , its failed TikTok and Pinterest clones. July 5: • • • , a blogging platform from Israel, became read-only and will shut down sometime later this year.

, a blogging platform from Israel, became read-only and will shut down sometime later this year. July 1: • • •

July 1: • • •

June 30: ARM announced in January that the documentation platforms developer.arm.com/docs and infocenter.arm.com were to be retired "later this year" after migration to a new platform. [101] On May 29, they launched the new • • • and announced that the "full release [...] is scheduled for 30 June", at which point the old platforms would be replaced by redirects. [102] It went down on 30 June. [103]

On May 29, they launched the new and announced that the "full release [...] is scheduled for 30 June", at which point the old platforms would be replaced by redirects. It went down on 30 June. June 30: • • • closed down on June 30, 2020 (shutdown also includes *.virtuaalitalli.fi, *.w2.fi, *.heppa.fi domains; these were aliases to the corresponding suntuubi.com subdomain)

closed down on June 30, 2020 (shutdown also includes *.virtuaalitalli.fi, *.w2.fi, *.heppa.fi domains; these were aliases to the corresponding suntuubi.com subdomain) June 15 [104] June 1 : • • • 's • • • were made read-only. [10] The • • • became inaccessible around the same time.

: 's were made read-only. The became inaccessible around the same time. June "by end of March" : • • • was started back in January 2001 with the aim of providing a forum for discussing various aspects of Microsoft's Active Directory technology. 11.5k members, 49k posts, 9.5k in forum. Announced to disappear "by the end of March" [105] , it stayed online until June.

: was started back in January 2001 with the aim of providing a forum for discussing various aspects of Microsoft's Active Directory technology. 11.5k members, 49k posts, 9.5k in forum. Announced to disappear "by the end of March" , it stayed online until June. June March 31 : • • • . The website started redirecting to • • • sometime between May 25 and June 6. The bulk download directory at • • • and the database API under freedb.freedb.org became inaccessible sometime between June 6 and June 19 as the domains stopped resolving. A final data dump was created on June 12 (manually; the normal dumps were on the first of each month), and the download directory was still online under • • • as of June 19.

: . The website started redirecting to sometime between May 25 and June 6. The bulk download directory at and the database API under freedb.freedb.org became inaccessible sometime between June 6 and June 19 as the domains stopped resolving. A final data dump was created on June 12 (manually; the normal dumps were on the first of each month), and the download directory was still online under as of June 19. June 1: • • • shut down. [106]

shut down. June 1: • • • removed a lot of content due to the introduction of new rules. [107]

removed a lot of content due to the introduction of new rules. May 30-31: • • • [108]

May 28: • • • , a Japanese blog platform [109] [110]

, a Japanese blog platform May 27: • • • shut down. [111]

shut down. May 22: • • • [112]

May 19: • • • Oncoming shut down announced on this date, fully shut down sometime after. [113]

Oncoming shut down announced on this date, fully shut down sometime after. May 6: • • • was slowly being destroyed by Microsoft piece by piece since the shutdown announcement in 2017 [114] [115] was demolished. [116]

was demolished. April 19 June 30 : The • • • , read-only from April 3, was going to be shut down on 30 June. [117] However, it was put into maintenance mode [118] prematurely on 19 April around 20:15 UTC, apparently due to an unintended data leak caused by the read-only mode [119] , and never returned after that.

: The , read-only from April 3, was going to be shut down on 30 June. However, it was put into maintenance mode prematurely on 19 April around 20:15 UTC, apparently due to an unintended data leak caused by the read-only mode , and never returned after that. April 5 [120] [121] "early 2020" : • • •

: April [122] January 2 December 31 : IBM's • • • [123]

: IBM's April 1 [124] : BBC Mixital

: BBC Mixital March [125] : • • • closed its forums in early January 2020 [126] [127] , but made most of its other content freely available, first directly on the site and from 13/14 January in a torrent. Site was founded by 3D artist Jason Busby who passed away from cancer in September 2017.

: closed its forums in early January 2020 , but made most of its other content freely available, first directly on the site and from 13/14 January in a torrent. Site was founded by 3D artist Jason Busby who passed away from cancer in September 2017. March 20: Guitar company Fender closed • • • with 1.2 million posts [128]

with 1.2 million posts March 16: League of Legends forums

March 9 February 17 : • • • (superseded by • • • and read-only since early 2017) went offline.

: (superseded by and read-only since early 2017) went offline. February 27: • • • (in all regions) are shutting down.

(in all regions) are shutting down. February 3: eBookFarm ( • • • and • • • ) [129]

and ) February 1: • • • was an online community for the Gothic–industrial subcultures. Created by site owner Jet Berelson in 1999.

was an online community for the Gothic–industrial subcultures. Created by site owner Jet Berelson in 1999. January 31: • • • realised that "the most generous offer in the industry" of free cloud storage isn't sustainable and shut down.

realised that "the most generous offer in the industry" of free cloud storage isn't sustainable and shut down. January 31: • • • , an ancient web hoster (including a free service) from Spain, deleted a significant but unknown number of hosted sites

, an ancient web hoster (including a free service) from Spain, deleted a significant but unknown number of hosted sites January 31: • • • , Canon's free cloud photo storage [130]

, Canon's free cloud photo storage January 31: SingStar

January 31: • • • (GMO Media) [131]

(GMO Media) January [132] March 31 : • • • , a British tech tabloid started in 2001 by Mike Magee, stopped publishing Dec 19, 2019. [133]

: , a British tech tabloid started in 2001 by Mike Magee, stopped publishing Dec 19, 2019. January 10: Microsoft's 3D object publishing platform Remix 3D [134] [135] [136]

January 8: • • • [137]

January 2: The United States Patent Office purged some of their • • •, including patent grant OCR'd text and trademark image data going back to 1790. [138]

2019

2018

2017

Date unknown: http://gamingpolo.com/ closed down after having many non-working pages and download for around a year.

Date unknown: Elfwood has been home to tons of fantasy and sci-fi art and fiction since the late 90's, though since June 2016, plans for a "new Elfwood" have been put on hold. According to Wayback Machine, was last seen functioning normally in March 2017.

December 15: Vidme [182] - video sharing platform.

- video sharing platform. December 15: CompuServe Forums [183]

November 30: Twitter translation center forums closed; only forum accounts created prior to November 1 will work.

November 8: Miiverse, Nintendo's social network which had a client in the 3DS and WiiU consoles and was also for the most part accessible over a PC web browser, was shut down. While incomplete, a good chunk of the content was unofficially backed up onto a new site.

September 4: • • • , a large database of 103 million torrents with collected metadata such as mediainfo, started displaying a 403 error. It remained online on the .onion domain at first. As of July 2020, the hidden service is also unresponsive, and the site is not known to have returned to clearnet since 2017.

, a large database of 103 million torrents with collected metadata such as mediainfo, started displaying a 403 error. It remained online on the .onion domain at first. As of July 2020, the hidden service is also unresponsive, and the site is not known to have returned to clearnet since 2017. July: OpenBitTorrent disappeared.

June 30: Eroshare, a pornographic sharing service, shut down. All those Reddit links, useless...

June 23: • • • , a discussion community website, shut down.

