back to article Yahoo! comeback! continues! as! fresh! listing! planned!

Yahoo! – the outfit that dominated the web in the late 1990s before Google ate its lunch – is plotting a return to the stock market. The Purple Palace's CEO, Jim Lanzone, on Tuesday told the Financial Times that Yahoo! is "very profitable" and has "a great balance sheet." Yahoo! fined! $35m! for! covering! up! massive! IT! …

  1. cookieMonster Silver badge

    Not the worst idea

    To be honest, if they came back and offered a decent search engine and a little less aggressive data harvesting, they might have a chance.

    But I seriously doubt it

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: Not the worst idea

      Would be a good thing for Google to have serious competition though.

      Right now, Google just does as it pleases without almost a care in the world.

      1. Korev Silver badge
        Terminator

        Re: Not the worst idea

        I agree, I do try to use DDG, but often I just get frustrated, give up and just use Google. The same is true with their maps service (compared to the Apple ones).

  2. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
    Alert

    Do they need a micro-blogging service?

    If they're looking to expand, I know where they can get one for a percent of its former value.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Do they need a micro-blogging service?

      Musk we ask which one?

    2. Zippy´s Sausage Factory

      Re: Do they need a micro-blogging service?

      They had one, years ago, called Yahoo 360. That also tied in with Yahoo Groups - it was really way ahead of its time. All gone, sadly, because Yahoo have a habit of just throwing these things away.

  3. Paul Crawford Silver badge

    To be fair to Yahoo! the free email service I used for spammy stuff was more reliable and less hassle than MS' offerings.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Childcatcher

      But it never had a cool name whilst capitalised - HoTMaiL!

    2. druck Silver badge
      FAIL

      In the spirit of being fair to Yahoo, lets not forget that their entire 3 billion accounts were hacked

      https://www.theregister.com/2017/10/03/yahoo_says_one_beeelion_user_hack_figure_wrong_its_three/

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I guess their front page is useful if you're a doom scroller, now that Twitter is basically useless. The comment sections will get you all the hateful right wing conspiracy nuts you can stand. My only use for is as said before, a free email I can use to sign up for stuff without filling my main one with all the junk.

  5. TheMaskedMan Silver badge

    Hmm, a decent search engine, without any AI gubbins bolted on. Clean, accurate, not too ad-soaked. There's potential there.

  6. imanidiot Silver badge

    I have a hard time believing Yahoo! is still around, let alone relevant in any way.

    1. R Soul Silver badge

      Is yahoo still a thing? Who knew? More importantly, who cares?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I don't know how relevant it is, as far as I can tell it out sources its search to Bing. Beyond that it's an ad slinging news aggregator and web email provider. It's a shell of its former self, the corpse of a former tech giant that's being passed around. Verizon played with it for bit got tired of it and sold it to whoever owns it now.

  7. Fred Goldstein

    Yahoo Groups still has some activity, I suppose.

    Yahoo Mail has users who are stuck on it because their long-used addresses are there and it's holy hell to change email. But it has gone from bad to insanely awful. Their IMAP now limits you to 10,000 messages; all older ones disappear from IMAP and are removed from your mail client if it uses IMAP sync, which is alas the usual. The messages however remain on their server visible to the webmail, and their advertising harvesting no doubt, but that doesn't provide an easy way to go through thousands of pages' worth to locate stuff, just a rudimentary search function. The mail store also manages to break most POP clients. It sort of portends what Twitter might look like after a while with nobody left to maintain it either, though email is more important to most users.

    Isn't their search just reselling Bing? The home page looks like a ladies' magazine, lots of gossip.

  8. Bill Gray

    Only! reason! for! this! story!

    is! that! El! Reg! hacks! wanted! an! excuse! to! add! italicized! exclamation! marks! to! each! word!

    (Though in fairness, it was the only reason for me to comment, too. It appears that as a lowly commentard, I can't italicize the comment title.)

    1. stiine Silver badge
      Alert

      Re: Only! reason! for! this! story!

      Came here to say that El Reg is finally getting to use its stockpile of italics exclamation points.

  9. ecofeco Silver badge

    If they can keep it simple, it will work

    Right now, the most refreshing thing I've seen from any portal is Yahoos News.

    No spin. Just news. Top notch brevity and synopsis. Fast loading. (yes, I do use ad blockers, but it's still faster than anyone but El Reg)

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