Ask.com , originally founded as the Y2K stalwart Ask Jeeves, is officially dead. "As IAC continues to sharpen its focus, we have made the decision to discontinue our search business, which includes Ask.com . After 25 years of answering the world's questions, Ask.com officially closed on May 1, 2026," the homepage now reads. Ask Jeeves was launched in 1997 by the Berkeley-based duo  Garrett Gruener and David Warthen , a year before Google's now-dominant search engine debuted to the masses. At the time, Ask Jeeves' natural language processing, combined with its personality-filled voice and branding, made it the go-to web search and answer engine for early internet adopters. The website's butler mascot, Jeeves, modeled after the P.G. Wodehouse character, made appearances at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, holding its own against other iconic corporate logos of the early 2000s. Mashable Trend Report "Can one man have all the answers?" If he has access to the entire internet, absolutely.…