, a discussion community website, shut down. March 17: LoadAverage, a GNU social instance (Twitter clone) shut down [184]

March 10: Version 2 of • • • , a forum for mocking online personalities, was shut down by FreeForums.org for violating their terms of service. The userbase migrated to ProBoards ( • • • ), and then to a self-hosted domain two weeks later ( • • • ), but countless posts from version 2 have been lost.

, a forum for mocking online personalities, was shut down by FreeForums.org for violating their terms of service. The userbase migrated to ProBoards ( ), and then to a self-hosted domain two weeks later ( ), but countless posts from version 2 have been lost. March 3: Disney Infinity shut down all community services [185]

January 31: J:COM NET closed down webhosting service WebSpace [186]

2016

Date unknown: http://www.mytvshows.org/

Date unknown: According to akz, self-identified in #archivebot as a moderator of the site, Captain Luffy Forums would be closing when the hosting expired, as the owner had chosen not to renew it. It finally did so sometime after August 10th.

Date unknown: Lots of older nin.com sub-domains (e.g. remix.nin.com, forum.nin.com) died. DNS had already been repointed but the old hosts were still online as of 2016-12-20 [187] ; everything is dead as of 2020-07-02.

; everything is dead as of 2020-07-02. December 31: ex.ua was like what.cd, except the data was hosted on the site.

December 27: kepfeltoltes.hu, one of the most popular Hungarian image sharing services, ceased operations.

December: • • • started having technical problems [188] . They shut down their mirror site on June 1, 2017 [189] [190] .

started having technical problems . They shut down their mirror site on June 1, 2017 . November 17: • • • suddenly shut down. One of, if not, the largest BitTorrent music trackers on the internet. "Due to some recent events, What.CD is shutting down. We are not likely to return any time soon in our current form. All site and user data has been destroyed. So long, and thanks for all the fish." [191]

suddenly shut down. One of, if not, the largest BitTorrent music trackers on the internet. "Due to some recent events, What.CD is shutting down. We are not likely to return any time soon in our current form. All site and user data has been destroyed. So long, and thanks for all the fish." November 10: Nifty ended web-hosting service. A number has migrated to LaCoocan. [192]

October/November: Desura and • • • , after the bankruptcy of Bad Juju Games in June 2015 and an acquisition by OnePlay. [193]

, after the bankruptcy of Bad Juju Games in June 2015 and an acquisition by OnePlay. October 31: Vessel shut down after it was acquired by Verizon. [194]

October 31: Twitterfeed shut its doors on October 31st, 2016. They recommend Buffer (https://buffer.com) or Dlvr.it.

October 25: Bioware shut down their forums. They were made read-only on August 26 and taken down entirely on October 25. [195]

October 23: Allmyvideos.net removed all videos and shut down their website for good. They claimed that this was because their site is no longer profitable enough to run and maintain the website.

September: Questhub.io was a public social todolist/quests service. The author announced that it will be closed soon. [196] He is willing to dump the database. The code in open on • • • .

He is willing to dump the database. The code in open on . September 30: • • • shut down. [197]

shut down. August 31: Sunrise Calendar shut down to make way for Outlook. Blame Microsoft. [198]

August 5: Yahoo! discontinued supportfor all legacy versions of Yahoo! Messenger and shut down the servers for good. [199]

July 31: • • • , shareware and other software payment processor that started in 1994, shut down with no notice, claiming: "For the past ten years Kagi has been struggling to recover from financial losses due to a supplier fraud situation. We have reduced the debt but the recovery has failed and forced us to close."

, shareware and other software payment processor that started in 1994, shut down with no notice, claiming: "For the past ten years Kagi has been struggling to recover from financial losses due to a supplier fraud situation. We have reduced the debt but the recovery has failed and forced us to close." June 27: • • • ceased publication. "All of our archives will remain online for at least one more year." The domain expired sometime between December 2017 and February 2018.

ceased publication. "All of our archives will remain online for at least one more year." The domain expired sometime between December 2017 and February 2018. July 27: Portalgraphics.net has closed the portal to the "PGN Community", home to over 90000 unique user-submitted images [200]

July 20: Kickasstorrents has been seized and the tor domain is offline as well. Fortunately, Proxies exist that have some of the data cached, but it's only a matter of time before the cache gets deleted or the proxies stop working. [201]

July 19: Webmonkey now redirects to wired.com after having been abandoned for three years.

June 11: Antimisandry.com, which hosted a large men's rights forum, has been shut down. [202]

June 1: Arto, the first Danish social site, shut down (800.000 users about 2-3 TB data estimated).

June 1: Blog.dk, Danish blog site (subproject of Arto)

May 18: GameTrailers, after officially suddenly closing on February 9, went down and started redirecting to their YouTube channel instead.

May 13: Beatport shut down "the Streaming service and mobile app, Beatport News, the Video livestreaming platform, and the Events section". [203]

May 1: Copy.com (3-months notice) and CudaDrive are shut down. [204] [205]

May 1: Google's Picasa Web Albums were shut down. [206]

March 31: Japanese hosting service "Free Ticket Theater" shut down. [207]

March 21: • • • , a niche porn site that has been running since 2009/09/01, officially closed its doors. [208] It remained online for over two more years and ultimately disappeared around September 2018.

, a niche porn site that has been running since 2009/09/01, officially closed its doors. It remained online for over two more years and ultimately disappeared around September 2018. March 15: Barnes & Noble's Nook App Store, Nook Video, and the UK Nook Store were shut down. [209]

March 15: Google's Picasa was discontinued. [210]

February 1: notepad.cc by Jacob Bijani (Tumblr creative director until 2013) (urlteam results) More than 900 URLs.

January 31: resume.io "Crazy-simple online resumes." by Jacob Bijani (Tumblr creative director till 2013)

January 25: Google Code shut down. [211]

January 21: Google Maps Coordinate shut down.

January 15: Oyster (book service) closed its shell.[212][213] The public-facing side was saved with ArchiveBot on 2015-10-04.

2015

2014

2013

December 26: Wretch and Yahoo! Blog is closed by Yahoo!.

December 21: • • • is no more. The company that bought the website in 2004, Global Gaming League, decided to "move on" after basically running the website into the ground.

is no more. The company that bought the website in 2004, Global Gaming League, decided to "move on" after basically running the website into the ground. December 20: WinAmp, home of the Winamp media player, shuts down.

December 18: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning closes.

December 15: Everpix, a photo-sharing service, shuts down. • • • was saved, the rest lost. [265] [266]

was saved, the rest lost. December 12: Hyves closes its social network, but it's now got games!

November 18 (and back through 2012): Disney nuked a bunch of online games: Pixie Hollow Online, Cars Online, Pirates of the Caribbean Online, Toontown Online. The futures of the large fan forums and an extremely completist wiki are doubtful. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • The Pixie Hollow fan forum specifically announced that they will not be archived, and the Cars Online forum seems to have a similar warning, while the other forums for the shut down games will apparently be migrated into this: • • •

The Pixie Hollow fan forum specifically announced that they will not be archived, and the Cars Online forum seems to have a similar warning, while the other forums for the shut down games will apparently be migrated into this: November 11: Bre.ad is dead.

November 7: Dopplr drops out from the web.

November 1: Zapd deletes its user data from the website.

November 1: iGoogle shuts down.

November: BerliOS is barely alive.

November: Bitmit, a Bitcoin marketplace, shut down.

