Softonic.com is a web portal based in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ...

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. It was founded in June 1997 and is owned by Softonic International.

History

Softonic started in 1996 as a file-oriented download service called Shareware Intercom, at Intercom Online (Grupo Intercom), a provider of Internet services in

Cerdanyola del Vallès Cerdanyola del Vallès () is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of the Vallès Occidental in Catalonia, Spain. It is situated on the north side of the Collserola ridge. The town is served by the A-7 and C-58 motorways, the N-150 road and the Re ...

, near Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain). Files for the website originally came from the "Files Library Intercom BBS" at Intercom Online, using a "5-step semi-automated process", which was later greatly simplified. The company also offered monthly CDs of its software library for users tired of "having to wait for downloads to complete or pay exorbitant phone bills." In 1999, the service was described as having a "generosity of games, antivirus, education and the long, seductive etcetera." In 2000, the company became independent under the name Softonic. In 2004, Softonic was made available in German, and in 2005, English. Initially the service was oriented only to downloads of DOS and

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

software, but it evolved to offer software downloads for Mac and mobile platforms. Softonic was listed as the "Best place to work in Spain (100–250 employees)" in an annual study by the Great Place to Work Institute from 2009–2011, and as second-best in 2008. In 2009 and 2011, the site was listed as having the most unique visitor traffic in Spain by audit bureau OJD Interactiva. At the end of 2014, Softonic announced that a headcount reduction procedure would be carried out as a cost-cutting measure, allegedly due to financial and organizational reasons. In December, the company formalized the dismissal of 156 employees, against the initial estimation of 207. In February 2015, Softonic announced that industry veteran and Download.com co-founder Scott Arpajian had been appointed as CEO of Softonic, replacing Founder Tomás Diago. In July 2016, Softonic announced a partnership with business software platform Crozdesk. In May 2017, the company announced that it had hired international executive Sophie Bernard as Vice President of Strategy. In October 2019, Softonic acquired Ghacks. Softonic acquired FileHippo; the FileHippo home page states "Softonic International, S.A. holds the license to use the name and logo of Filehippo". Softonic offers free download via Microsoft Windows Store of popular TRIO Office Suite software.

Controversies

Softonic's "Softonic Downloader" was described by the company's CEO as having "facilitated bad behaviour amongst third party vendors which ended up harming the user" due to malicious links impersonating as the downloader itself. In March 2015, Softonic announced it was discontinuing the Downloader as part of a move to "regain the trust of users".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Softonic.don Companies based in Barcelona Download websites File hosting Internet properties established in 1997 Spanish brands Malware