Softonic Website Safe & Legit or not? I Explain in 6 Steps!

Many downlaod geeks seek the answer of the question: “Is Softonic Website Safe & Legit?”. When my download geek colleges search an app, software or game on Google and other search engines, they sometimes see Softonic website results on top of Google Search. They look at their url form and they see the subdomain which has the mission of trying to look like the original creator website. So, they are curios about that situation. When they click on it, they see many disturbing ads which forcing them to click on them, etc. so, it seems disgusting according to their perspective.

Before giving deep insight, you can look at my other article about general safety: >> How to download files safely from the internet

Softonic Website Safe & Legit ? Deep Analysis

Let me analyze Softonic Website deeply to decide Softonic is safe, Softonic is legit or not?.

First, I want to look at what Softonic look like and what it says about itself. Does it focuses on safety and security or focuses mainly on gaining limitless traffic thereby earning money, money, again money?

Softonic Website Safe & Legit ? Step 1

When I go to the homepage, I met the ugliest method for gaining more traffic in the future. This method is too disturbing, it asks you to send notifications within the browser. I visit you first time, I don’t know you and you ask me to send notification. How dare you!

 

Softonic Website Safe & Legit ? Step 2

Then I look for safe, secure words in homepage but I see only this type of words on the category of apps:

What a SHAME!

 

Ok, we don’t see any safe ,secure words&sentences in home page, so hmmm…

Softonic Website Safe & Legit ? Step 3

Let’s have a look at the a download page of any file. For example, let’s see Zoom app download page:

 

Tadaaaa… I love antivirus software but what the hell is THAT? What a disturbing popup ad, almost prevent the app title totally. They put the same ad on the top bar but I guess the click rate is so low so, they applied this disturbing method for gaining mooore and moooore money. It is shameful!!!

Softonic Website Safe & Legit ? Step 4

So, let’s look at downlaod page deeply for finding any security details about the file. Finally, it is there!

 

You can see the security icon and “Security Status” . When I click on it, there occur a text document and it says:

In Softonic we scan all the files hosted on our platform to assess and avoid any potential harm for your device. Our team performs checks each time a new file is uploaded and periodically reviews files to confirm or update their status. This comprehensive process allows us to set a status for any downloadable file as follows:

They talks about 3 status of the file:

Clean

It’s extremely likely that this software program is clean.

What does this mean?

We have scanned the file and URLs associated with this software program in more than 50 of the world’s leading antivirus services; no possible threat has been detected.

Warning

This software program is potentially malicious or may contain unwanted bundled software.

Why is the software program still available?

Based on our scan system, we have determined that these flags are possibly false positives.

What is a false positive?

It means a benign program is wrongfully flagged as malicious due to an overly broad detection signature or algorithm used in an antivirus program.

Blocked

It’s highly probable this software program is malicious or contains unwanted bundled software.

Why is this software program no longer available in our Catalog?

Based on our scan system, we have determined that these flags are likely to be real positives.

When we look at their statements, it seems, everything is all right but actually it does not!!!

Their statement is only a statement, there is no showcase or proof. They say, we check the file on 50 antivirus services. Do you believe in that? Come onnnnn… How can we know that? At least they should have mentioned some antivirus software like virustotal or kaspersky or avast but there is nothing! So, I am sorry, but I and my colleges do not believe weak statements without any proof!!!

Softonic Website Safe & Legit ? Step 5

Ok, then, take a look inside the downlaod page and press the download button. There occur an another disturbing pop-up ad:

 

It deceives you it looks like the actual file which is Zoom here, but it force you to the sponsor add app which is Yandex browser here. So this is so shameful and disgusting. If you look at carefully enough, you can see the tiny tiny tiny sentence at the bottom of pop-up which forward you the actual file (Zoom app) download page.

Softonic Website Safe & Legit ? Step 6

Let’s go to one step up, and click to forward. This new screen welcomes us:

 

As you see, it redirects to an external website and if you encounter any problems, please report it. In this situation it redirects you to the official zoom download page but in many other files, we cannot know the website is secure or not. It may have malware and when you redirect to the page, the virus transfer to your device and it boooommmsss!!!! So this is also a shame !!!

Softonic Safe or Not ? Conclusion

So, as a result GEEKS,

Do you trust Softonic?

Is Softonic Website Safe and Legit?

or

Are they a couple of people who is greedy for more and more money and do not focus mainly on your device safety?

What is your asnwer? First or second?

I feel like I hear your answer :))) That’s ok geeks!

Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with Softonic Company . As I see they are located in Spain and there is a team behind the company. If any of them reach me and explain themselves and fix some problems I have mentioned above , I will add their explanations and fixes here.