November: Going to call this one before it even starts, friends: • • • promises lifetime control of your data and return of your data to loved ones for just $300 for "lifetime", or $30/year. Archive Team says to just say No . [267]

promises lifetime control of your data and return of your data to loved ones for just $300 for "lifetime", or $30/year. Archive Team says to just say . October 31: Nintendo shut down • • • . It's • • • should be archived in case it goes down.

. It's should be archived in case it goes down. October 21: isoHunt was always going to shut down after an MPAA settlement. However, it did so earlier than expected to prevent archival efforts, claiming that 95% of torrents were available elsewhere. No mention of the metadata though.

October 11: RomBay shut down, now redirects to • • • [268]

September 30: OMGPOP shut down, and now redirects to Zynga's main site. There was a • • • to stop it from closing, which did not gain much traction.

to stop it from closing, which did not gain much traction. September 30: MSN TV, aka WebTV, no longer accessible.

September 1st: Thebox.bz, a TV torrents tracker/site, shuts down. [269]

September: Freeblog.hu closes without notifying their users. Unknown number of blogs lost.

August-September: • • • , a file hosting website, suddenly shuts down, giving their users little to no warning.

, a file hosting website, suddenly shuts down, giving their users little to no warning. August 31: Jux announced that they would be shutting down on August 31, 2013. On July 17, 2013, Jux announced that they would not shut down, apparently due to financial support from one of their members.

On July 17, 2013, Jux announced that they would not shut down, apparently due to financial support from one of their members. August 31: Rockmelt shuts down after being acquired by Yahoo!.

August 21: Amplicate vanishes, leaves behind 502 Bad Gateway errors.

August 20: Catch closes its doors.

August 19: • • • shuts down, thankfully leaves everything up.

shuts down, thankfully leaves everything up. August 9: Google Latitude shut down.

August 5: Astrid is shut down after being acquired by Yahoo!.

August: Chanarchive.org, a site dedicated to saving select quality threads from 4chan, disappears one last time after a hardware failure, never to return.

July 31: All third party downloads disappear from Yahoo! Downloads.

July 25: Yahoo! Stars India is shut down.

July 24: Snapjoy, acquired by Dropbox in December 2012, is shut down.

July 19: Google shuts down Alfred.

July 9: Yahoo! Neighbors shuts down a day after it was supposed to.

July 8: AltaVista, one of the oldest search engines, shuts down.

July 1: FoxyTunes and Yahoo! RSS Alerts disappear from the web.

June 30: Yahoo! demolishes Yahoo! WebPlayer.

June 28: Yahoo! shuts down Axis, Browser Plus and Citizen Sports.

June 28: Nintendo shuts down all of its WiiConnect24 services, except for the Mii Channel, Wii Shop Channel, Mario Kart Wii Channel, and the Wii Speak Channel.

June 4: Adrenaline Vault , a video game review site, has this posted on their Facebook profile: "Over the past weekend hackers hit the site with a DoS attack. Everything had been wiped and with no backups, everything was lost. It has been decided that Avault will remain closed. Rest in Peace, Avault."

, a video game review site, has this posted on their Facebook profile: "Over the past weekend hackers hit the site with a DoS attack. Everything had been wiped and with no backups, everything was lost. It has been decided that Avault will remain closed. Rest in Peace, Avault." June: • • • , an anonymous file upload site, has announced that they are about $2500 in the hole on hosting costs, and that there is possibility of their shutting down if donations do not improve. It stands to reason that there are some files among their database that are worth saving. An attempt to contact the administrator for more information and to be given a dump of the site was made, and he responded saying he'd be happy to rsync a copy of the data after some legal issues have been settled.

, an anonymous file upload site, has announced that they are about $2500 in the hole on hosting costs, and that there is possibility of their shutting down if donations do not improve. It stands to reason that there are some files among their database that are worth saving. An attempt to contact the administrator for more information and to be given a dump of the site was made, and he responded saying he'd be happy to rsync a copy of the data after some legal issues have been settled. April 30: Posterous , a blogging and life streaming platform, shut down its "Posterous Spaces" to focus on Twitter.

, a blogging and life streaming platform, shut down its "Posterous Spaces" to focus on Twitter. April 30: Circalit decides in March that • • • its prose-writing users.

decides in March that its prose-writing users. April 30: schülerVZ once the most used social network for pupils in Germany, closed its doors.

once the most used social network for pupils in Germany, closed its doors. April 20: Microsoft Collection Book , a site dedicated to collecting information about Windows betas, shuts down due to a C&D from Microsoft. It reopened on May 5 as The Collection Book .

, a site dedicated to collecting information about Windows betas, shuts down due to a C&D from Microsoft. It reopened on May 5 as . March 31: Zug.com , a comedy website running since 1995 closed down, and replaced all its pages with a goodbye image.

, a comedy website running since 1995 closed down, and replaced all its pages with a goodbye image. March 29: • • • Play 4 Free Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes (WOH) shut down

Play 4 Free Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes (WOH) shut down March 25: Epinions locked out its users.

March 24: • • • and all sites under opensolaris.org , including the site hosting the OpenSolaris source code, were decommissioned by Oracle. OpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris and originally created by Sun Microsystems. After the acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2010, Oracle decided to discontinue open development of the core software, and replaced the OpenSolaris distribution model with the proprietary Solaris Express.

and , including the site hosting the OpenSolaris source code, were decommissioned by Oracle. OpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris and originally created by Sun Microsystems. After the acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2010, Oracle decided to discontinue open development of the core software, and replaced the OpenSolaris distribution model with the proprietary Solaris Express. February 28: • • • , a major video chat service, shut down. Users were emailed and given the ability to download any recorded videos for 3 weeks in advance of the closing date.

, a major video chat service, shut down. Users were emailed and given the ability to download any recorded videos for 3 weeks in advance of the closing date. February 21st: • • • , • • • , and • • • all run out of lives.

, , and all run out of lives. February: Regretsy shuts down.

January 31: Do.com shuts down.

January: • • •, an URL shortener, has all of its domains on sale on Sedo. No official word just yet, though.

2012

December: • • • , a social network for teens, has announced that it's shutting down.

, a social network for teens, has announced that it's shutting down. October 29: • • • , a Polish video game news portal, was closed in May, and later wiped entirely on October 29. The articles have been retained at the publisher's other video game portal, Polygamia.pl, but the article comments and the forums are gone (It also had user blogs, but they seemed to have been erased much earlier.)

, a Polish video game news portal, was closed in May, and later wiped entirely on October 29. The articles have been retained at the publisher's other video game portal, Polygamia.pl, but the article comments and the forums are gone (It also had user blogs, but they seemed to have been erased much earlier.) September 26: • • • , a central distributor of FOSS commit messages to IRC channels, got its database deleted by its web host. There were no backups. It had been running for a decade (although it had changed maintainership a year before).

, a central distributor of FOSS commit messages to IRC channels, got its database deleted by its web host. There were no backups. It had been running for a decade (although it had changed maintainership a year before). August 17: Ponibooru (not to be confused with PoniBooru -- http://pbooru.com -- which began in 2012-07-17[1]), a famous My Little Pony-related imageboard, • • • by August 17. All of the images themselves (but not the comments) were available to download via torrents, though it is unknown if the torrents are still available. A possibly full torrent dump is available at minuette.net, which hosts the image files on the website. Currently the most popular/upvoted images are available via another imageboard, Derpibooru, but their copy is incomplete.

