It was definitely not planned the way it has turned out. After finishing my Master Studies I had a simple goal: to spend some time in Spain, to improve my foreign language skills and afterwards return to Germany to start working there.

I have reached my initial objective some time ago I guess. I would have never imagined spending my daily life in Spain. But one thing led to another and I am living in Barcelona for almost two years by now. And there is just no room for regrets. Endless summer nights, long beach seasons and not to mention good food, great music and warm-hearted people - to wrap it up: it was not hard to convince me.

On the professional side, having found a job and good friends in a company with an exemplary entrepreneurial spirit, a young heart and care for its employees definitely puts me on the bright side of life. It means sharing your days with young and like-minded people. Another striking point is that the staff of Softonic consists of at least 10 different nationalities from all over the world. And they all share the same goal: to be part of the Softonic success story.

Sitting here in our astonishing offices on the 12th floor overlooking Barcelona and the Mediterranean Sea, I don’t know where I’d rather be right now in my life. I guess I’m just really lucky!

Everybody seems to have “Olympic Fever” these days, so we’d like to transmit a bit of this excitement to our users. You’ll receive a prize just for taking part in our Softonic Olympics, because what matters most in the Olympics isn’t winning, just participating!

It’s not that easy for athletes to win a gold medal, so you’ll have to work a bit as well in order to win more prizes: create your own team, invite your friends to join and compete with other teams!

How does it work? Well, it’s very easy…

You and your team members have to find the little logos of the different olympic disciplines that we’ve hidden on our website. They look like this…

…and there are 31 different kinds hidden on our pages. Where exactly? Well, you’ll have to find out by yourself. And don’t forget: the bigger your team, the bigger the possibilities to find more! So invite loads of friends and your chances to win will rise.

The team which find the most logos wins and all of its members get a prize. Additionally, the 10 best members will get a 2GB Mp4 player from Energy Sistem. Plus, if you’re the one with the most logos overall, you will get a little something specially just for you:-).

And there’s more! Every participant enters a draw to win a weekend in Majorca for two with Amic-Hotels.

So, what are you waiting for?

Join a Team or create your own team now.

If you want to find out even more, here is more information.

A few weeks ago we invited you to help us select the best programs of the year. Now the Fifth Softonic Awards are over and we’re ready to announce the results. You can find the winning programs here.

Moreover, you will find here the winners of our fabulous prizes which include an Mp4 player fromEnergy Sistem, an Mp3 player from Creative, Shirtcity t-shirts and a weekend in Mallorca with Amic-Hotels.

Thanks again for voting and congratulations to the winners!

Give me an S! Give me an O! Give me an F! Give me a T! Give me an O! Give me an N! Give me an I! Give me a C! What is it? SOFTONIC!

Is there a better way to show the world how much you like Softonic than Facebook? We don’t think so, and that’s why we created the official Softonic page on Facebook! You can easily become a fan of Softonic on Facebook and let your friends know that we at Softonic care about our users and keep in touch with them via blog posts, photos, videos and comments.

Once you become a fan, you can also add photos and videos to our page, leave a message on our wall and get in touch with other Softonic users in a totally different way. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to make your Softonic user profile visible to other people or to engage in debates of all sorts. If you want to become a fan, simply visit the official Softonic page on Facebook and click on the “Become a Fan” link on the top right corner.

After becoming a fan, why don’t you start a new discussion topic in the Softonic in English group? All you have to do to join the group is click on the “Join this Group” link under our logo. What’s more, there are other Softonic groups, one for each one of the languages in which our site is available today: Spanish, German, French and Italian.

So what are you waiting for? Become a fan of Softonic on Facebook today!

We’re finally installed in our new offices and they’re just fantastic!

There is nothing better than to start into the day with a good cup of coffee, on the house of course. The name of the “catorce” (”fourteen” in Spanish), which is the cafeteria, continues a tradition from years back, when our first cafeteria was in ‘room 14′.

Next to it there is a big leisure and play room (with a tabletop football, a Wii, a Playstation 3, an Xbox 360… all connected to a stunning 52″ display). And this is the way it should be. A company that really cares for its employees will always offer them opportunities to relax, enjoy and to share something with their colleagues other than work.

