Why You Should Never Download From Softonic
We just received a request from someone who asked us for help getting rid of Softonic. Her request led us to write this post as a reminder to steer clear of Softonic when downloading or searching for software.
While Softonic claims to have improved its practices, there are still many good reasons to steer clear of them when searching for software.
Though Softonic claims to have cleaned up its act (and by this claim admits they’ve bundled software in the past) the potential for downloading bundled software from Softonic remains high.
Softonic has a history of bundling software with the likes of toolbars, download managers, and other useless or harmful software, with other downloads, that install automatically without clear user consent. While they claim they’ve stopped this practice, users are still encountering bundled software.
A high risk of malware: While Softonic says they scan for malware, there’s no guarantee they do. Reports of malware-laden downloads from Softonic persist.
Softonic is famous for unclear licensing terms, making it difficult to understand if the software you download from Softonic is free for personal use or requires a paid license.
And, though less concerning, Softonic has a reputation for offering outdated software. You might be downloading old outdated software from Softonic which may lack security updates.
We strongly recommend that you not download anything from Softonic. When you search for software downloads, Softonic seems to appear near the top on the search results page. We recommend SnapFiles and MajorGeeks for downloading software. If you are searching for a particular software program or just browsing downloads, SnapFiles, and MajorGeeks are both great choices for clean, unadulterated, unbundled, clean software.
Thank you for this warning. I know I can always rely on you two for good advice, help, and information.
Your advice would have been more useful before my last download from Softonic! It is like cancer, HIV, alzheimers, ED, bipolar, and diabetes all rolled into one. Difficult or impossible to cure. (My cure was to destruct the entire platform by cooking it in the microwave, then cooking it again in oven at 550 degrees F.)
And while we are at it, beware of any download from Quora, and take any answers they provide with extreme skepticism.
This is not the first time we have warned people about Softonic… see this page for example from 2014. We’ve written others too. Quora is not a download site, it’s a question and answer website. It can be political If you lean far-right or far-right you won’t like Quora. Quora is not a news outlet, or a download site, it’s a question/answer website that tends to lean to the political.