(not to be confused with PoniBooru -- http://pbooru.com -- which began in 2012-07-17[1]), a famous My Little Pony-related imageboard, by August 17. All of the images themselves (but not the comments) were available to download via torrents, though it is unknown if the torrents are still available. A possibly full torrent dump is available at minuette.net, which hosts the image files on the website. Currently the most popular/upvoted images are available via another imageboard, Derpibooru, but their copy is incomplete. August: Parodius Networking, which hosts numerous web sites related to classic video game platforms, died

July 30: • • • , a data publishing platform created by • • • was • • • to be closing on July 30, 2012. While the service has only been around for ~2 years it represents a unique look at services for Linked Data, and contains a variety of datasets. Kasabi has a • • • that announces the availability of datasets contained in Kasabi to ease archiving.

, a data publishing platform created by was to be closing on July 30, 2012. While the service has only been around for ~2 years it represents a unique look at services for Linked Data, and contains a variety of datasets. Kasabi has a that announces the availability of datasets contained in Kasabi to ease archiving. July 26: noob.hu doesn't accept more images. Uploaded pictures still there long after, though.

July 1: The Polish social network wikipedia:Grono.net has disappeared, replaced by a file hosting service grono.net.pl on July 1, 2012. Most content from the old site was supposed to be migrated, but, according to a message on the main page, technical difficulties have delayed the migration by one or two weeks. It's getting increasingly late...

has disappeared, replaced by a file hosting service on July 1, 2012. Most content from the old site was supposed to be migrated, but, according to a message on the main page, technical difficulties have delayed the migration by one or two weeks. It's getting increasingly late... June 30: Apple MobileMe , iDisk , iWeb , and included services. This major website and these services will shut down in • • • , simply because web hosting is boring and they want to focus on the exciting "iCloud". [270] [271]

, , , and included services. This major website and these services will shut down in , simply because web hosting is boring and they want to focus on the exciting "iCloud". April 30: Google Wave shut down on April 30th.

April: • • • shut down in April 2012. The site hosted IRC conversations, and involved a lot of JavaScript.

shut down in April 2012. The site hosted IRC conversations, and involved a lot of JavaScript. February: Hungarian free hosting provider • • • stops free service as of February 2012; unknown number of pages disappeared and probably deleted.

stops free service as of February 2012; unknown number of pages disappeared and probably deleted. January 19: The popular file hosting service Megaupload has been shut down in January 2012; with it, Megavideo too is gone. It was mainly used for copyright infringement, but lots of perfectly regular files were hosted on it.

Because we know better

Fileplanet [272]. Already fully archived.

2011

End of 2011: • • • became a ghost of itself [273].

Late October/November: • • • by Glenn Fleishman. a site dedicated to indicating sites that have died, itself died. (Keep the • • • around in case that changes, though).

September/October: The closure of Google Buzz was announced in October. Luckily Google released a tool to download your content from it called Google Takeout: • • • Besides Buzz, Google shut down many of its other minor services, such as Aardvark, Sidewiki, and others: • • •

August/September: Google Labs closed. [274] and many great/experimental one of a kind tools vanished. Among many others "google sets" that had been around since a long time, "City Tours" some includeing user generated content and the exciting "google squared" [275] that was an approach to pass more artificial intelligence to the user than conventional searchengines (compareable to wolframalpha) but seemingly based on a bigger/vast pool of data just like standard google searchresults). Since there is hardly any obvious rationale(?) for closeing down "Google Labs" it pictures google as being either less supportive or even hostile to new inoventions and less responsible with usergenerated content or more secretive about their ongoing projects than one might thought before or than Google might was before indeed. 1 Jan 2011 Whatsgoingonwithgoogle 18:06, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

June 3: Forums.starwars.com: • • • • • • the closure of their • • • on June 3, 2011. (Forum will lock on 29 April 2011) • • •

June 1: Prodigy Pages shut down on June 1,2011.

May 31: • • • closed on May 3, 2011 and deleted everything on May 31, 2011. Users who heard about the closure were given the options of either transferring their photos and videos over to dotPhoto.com or purchasing a DVD with their content for $15.00.

May 24: Yahoo! has • • • that MyBlogLog will be closed on 24 May 2011. UPDATE: Yup.

April 16: Encyclopedia Dramatica shutdown on 16. April 2011 without warning. Ongoing reconstruction Efforts. A lot of Images and Articles are probably lost. (The replacement OhInternet is a very strongly sanitized Version of ED.) ED is claiming that they are in danger of shutting down. Despite the controversial nature of many articles hosted on the wiki, this would be a big loss of historical records.

A lot of the Images and Pages are still missing. Help appreciated.

March: • • • shut down at the end of March.

March 31: Yahoo! Video shut down on March 31st, 2011 and was reborn as a video portal.

March 16: Microsoft closed Windows Live Spaces on March 16, 2011. Spaces owners had the option to migrate their blogs to WordPress or to make copies. As of January 4, 2011, they could no longer edit their existing Spaces.[276]

February 22: The Insurgency Wiki is a wiki with a community that created multiple guides and raids for Anonymous, in a similar manner to Encyclopedia Dramatica. It's status has always been unclear, with many mirrors coming and going. But as of Feb. 22, 2012, the last mirror, Partyvan.info, looks like it has some damning database error. Just in case, the Bibliotheca Anonoma has made a full backup, including all available images available.

February/June: The IRC logging service • • • shut down. Back in 2007, it had controversially used un-labeled bots to archive (and publish) logs of IRC channels without notification or permission.

January 17: The Sims Carnival: [277]

January 1: ProHosting • • • closed hosted sites on 1 Jan 2011

January: The wiki hosting site wik.is, hosted by MindTouch, shut down on the first week of January 2011; the explanation being that "in order to continue to support the growing needs of our MindTouch Express users, we are offering MindTouch Cloud", which "opens up additional features and functionality that are not available in Wik.is.". The only way you'd know all that is if you receive a warning e-mail from MindTouch. They offer to keep your site running by "upgrading to our paid Cloud version by • • •"

2010

December 17: The • • • will shut down its websites, Twitter account, Facebook page, bug trackers and remove access to its source code on 17 Dec 2010 [278] [279] .

will shut down its websites, Twitter account, Facebook page, bug trackers and remove access to its source code on 17 Dec 2010 . December: • • • was reworked in December 2010, and by "reworked" we mean massacred. Most notably, the forums were deleted, as well as tons of older articles.

was reworked in December 2010, and by "reworked" we mean massacred. Most notably, the forums were deleted, as well as tons of older articles. November: • • • was a small social network started as a side venture by CareerBuilder.com in August 2009. It was quietly shutdown November 2010 without much fanfare. At its height it has 100k users.

was a small social network started as a side venture by CareerBuilder.com in August 2009. It was quietly shutdown November 2010 without much fanfare. At its height it has 100k users. October 31: isweb lite , the Japanese GeoCities, shut down on October 31. Thousands of personal homepages of artists and illustrators were deleted forever. A tiny sample of the pages deleted: [280] isweb itself (paid hosting!) will shut down in May 2012. [281]

, the Japanese GeoCities, shut down on October 31. Thousands of personal homepages of artists and illustrators were deleted forever. A tiny sample of the pages deleted: itself (paid hosting!) will shut down in May 2012. September/October: • • • shut down at the end of September 2010.

shut down at the end of September 2010. Mid-2010: JuniorNet , a subscription based online portal for children, was quietly shut down nearly a decade after it dot-bombed and was acquired by former employees.

