10 worst downloads of 2007

(Credit: Prodege, LLC)

Pity poor me. Everyone else is out drinking spiked eggnog, full of holiday cheer, and here I am, stuck as the PC Grinch, casting snarks and aspersions upon software that intelligent, dedicated people have spent long, hard hours developing. However, the Download.com users occasionally demand blood, and if I'm the one who must bear the sacrificial knife, so be it.

Before I get to the list, I'll start with a disclaimer: These 10 programs are not the worst software programs in the world. These are simply the 10 programs that I had a major beef with in 2007.

Download.com has a strong set of software policies to which any software titles must adhere in order to be listed on our site. The absolute 10 worst downloads in the world won't be found anywhere near our library.

However, you will find some crappy software titles among the 75,000+ programs on the site. Even worse, a good piece of software can sometimes be devalued by a crappy update. Lastly, there are some software programs that simply shouldn't be. These are programs that run smoothly and perform adequately, yet lack a valid purpose, i.e. solutions to problems that don't exist--the pointless downloads.

If a software program has no value to users, we'll pull it off the Download.com site. If we get user complaints about software, we will investigate, and we can remove titles for poor quality or poor publisher behavior. But if software is "so bad it's good," or if it straddles the fence of mediocrity, we'll leave it up to the Download.com audience to determine its value.

Long disclaimer aside, you can read my picks for worst software of the year in a Download.com slide show devoted to the Top 10 worst downloads of 2007. If you agree or disagree, or have a suggestion of your own for the worst downloads of 2007, tell me about it in the blog comments.