

Softonic fires 66% of its employees - alexperezpaya
http://novobrief.com/softonic-layoffs/

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lleims
Author of the article here. Just wanted to share a small update to this story.

Basically, on the day of the announcement of the layoffs, Softonic also
announced that it was acquiring a SF-based company:
[http://novobrief.com/softonic-employees-
layoffs/](http://novobrief.com/softonic-employees-layoffs/)

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bostonpete
Is this linkbait? Seems strange to make a comment like that without mentioning
the name of the other company.

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lleims
I don't think it is and I wouldn't mind editing the comment and getting rid of
the link. Sorry.

Name of the acquired company hasn't been published yet because it hasn't been
disclosed.

Sorry for the confusion.

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tripzilch
Sometimes the children I teach want to install the software we use at home.
For some pieces of software, Softonic is on the first page of search results
for the name of the software. It's usually half-way down (used to be more near
the top, thankfully this changed).

I always warn them to never ever get their software from Softonic, but instead
always make sure you end up on the official site for the computer program.
Because on numerous occasions, downloads from Softonic came with "extras", a
toolbar or changing your default search engine / homepage, or pop-ups telling
that their computer is "at risk"[0].

I'm always very careful explaining this because the last thing I want to
happen is some computer-clueless parent installing software for their super-
smart kid, getting all sorts of ad- and spyware along the way.

So my point is, I'm a bit ambivalent? On the one hand, yes I absolutely think
it's terrible that all these people will be losing their jobs. It's a pretty
big hit (though not as big as what Opera did...). On the other hand, what this
company was doing ... was it creating value for anyone?

[0] well, I won't lie to them and tell them that indeed it is, unfortunately
there's absolutely nothing they can do about it (I usually tell them to at
least get MSE, an adblocker and maybe Ghostery, but that does nothing to
protect you from scammers, phishing, or governments).

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drsintoma
I remember the days when softonic was "the" place to go to discover new
software. Then the whole site started to become shady with SMS for fast
downloads and whatnot. At that point I stopped trusting the site completely, I
guess I was not the only one.

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hemancuso
450 employees!!?? At least ten times what I would have ever guessed. I'd be
surprised if mac update had more than 4.5 employees.

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kifler
Location: Spain. Is anyone really surprised?

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alexperezpaya
Things are changing here. The funny thing is that this company was an example
of success for newspapers. We knew this was going to happen, this company has
been installing garbage in computers for years, that's not a solid bussiness
plan