, a subscription based online portal for children, was quietly shut down nearly a decade after it dot-bombed and was acquired by former employees. May 31: • • • essentially closes down its galleries, and members are migrated to Portalgraphics.net

essentially closes down its galleries, and members are migrated to Portalgraphics.net April/May: • • • was a notable and quite popular webcomic which vanished when AT&T discontinued their Worldnet service. Thankfully, an archive is available, e.g. • • • .

was a notable and quite popular webcomic which vanished when AT&T discontinued their Worldnet service. Thankfully, an archive is available, e.g. . March 31: Extra.hu , largest free hosting Hungarian hosting provider goes paid-only; deletes unknown number of free sites on 31 March 2010.

, largest free hosting Hungarian hosting provider goes paid-only; deletes unknown number of free sites on 31 March 2010. March 1: • • • , a lifestreaming site, stopped hosting March 1st 2010.

, a lifestreaming site, stopped hosting March 1st 2010. March: • • •, once a popular Finnish web site associated with electronic dance music, clubbing/raving, and the other related things was closed in March after been running for years. All the content posted to the forums of the site was, however, obtained and made available by • • •, another related portal popular in Finland.

2009

December 6: favrd , a website that aggregated favorite tweets from twitter, abruptly shut down on December 6, 2009 with absolutely no warning, killing off thousands of highlighted entries added by group-consensus over significant months. As a reward for their efforts, founder Dean Allen wrote this helpful message: "Alas, stars on Twitter have become mere take-out menus hung on the doors of other restaurants. There are still lots of clever and funny things to read every day, but finding these is no longer a challenge â you already follow your sources. Sites like this one now serve mainly as fuel for emotional up-fuckedness in the guise of a game. Just an idea: next time you see something you like, write the person who made it a note telling them so. Even better, explain why. Take care!" Advice to people who want to work with Dean Allen's projects in the future: don't.

, a website that aggregated favorite tweets from twitter, abruptly shut down on December 6, 2009 with absolutely no warning, killing off thousands of highlighted entries added by group-consensus over significant months. As a reward for their efforts, founder Dean Allen wrote this helpful message: Advice to people who want to work with Dean Allen's projects in the future: don't. November: here.is seems to permanently off-line. It ceased to re-direct email for some time ago and as per 11-23-09 it doesn't redirect even URLs any longer.

October 31: Microsoft Encarta , the online encyclopedia with a 15+ year history, is being shut down. The US version will shut down on October 31, 2009 and the Japanese version on December 31, 2009. [282]

, the online encyclopedia with a 15+ year history, is being shut down. The US version will shut down on October 31, 2009 and the Japanese version on December 31, 2009. October 26: GeoCities : Shock! Repeat Offender Yahoo announced that it would close GeoCities "later this year...We'll send you more details this summer." [283] . The plug was pulled on October 26th 2009. See the Geocities project page for more details.

: Shock! Repeat Offender announced that it would close GeoCities "later this year...We'll send you more details this summer." . The plug was pulled on October 26th 2009. See the Geocities project page for more details. August 31: Microsoft's SoapBox has announced it is getting off said soapbox on August 31, 2009. [284] .

has announced it is getting off said soapbox on August 31, 2009. . August 30ish: ArchNacho's & TortillaGodzilla's Quality ROMs , a site that hosted ROMs for NES, SNES, and Genesis games, which has announced its effective death back in January 2006, is now finally completely inaccessible, both on its original domain • • • , and on the site that the domain masked • • • . The Wayback Machine contains a mirror of the site up through August 30, 2007, which is after all updates to the site ceased. All ROMs hosted on QualityRoms are included in the mirror and can be downloaded from there.

, a site that hosted ROMs for NES, SNES, and Genesis games, which has announced its effective death back in January 2006, is now finally completely inaccessible, both on its original domain , and on the site that the domain masked . The Wayback Machine contains a mirror of the site up through August 30, 2007, which is after all updates to the site ceased. All ROMs hosted on QualityRoms are included in the mirror and can be downloaded from there. August 24: Microsoft's Popfly [285] pops off into nowhere on August 24, 2009.

pops off into nowhere on August 24, 2009. July 13: Yahoo! 360 announces [286] that they are closing up shop on July 13, 2009. Of course, you can still register an account but that's the first thing you're told.

announces that they are closing up shop on July 13, 2009. Of course, you can still register an account but that's the first thing you're told. June 25: Imeem , a site for sharing music and convincing yourself that what you're hearing is good, • • • on June 25, 2009 that they were "simplifying" things and deleting all user-generated photos and videos uploaded by users. They gave everyone five days to get their photos off, and then extended it to twenty days from the ensuing hue and cry. The uploaded videos had no way to extract them back.

, a site for sharing music and convincing yourself that what you're hearing is good, on June 25, 2009 that they were "simplifying" things and deleting all user-generated photos and videos uploaded by users. They gave everyone to get their photos off, and then extended it to from the ensuing hue and cry. The uploaded videos had no way to extract them back. June 15: • • • became the latest example of Yahoo!'s awesome respect for history and data, announcing the closure of the video hosting and editing site, for June 15, 2009. A software utility has been released to allow you to download the movies from Jumpcut. Otherwise, you are not in great shape - Yahoo says you can move your videos to Flickr, but Flickr cuts off at 90 seconds. A lot of homemade video is going to disappear.

became the latest example of Yahoo!'s awesome respect for history and data, announcing the closure of the video hosting and editing site, for June 15, 2009. A software utility has been released to allow you to download the movies from Jumpcut. Otherwise, you are not in great shape - Yahoo says you can move your videos to Flickr, but Flickr cuts off at 90 seconds. A lot of homemade video is going to disappear. May 31: Rejaw , a microblogging platform, has announced that it will be shutting down on May 31 2009 [287] . It's gone.

, a microblogging platform, has announced that it will be shutting down on May 31 2009 . It's gone. May 21: MSN QnA Beta closed on May 21 [288]

closed on May 21 April 20: • • • , " a web-based service for building and hosting custom online database applications and a software as a platform 'utility computing' company", announced it had closed up on February 20, 2009, and that the site would go down permanently on April 20, 2009. [289] . It did.

, " a web-based service for building and hosting custom online database applications and a software as a platform 'utility computing' company", announced it had closed up on February 20, 2009, and that the site would go down permanently on April 20, 2009. . It did. April 17: • • • was a social bookmarking service that had been around since 2004. It was acquired by Diigo (announced on March 9), allowed people to opt into transferring their bookmarks to Diigo, and shut down on April 17.[290][291]

March 31: It doesn't get more ironic than this: • • • , a HP-owned online backup service, is being shut down. [292] They almost immediately turned off the backup process, and then announced all your restorable data would go offline on March 31, roughly 30 days after announcement. Surprise!