What about the rest? We have 1300m2 left for work! Each team is located in a specially designed zone, the decor and furniture specially adapted to each department’s needs.

So what is the result of putting the whole company on one floor, with glass partitions, floor-to-ceiling windows and all mod cons? Of course: we work better! It is a dream come true for a lot of us. Today more than ever working here is pure luxury.

You can see more photos in our Flickr account, and don’t forget to register as a member in our Facebook group to receive updates on developments here. The official inauguration takes place in October.

I honestly didn’t like the Italian flag to be missing from Softonic’s homepage. Not only because I’m Italian and I love Softonic, but also because there was nothing similar in Italy: a website that’s truly devoted to software, featuring the most important programs, with actual in-house reviews and a large user community where everybody can express themselves and learn.

After many months of hard work and thanks to a great team (you can see the Squadra Azzurra editorial team on the picture, but programmers, webmasters and other professionals were also important players) our little flag is finally showing off its colors together with the others.

The Softonic.it ship has plunged into cyberspace and from now on it will allow Italian users to enjoy a software website that’s suitable for everyone: and when I say everyone I do mean everyone, from the most geeky users to my Mamma who – I must admit it – doesn’t get on very well with her PC….

Now it’s time to cross fingers and hope Softonic.it helps all Italians discover new software and becomes a true friend in this increasingly digital life. Softonic Italy, benvenuto!

This year Softonic has been selected as the second best company to work for in Spain, among companies of between 50 and 100 employees.

For the first time in our history we took part in the annual research conducted by the Great Place to Work Institute, which each year ranks the top 50 companies to workfor in Spain. Two thirds of the analysis, evaluation and selection process are based on the employees’ own opinions about their working environment.

More than 250 companies took part in the research this year, and only 18 of the 50 firms in the list were Spanish. Besides our second position in the results, there are other important points to emphasize:

1. Softonic is the best Spanish company to work in the 50-100 employees category.
2. Softonic is the seventh best company for female employees.
3. Softonic is the fifth best company for young employees.

These results are a reflection of our special work ethic and an excellent team where everyone makes an effort to foment and maintain a creative, friendly atmosphere. This human-based perspective makes team work easier and enables Softonic’s employees to grow both personally and professionally.

The Best Place to Work ranking also features Emagister in the 11th position (in the same category as Softonic) while all the other projects in Grupo Intercom have reached the first position in the category for companies between 100 and 250 employees.

Softonic isn’t just a catalog of software. Behind all those program reviews there’s one of our more than 30 professional software reviewers. We’re an international team of journalists and software experts that work hard every day to find and test the best software tools out there.

We’ve got our own resources and a few tricks to find the hidden treasures in this vast universe of software. They usually come via user recommendations, tips, blog posts, forums or other websites.

So what happens once we’re on the track of an interesting program? The Softonic mechanism starts its engines: download, scan for viruses and spyware, install, test usability, look for any possible bugs, compare to other similar tools and many other tests until we finally uninstall the app and the testing process is done. The last step is then writing a review and adding the Softonic rating, along with expressing our personal opinion about the program.

Now excuse me: I need to go back to searching for more software.

The Softonic Awards are back again for the fifth time. These awards are aimed to acknowledge the best software tools of 2007 and we need your help to choose them. We’d like to know which programs were the most useful, surprising, efficient and handy for you. In other words: make your vote count! Your opinion is very important for us.

Also, with your vote you’re automatically entered into our draw to win great prizes: a weekend for two people in Majorca with Amic-Hotels, Creative MP3 players, Shirtcity T-shirts and lots more.

Vote and win here!

From now on, when you open any of our screenshots at full size, Softonic will display it at 700px width instead of 600px. How is this possible? Instead of using the program page itself to display screenshots, which limited their width considerably, we’ve got rid of this restriction and now display images in a new layer over the program page.

A picture is worth a thousand words: open this program page and click on “Zoom”

The screen will be dimmed and a full-sized screenshot will be displayed over it.