Brothersoft Awards 2008 - Top Downloads

Focusing in the download statistics of our servers, we've selected the ten most downloaded programs during 2008, and we've chosen them from the various software categories. Performance, quality and characteristics provided by these titles were also taken into account for the final compilation of the list.


WinZip is the most trusted way to work with compressed files. No other compression utility is as easy-to-use or offers the comprehensive and productivity-enhancing approach that has made WinZip the gold standard for file-compression tools.

User Interface
Its powerful and easy to use Wizard/Classic interfaces are suitable both beginners and experienced users. It is fully customizable thanks to the use of skins
Highlight Features
This is without a doubt the best and most comprehensive tool for managing compressed files when the ZIP format is concerned. It also supports a few other compression formats. Its strength lies in its ease of use and options. It also provides advanced encryption, internal administration of the contents of compressed files, JPEG compression, support for antivirus, size calculation, support for UUencoded, XXencoded, BinHex, and MIME and much more etc..
Use and Help
Users have the ability to create self-extracting archives, splitting and joining of files, they are also enabled to execute files located within a compressed file and it will be very easy to use thanks to its WinZip Wizard full integration with Windows.
Price/Value
It costs $29.95 and there is a 45-days limited trial edition


Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program which is the current and primary market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation, and is the flagship product of Adobe Systems. It has been described as "an industry standard for graphics professionals" and was one of the early "killer applications" on the Macintosh.

User Interface
It has a very practical and professional interface with no title bar and divided into panels which can be minimized for a workspace maximization.
Highlight Features
The perfection and accuracy of this application made of it the standard software for photo retouching It is also extensively used in many disciplines in the design and photography fields, such as web design, bitmap images composition, digital styling, photography, graphics and video editing and basically any activity that requires digital image processing. It supports many image files formats such as BMP, JPG, PNG, GIF, among others, also having some of its own like PSD, PDD which allow layers, channels and guides saving. Its work is focused in the manipulation and edition of pixels.
Use and Help
It has an amazing load of functions and possibilities including the use of hundred of filters, clipping, cropping, copying and pasting, the use of layers, Smart Object Tool, Image Warp, Spot healing brush, Red-Eye effect reducing tool, Lens Correction filter, Smart Sharpen, Vanishing Point and so many others, all of the of great importance in the process of home-made and professional photo retouching.
Price/Value
It costs $699, the free trial offers a 30-days full functionality period.


Use Yahoo! Messenger to chat with friends for free and enjoy stealth settings, PC calls, file sharing, photo sharing, SMS, emoticons, and more.

User Interface
It has a very attractive tabbed interface, smart and easy to use
Highlight Features
This is one of the most complete instant messaging clients available. It send files, perform voice conversations and even video conferences. This is one the most innovative IM clients in terms of new features and its is also very stable. An important feature enables users to send messages to offline users, which will be received upon connection. Furthermore, it presents no annoying advertising, stealth/privacy settings, and it is very easy to use and has a very elegant design.
Use and Help
Besides most common IM clients functionality, Yahoo! Messenger offers PC-to-PC calls, SMS, a calendar of events/appointments (which users can share with other people), a news section, games, and weather forecast. It supports the use of avatars and emoticons.
Price/Value
Best – Free.


Nero, the easy-to-use yet powerful multimedia suite, gives you the freedom to create, rip, copy, burn, edit, share, and upload online. Whatever you want – music, video, photo, and data – share and enjoy with family and friends anytime, anywhere.

User Interface
It has a functional and pretty easy to use interface attempts to ensure that the whole process is as smooth as possible.
Highlight Features
This is one of the most popular CD and DVD burner. Nero is an applications suite intended to burn CDs and DVDs with expanded multimedia capabilities. Nero Toolkits includes eight applications to recover deleted files from CD and DVD (Nero RescueAgent) to know the speed of units (Nero DriveSpeed) and performance test( Nero DiscSpeed). All managed by Nero ControlCenter.
Use and Help
Users can convert any music collection to MP3 or other formats, create music mixes and turn records and tapes to CDs and edit audio files with. As for video, Nero allows edition, creation of menus and chapters, remove ads from recorded shows, recode them, and so on. Regarding image/photography, it has a visualizer that optimizes pictures. This app has automatic correction of the photographs, adjustments for exposure, colour balance, brightness and contrast and many other actions.
Price/Value
It costs $79.99 and there is a 15-days trial version.


Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) which is the world's most popular download manager provides faster download speed & greater security.

User Interface
The interface has been very well designed,
Highlight Features
This is a complete download manager which is compatible with almost all browsers. Download Accelerator Plus accelerates the reception of files by splitting them in segments which size is defined by the user. Once downloaded, the various pieces of the file will automatically be reunited. It integrates with browsers and supports both, HTTP and FTP, incorporating preview if the downloaded file is a video. Includes integration with Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape and Opera.
Use and Help
Download Accelerator will accelerate the process of downloading large files. Download Accelerator Plus supports all kinds of connections (including cable and ADSL), proxy servers and can resume failed downloads, even on servers that do not support it due to its "Always Resume”.
Price/Value
Best – Free. There is a Premium version which includes extended functionality for $39.95.


AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition provides you basic antivirus and antispyware protection. Rapid virus database updates are available for the lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers.

User Interface
It has a flexible, easy to use and intuitive interface where users can choose various options.
Highlight Features
This is an interesting and powerful free antivirus designed to protect PCs against the many viruses infection circulating through the Internet and if infected, take action against them. A plus is that, unlike some free anti-virus, AVG is regularly updated in an automated way.
Use and Help
It includes: AVG Resident Protection for constant system monitoring, AVG Email Scanner scans incoming e-mails, AVG On-Demand Scanner analyses files, folder or HDDs, scheduled scans, virus database free update, automatic update function, disinfection of infected files automatically, AVG Virus Vault system for safely handling of infected files AVG antivirus software can pause scanning to resume later.
Price/Value
Best – Free.


Free Music Zilla is the first tool specialized for social music downloading.

User Interface
It presents itself in a very interesting and professional-looking interface.
Highlight Features
This is the first tool specialized in social download of music or any audio file, making it possible for files hosted on websites such as Mog, Imeem, Last.fm, Pandora, Myspace, iJigg, Radio.blog.club and many others. Free Music Zilla supports the major web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera and others. Free Music Zilla offers the easiest way to download mp3.
Use and Help
The application works in the background, saving the files in the indicated directory and has a similar method to P2P clients but more secure and limited in terms of users. This application allows users to download any files from different websites, and it allows users to correctly analyse and select files to be downloaded.
Price/Value
Best – Free.


Adobe Reader software is the global standard for electronic document sharing. It is the only PDF file viewer that can open and interact with all PDF documents. Use Adobe Reader to view, search, digitally sign, verify, print, and collaborate on Adobe PDF files.

User Interface
It has a precise and efficient interface with toolbars that allows perfect document visualization.
Highlight Features
This is a powerful tool designed for reading, browsing and printing the files documents in PDF format (Portable Document Format). PDF is a model for storing documents, developed by Adobe Systems, which main advantage is the ability to display information without having the edition option. PDF files have become a standard for document distribution over the Internet.
Use and Help
Adobe Reader brings integration with browsers, can play Quicktime, Macromedia Flash and WM (audio and video), read and organize eBooks, draw pictures presentations created with Adobe Photoshop Album, shows different layers in PDF documents, it also brings improved printing PCL and Adobe PostScript, support for greater and more extensive documentation, support for all versions of PostScript (including 3.0), support for the format PDF 1.3, a better handling of colour and a full compatibility with all previous versions.
Price/Value
Best – Free.


IE7Pro is a must have add-on for Internet Explorer, which includes a lot of features and tweaks to make your IE friendlier, more useful, secure and customizable. IE7Pro includes Tabbed Browsing Management, Spell Check, Inline Search, Super Drag Drop, Crash Recovery, Proxy Switcher, Mouse Gesture, Tab History Browser, Web Accelerator…

User Interface
It enables several changes to be made to the IE 7 interface.
Highlight Features
This is an awesome add-on for Internet Explorer, designed to provide many new features and capabilities. It will make IE more user-friendly, it will increase its security and it also brings options for enhanced customization.
Use and Help
This add-on can be use to manage tabs, ads blocking, Flash elements blocking, add features, smart drag, fail recovery, Proxy servers, mouse gestures, history, and web accelerator. It also makes some adjustments to the appearance of the browser that could not be done in other way. Users can access a range of additional options by an icon in the status bar such as refreshing tabs on a regular time interval and many other options.
Price/Value
Best – Free.


Glary Utilities offers numerous powerful and easy-to-use system tools and utilities to fix, speed up, maintain and protect your PC.

User Interface
It works under a very simple and easy to use interface, which supports, many languages..
Highlight Features
This is a powerful tools pack designed to maintain and improve any PC, Glary Utilities functions kit includes a series of tools intended to optimize the functioning of the operating system possibilities. As additional functions, Glary Utilities includes several features to ensure privacy and security of documents such as encryption /decryption of files. In total, more than 20 well defined functions.
Use and Help
Its capabilities include deletion of temporary files, cleaning the system registry, edit and repair shortcuts, uninstall programs, optimize the boot sequence, permanent files elimination, optimize memory and other. Users can even set the boot sequence indicating the programs that are loaded, which results in a faster boot. Optimizes the use of memory, and protects your privacy and security by blocking spyware, trojans, adware and all kinds of malware.
Price/Value
Best - Free.

Final Words
We have reached the bottom of this list of award winner programs in the Top Download category of the BrotherSoft Awards 2008, as you can see all these titles are very valid and important in their respective software categories. Not only they have received these awards thanks to the figures in a download statistics but mainly due to their outstanding characteristics.