, a HP-owned online backup service, is being shut down. and then announced all your restorable data would go offline on March 31, roughly 30 days after announcement. Surprise! March 31: Google acquired • • • on 4th December, 2009 and immediately • • • a March 2010 content deletion date. After community pressure, Google has decided to • • • , keeping the service alive until then. The site closed down shortly after. Fortunately there are now are numerous alternatives.

on 4th December, 2009 and immediately a March 2010 content deletion date. After community pressure, Google has decided to , keeping the service alive until then. The site closed down shortly after. Fortunately there are now are numerous alternatives. March 30: Yahoo Briefcase , a positively ancient site run by Yahoo that provided you with 25 free megabytes of storage space for your junk, sent a mail to what were likely years-old contact addresses to tell them they had a little more than a month to get their files out, March 30, 2009. After that, the files would be deleted. What, Yahoo doesn't have a spare memory stick to store what must be the amount of files in this service for the next year?

, a positively ancient site run by Yahoo that provided you with 25 free megabytes of storage space for your junk, sent a mail to what were likely years-old contact addresses to tell them they had a little more than a month to get their files out, March 30, 2009. After that, the files would be deleted. What, Yahoo doesn't have a spare memory stick to store what must be the amount of files in this service for the next year? March 25: Yahoo! Farechase , an airline fare aggregation and searching site, was shut down on March 25, 2009. It had previously been its own company, founded in 1999, and purchased by Yahoo! in 2004. [293]

, an airline fare aggregation and searching site, was shut down on March 25, 2009. It had previously been its own company, founded in 1999, and purchased by Yahoo! in 2004. March 20: • • • , "a FREE service that lets you download over 3 million songs and videos, legally and safely", pulled up stakes in the night and completely shut down on March 20, 2009. [294] Things looked so promising in 2006: [295] Oh, and sadly, all your music you downloaded from them will stop working within 30 days or less. [296]

, "a FREE service that lets you download over 3 million songs and videos, legally and safely", pulled up stakes in the night and completely shut down on March 20, 2009. Things looked so promising in 2006: Oh, and sadly, all your music you downloaded from them will stop working within 30 days or less. March 17: • • • was • • • , but found no buyer, and the print edition stopped on March 17th 2009 after 146 years. [297] Initially, reports indicated it would shut down the website as well as the paper, but a plan was apparently in place to run a "skeleton crew" on an internet-only site, which continues to operate.

was , but found no buyer, and the print edition stopped on March 17th 2009 after 146 years. Initially, reports indicated it would shut down the website as well as the paper, but a plan was apparently in place to run a "skeleton crew" on an internet-only site, which continues to operate. March 11: • • • had a combination database and backup failure, losing: "All votes, ever. All member usernames who registered later than around 12 months ago. All member rankings. Your member profile info (e.g., bio, favorite sift, etc.), if any. All activity that happened on the site yesterday, March 11." This is unlikely to kill the site, but an awful lot of data was lost.

had a combination database and backup failure, losing: "All votes, ever. All member usernames who registered later than around 12 months ago. All member rankings. Your member profile info (e.g., bio, favorite sift, etc.), if any. All activity that happened on the site yesterday, March 11." This is unlikely to kill the site, but an awful lot of data was lost. March 6: • • •, a "citizen journalism" site run by Getty images to allow the uploading of images by citizen journalists and the chance to be licensed to news organizations, announced they would no longer take any new imagery after February 6, 2009, and will shut down completely on March 6, 2009. Some content uploaders "may" be contacted about being absorbed into the main Getty site.

Sometime between February 28th and March 23d: • • • was redirected to Last.fm. The free music it offered does not seem to have been transferred, however (the band Ancient Teknologi had several tracks available on music.download.com, but only one available on Last.fm). As of 28 February, it claimed to have 111.052 MP3s.

was redirected to Last.fm. The free music it offered does not seem to have been transferred, however (the band Ancient Teknologi had several tracks available on music.download.com, but only one available on Last.fm). As of 28 February, it claimed to have 111.052 MP3s. February 28: Lycos Europe shut down their Tripod hosting service on February 28, 2009. [298] [299] Note that Lycos Europe are distinct from Lycos.com. Lycos Europe is also shuttering the social networking site Jubii as of February 15, 2009. [300] A Danish version of the site will remain open for the time being.

shut down their hosting service on February 28, 2009. Note that Lycos Europe are distinct from Lycos.com. is also shuttering the social networking site as of February 15, 2009. A Danish version of the site will remain open for the time being. February 27: The • • • has shut down as of February 27, 2009. [301] We're watching to see what happens with the website (and the material, and the newspaper itself). With a 150-year history, there's a lot of backstory, and how this chronicler of history will end up, so too will many others. There is an excellent documentary about the last days of the Rocky Mountain News • • • .

has shut down as of February 27, 2009. We're watching to see what happens with the website (and the material, and the newspaper itself). With a 150-year history, there's a lot of backstory, and how this chronicler of history will end up, so too will many others. There is an excellent documentary about the last days of the Rocky Mountain News . February 23: Windows Live shut down the MSN Groups on February 23. They extended their original date from February 21st to give Group owners the weekend to prepare. [302]

shut down the on February 23. They extended their original date from February 21st to give Group owners the weekend to prepare. January 31: • • • had a catastrophic disk corruption/failure on January 31, 2009. From the message on the main site: "As I evaluate recovery options, I can't provide a certain timeline or prognosis as to to when or to what degree Ma.gnolia or your bookmarks will return; only that this process will take days, not hours." Ma.gnolia had an excellent export feature... hope you used it and did the backups they didn't!

had a catastrophic disk corruption/failure on January 31, 2009. From the message on the main site: Ma.gnolia had an excellent export feature... hope you used it and did the backups they didn't! January 28: • • • , a style/interior design magazine, announced that they were shutting down on January 28, 2009. • • • , one of the site's heavily used social bookmarking features (somewhat like delicious for images) will remain up for a few weeks to allow users to save their stuff.

, a style/interior design magazine, announced that they were shutting down on January 28, 2009. , one of the site's heavily used social bookmarking features (somewhat like delicious for images) will remain up for a few weeks to allow users to save their stuff. January 28: • • • ran out of money. [303]

ran out of money. January 27: Yahoo Pets was shut down and redirected with absolutely no notice around January 27, 2009. [304]

was shut down and redirected with absolutely no notice around January 27, 2009. January 17: totse.com • • • on January 17, 2009. As of Jan 20th, a mirror • • • , alongside a • • • .

on January 17, 2009. As of Jan 20th, a mirror , alongside a . January 15: Ficlets.com (owned by AOL) has announced they are closing on January 15, 2009. [305]

(owned by AOL) has announced they are closing on January 15, 2009. January 15: Circavie.com (owned by AOL) has announced they are closing on January 15, 2009. [306]

(owned by AOL) has announced they are closing on January 15, 2009. January 14: Several Google services have shut down. [307] Most importantly, Google Video stopped accepting new uploads (to avoid competition with Google-owned YouTube), and Google Catalog Search was erased.

have shut down. Most importantly, Google Video stopped accepting new uploads (to avoid competition with Google-owned YouTube), and Google Catalog Search was erased. January 11: Co.mments.com closed down on January 11, 2009.

closed down on January 11, 2009. January 9: AOL Pictures said so long on January 9, 2009. To their credit, you can still yank your stuff into other photo services until June 2009. (At least, according to their goodbye letter.)

said so long on January 9, 2009. To their credit, you can still yank your stuff into other photo services until June 2009. (At least, according to their goodbye letter.) January 6: Electronic Gaming Monthly has recently shut its doors. [308]

2008

• • •

Biggest Botched Shutdowns of 2008

October 31: • • • (owned by AOL) was officially killed on October 31, 2008. • • •

The full extent of warning AOL gave about shutting down Hometown.

