Links to the most common software

Malware is commonly spread from software downloads not originating from the actual manufacturer itself. The malware is cleverly packaged (and hidden) within the software that you are downloading. This happens frequently when someone is using a search engine to look for a software program and clicks on the first few links that come up on the search results. It comes down to doing your due diligence of carefully looking at the website address before clicking on the download link.  It’s important to make sure you find legitimate, useful links.

We have complied a list of actual links that someone should download the software from. The links direct you to the original manufacturer of the software.

Software Manufacturer Web Address
Web browsers    
Chrome Google http://www.google.com/chrome/
Firefox Mozilla https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
Safari Apple http://www.apple.com/safari/
Opera Opera http://www.opera.com/
Messaging    
AOL Instant Messenger AOL https://www.aim.com/
AOL Desktop AOL http://discover.aol.com/products-and-services/aol-desktop-for-windows
Skype   http://www.skype.com/en/
Thunderbird Mozilla https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
Yahoo Messenger Yahoo https://messenger.yahoo.com/
Media    
iTunes Apple https://www.apple.com/itunes/
VLC VideoLan http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html
Spotify Spotify https://www.spotify.com/us/
Browser Add-ons    
Java Oracle/ Java https://www.java.com/en/
Silverlight Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/
Flash Adobe https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
Air Adobe https://get.adobe.com/air/
Shockwave Adobe https://get.adobe.com/shockwave/
Documents    
OpenOffice Apache/ Openoffice https://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html
LibreOffice The Document Foundation https://www.libreoffice.org/
Adobe Reader Adobe https://get.adobe.com/reader/
Security    
Security Essentials Microsoft http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download
Avast Avast https://www.avast.com/en-us/index
AVG AVG http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage
Bitdefender Bitdefender https://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html
Malwarebytes Malwarebytes https://www.malwarebytes.com/
Online Storage    
Dropbox Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com
Google Drive Google https://www.google.com/drive/download
Utilities    
CCleaner Piriform https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download
Defraggler Piriform https://www.piriform.com/defraggler
Cobian Backup CobianSoft http://www.cobiansoft.com/cobianbackup.htm
Belarc (for creating a listing of your software licenses, running programs, hardware and more) Belarc http://www.belarc.com/