October 27: Digitalrailroad.net, a photo hosting site, gave their users a 24-hour eviction notice on October 27, 2008. They shut down 10 hours after the 24-hour notice. [309]

Other deaths of 2008

December 31: • • • , the magazine from Tokyo about "Designing and Making things," simultaneously rang in the new year and checked out of existence on December 31, 2008.

, the magazine from Tokyo about "Designing and Making things," simultaneously rang in the new year and checked out of existence on December 31, 2008. December 31: • • • , a 3D Avatar space experiment, was killed in a really crappy way by Google on December 31, 2008.

, a 3D Avatar space experiment, was killed in a really crappy way by Google on December 31, 2008. December 27: • • • said goodbye on December 27, 2008. [310]

said goodbye on December 27, 2008. December 23: • • • put away their badges on December 23, 2008. [311]

put away their badges on December 23, 2008. December 19(?): Google Research Datasets, shut down on December 19(?), 2008. [312]

The last person at Yahoo! Kickstart turning off the lights.

December 18: Yahoo! Kickstart , a social network for college students revealed in 2007 [313] got expelled on about December 18, 2008. [314]

, a social network for college students revealed in 2007 got expelled on about December 18, 2008. December 16: Flip.com , a social network for teenage girls, shut down on December 16, 2008. Users were advised to print out their digital scrapbooks as backups. [315]

, a social network for teenage girls, shut down on December 16, 2008. Users were advised to print out their digital scrapbooks as backups. December 15: • • • was closed on December 15, 2008.

was closed on December 15, 2008. December 8: • • • was shut down on December 8, 2008. A lot of people complained about this one, while others thanked the site for shutting down and wished the founder well!

was shut down on December 8, 2008. A lot of people complained about this one, while others thanked the site for shutting down and wished the founder well! December 3: • • • died on December 3, 2008. [316]

died on December 3, 2008. October 31: • • • slipped into history on October 31, 2008.

slipped into history on October 31, 2008. October 29: • • • failed to provide bloggers with the traffic they so desperately desired, and the creator admitted on October 29, 2008 that his 4AM idea may not have been so brilliant. [317]

failed to provide bloggers with the traffic they so desperately desired, and the creator admitted on October 29, 2008 that his 4AM idea may not have been so brilliant. September 29: ScribbleWiki wikis go offline. Apparently • • • and they didn't have a backup.

wikis go offline. Apparently and they didn't have a backup. September 28: Yahoo! Mash , a social networking site, became mush on September 28, 2009, after 30 days warning. [318]

, a social networking site, became mush on September 28, 2009, after 30 days warning. September 26: Uber.com was a social blog site that died. [319] Not too be confused with the ridesharing service of the same name, which now owns the domain name uber.com.

was a social blog site that died. September 18: • • • , Microsoft's attempt at starting a social network, died on September 18, 2008. All that remains is a few Facebook apps. [320] [321]

, Microsoft's attempt at starting a social network, died on September 18, 2008. All that remains is a few Facebook apps. May 21: Virtual Magic Kingdom • • • on May 21, 2008. [322] The amount of broken hearts and anguish over this move was amazing, and a warning sign to any family-oriented site that encourages families to join up. Some of the more anguished fans have gotten together in various forms to recreate VMK, including • • • , • • • (a memorial site), and • • • (although OpenVMK shutdown due to • • • .)

on May 21, 2008. The amount of broken hearts and anguish over this move was amazing, and a warning sign to any family-oriented site that encourages families to join up. February 29: Stage6 , a video sharing site, was shut down by DivX Inc. on February 29, 2008. [323]

, a video sharing site, was shut down by DivX Inc. on February 29, 2008. February 14: wikipedia:Think_Secret was killed by Apple and shut down on February 14, 2008. [324]

was killed by Apple and shut down on February 14, 2008. July 31: Social.fm couldn't stand up to Last.fm, and died. [325]

couldn't stand up to Last.fm, and died. May 15: Brijit.com , a news aggregation site, closed on May 15, 2008. It might be closed for good. [326]

, a news aggregation site, closed on May 15, 2008. It might be closed for good. February: Yahoo! Design, a showcase of designing and information aesthetics related to the Yahoo! properties, got revised into oblivion in February, 2008 as part of a 1,000 employee layoff. [327]

2007

October 31: Yahoo! Podcasts , a Podcast searching site founded in October 2005 [328] , was closed with no explanation on October 31, 2007. [329]

, a Podcast searching site founded in October 2005 , was closed with no explanation on October 31, 2007. October 23: • • • Music Bittorrent tracker site with huge user community which cared greatly about digital content and music. Would have been a great resource for the industry to research. Shutdown October 23, 2007. [330]

Music Bittorrent tracker site with huge user community which cared greatly about digital content and music. Would have been a great resource for the industry to research. Shutdown October 23, 2007. September 20: Yahoo! Photos , a photo sharing service by Yahoo!. Tools: Download Hi Resolution Yahoo! Photos by Rohit Sud, Download Yahoo! Photos by Kent Brewster, and • • • by • • •

, a photo sharing service by Yahoo!. Tools: Download Hi Resolution Yahoo! Photos by Rohit Sud, Download Yahoo! Photos by Kent Brewster, and by March 20: • • • was • • • March 20, 2007 and • • •.

2006

2005

• • • (Internet Underground Music Archive), of Santa Cruz, California, the actual first website to offer free hosting of bands including MP3 files of music offered by the bands, was mostly archived by John Gilmore before going down. At least one IUMA founder now has a copy of that archive. This ~800GB collection has been uploaded to a collection on the Internet Archive.

2004

2003

• • • went down. Much of it was archived by John Gilmore.

went down. Much of it was archived by John Gilmore. • • •, which invented a way of producing simple 3D environments in the web years before the advent of WebGL, quietly disappears from the face of the web

2002

2001

SixDegrees.com , a social network service website that lasted from 1997 to 2001

, a social network service website that lasted from 1997 to 2001 The Useless Pages (at IA)

Eleventh Hour Reprieves and Reanimations

Berlios.de will • • • . The site hosts thousands of open source software projects (git, svn, bzr, mailing lists, bug tracking, etc.). • • • Berlios is still open and they are now • • • to keep things running.

to keep things running. • • • announced it might close on 2020-07-23 [331] or not [332] or merge with • • • [333] . On July 27, it was announced that the site would live on. [334]

announced it might close on 2020-07-23 or not or merge with . On July 27, it was announced that the site would live on. Citizendium' s finances • • • . Running a MediaWiki site is cheap and Sanger is not homeless, hence it's expected to survive. WikiTeam archives it on a regular basis.

s finances . Running a MediaWiki site is cheap and Sanger is not homeless, hence it's expected to survive. WikiTeam archives it on a regular basis. Delicious [335] will be • • • . The whole team was let go yesterday - 15 December 2010. • • • . Delicious was acquired from Yahoo! in early 2011 by AVOS however all the prior content is gone.

will be . The whole team was let go yesterday - 15 December 2010. . Delicious was acquired from Yahoo! in early 2011 by AVOS however all the prior content is gone. Cli.gs , another URL shortening service, announced closure: "On Sunday, 25 Oct 2009 at 12:00:00 GMT, the service will stop accepting new short URLs and will stop logging analytics." [336] In December 2009, it was announced that the "social bookmarking" site Mister Wong has acquired cli.gs and are keeping it running. [337] All aboard the TinyURL project.

, another URL shortening service, announced closure: "On Sunday, 25 Oct 2009 at 12:00:00 GMT, the service will stop accepting new short URLs and will stop logging analytics." In December 2009, it was announced that the "social bookmarking" site Mister Wong has acquired cli.gs and are keeping it running. All aboard the TinyURL project. • • • , the official DuckDuckGo community forums, transitioned to their • • • and moved all posts over from their old Zoho forum.

, the official DuckDuckGo community forums, transitioned to their and moved all posts over from their old Zoho forum. Earbits bites the dust on June 16, 2014, but comes back to life on June 19th, 2014. In between, we grabbed ~130GB of images and ~130k MP3s.

bites the dust on June 16, 2014, but comes back to life on June 19th, 2014. In between, we grabbed ~130GB of images and ~130k MP3s. • • • is closing up shop [338] . The site will be suspended on March 30, 2009. 1.5 Million files and 48+ TB of space gone just like that. As of April 2, 2009, it looks like there may have been an 11th hour reprieve for Filefront: according to a message reportedly from the original founders of the service [339] , the site has been re-acquired by them in order to prevent its proposed shuttering. On 2010-11-30, FileFront rebranded to GameFront [340] .

is closing up shop . The site will be suspended on March 30, 2009. 1.5 Million files and 48+ TB of space gone just like that. As of April 2, 2009, it looks like there may have been an 11th hour reprieve for Filefront: according to a message reportedly from the original founders of the service , the site has been re-acquired by them in order to prevent its proposed shuttering. On 2010-11-30, FileFront rebranded to GameFront . Formspring (now called spring.me ) announced they'd be • • • on April the 15th. It was, however, was acquired by new management on May 8, 2013, and saved from being shut down.

(now called ) announced they'd be on April the 15th. It was, however, was acquired by new management on May 8, 2013, and saved from being shut down. Free Music Archive was set to close in November/December 2018 [341] but remains online for now [342] .

was set to close in November/December 2018 but remains online for now . GitHost announced they would be shutting down on April 30, 2015. [343] However, on April 26th, GitLab announced they had acquired GitHost and that user data would not be GitDeleted. [344] [345]

announced they would be shutting down on April 30, 2015. However, on April 26th, GitLab announced they had acquired GitHost and that user data would not be GitDeleted. Google Video threatened to remove all hosted videos with two weeks' notice in April 2011. It backed down after criticism and an archive effort by the Archive Team.

threatened to remove all hosted videos with two weeks' notice in April 2011. It backed down after criticism and an archive effort by the Archive Team. Home of the Underdogs went under on Feb 9th [346] . There has been some passed along words by the site's owner, now working at an NGO, that an attempt to bring it back may happen. (She definitely has backups of the site.) A community-driven effort to revive the site is currently underway [347] . Backups were restored, and the remaining files (1,000+) collected from the community. As of Jan 4th 2010, HOTU is reporting that files are back online [348]

went under on Feb 9th . There has been some passed along words by the site's owner, now working at an NGO, that an attempt to bring it back may happen. (She definitely has backups of the site.) A community-driven effort to revive the site is currently underway . Backups were restored, and the remaining files (1,000+) collected from the community. As of Jan 4th 2010, HOTU is reporting that files are back online JPG Magazine announced it would shut down on January 5, 2009 [349] , but the site lives • • • . Feel free to download the • • •

announced it would shut down on January 5, 2009 , but the site lives . Feel free to download the KeygenJukebox, which shut down in 2014, has recently popped back up.

• • • , a notorious forum that mocks "lolcows", was shut down on January 20, 2017 without a warning by its owner, but was restored three weeks later.

, a notorious forum that mocks "lolcows", was shut down on January 20, 2017 without a warning by its owner, but was restored three weeks later. Linux Journal : Announced on 1 December 2017 that it is ceasing publication. [350] Announced on 1 January 2018 that it has been unexpectedly rescued. [351]

: Announced on 1 December 2017 that it is ceasing publication. Announced on 1 January 2018 that it has been unexpectedly rescued. MobyGames , the largest database of old game releases on the net, with huge amount of content found nowhere else. Was bought by GameFly in 2010 and received a new site design in September 2013, which made almost all contributors emigrate. Many site features have disappeared or became broken in the new design, and their large database of cover art and screenshots had problems loading. In December 2013, the site was bought by • • • , who have restored the old site design and managed to draw back pretty much all the contributors. It seems that the site is going back to full health again.

, the largest database of old game releases on the net, with huge amount of content found nowhere else. Was bought by GameFly in 2010 and received a new site design in September 2013, which made almost all contributors emigrate. Many site features have disappeared or became broken in the new design, and their large database of cover art and screenshots had problems loading. In December 2013, the site was bought by , who have restored the old site design and managed to draw back pretty much all the contributors. It seems that the site is going back to full health again. • • • shut down at May 2 2017 due to copyright problem, and • • • .

shut down at May 2 2017 due to copyright problem, and . • • • was announced to shut down on 2020-06-09 [352] except for now it won't [353] .

was announced to shut down on 2020-06-09 except for now it won't . • • • was announced to shut down on 2020-07-31. [354] It was later announced that the site would live on. [355]

was announced to shut down on 2020-07-31. It was later announced that the site would live on. TwitPic' s founder states it won't shut down and Twitter will take care of it. Not.

s founder states it won't shut down and Twitter will take care of it. Not. Video host Viddler announces in an • • • that they're shutting down free accounts on March 11, 2014. But Archive Team kicked in and began to suck up the place until the owners told us to stop. Videos won't be permanently deleted.

announces in an that they're shutting down free accounts on March 11, 2014. But Archive Team kicked in and began to suck up the place until the owners told us to stop. Videos won't be permanently deleted. WebCite – Has a habit of crying for money, threatening it will stop accepting submissions. Since October 2013, the Wayback Machine archives pages on demand, hence there's no reason to use a site like WebCite that declares self at risk. It's expected that they'll send their data to Internet Archive if they ever really have to shut down.

– Has a habit of crying for money, threatening it will stop accepting submissions. Since October 2013, the Wayback Machine archives pages on demand, hence there's no reason to use a site like WebCite that declares self at risk. It's expected that they'll send their data to Internet Archive if they ever really have to shut down. Word Count Journal ( • • • ) is shutting down on June 11, 2011 UPDATE The site is fully up and running. (checked on October 21, 2011) UPDATE2 : Non-functional, but the website is up with this notice "Word Count Journal is no longer being supported." (checked on January 26th, 2012)

( ) is shutting down on June 11, 2011 The site is fully up and running. (checked on October 21, 2011) : Non-functional, but the website is up with this notice "Word Count Journal is no longer being supported." (checked on January 26th, 2012) YTMND ( • • •) announced plans to shut down on August 29, 2016 and eventually went offline on May 12, 2019 due to a database failure. After an "outpouring of support" the owner decided to save the site with all content restored by March 31, 2020.

Other Sites Remember the Dead

• • • by Steve Baldwin. • • •

by Steve Baldwin. • • • is an excellent archive of stories about site closings.

is an excellent archive of stories about site closings. • • • saved the articles deleted from Wikipedia in 2008, and • • • preserves a selection of them.

Tragic

• • •

Humorous

• • •

References







