Is Softonic safe and secure for software downloads?
September 8, 2022 6:09 PM Subscribe
Is Softonic safe and secure? Is it fine to download software from there? (They're the only place I could find with Powerpoint for Mac standalone as opposed to in some big Microsoft bundle.)
I went to that site, if you you click on the Download button for Powerpoint, it does redirect you to a Microsoft site to download the 2016 version of Powerpoint, but the link doesn't work, so even if this is legit, it doesn't look like it's working.
If you don't need actual powerpoint, Keynote that came with your Mac will open and save PPT files. Also, there are sales going on right now where you can get the entire office suite for Mac for under $60.
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:21 PM on September 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
If you don't need actual powerpoint, Keynote that came with your Mac will open and save PPT files. Also, there are sales going on right now where you can get the entire office suite for Mac for under $60.
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:21 PM on September 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
As far as I can tell, Softonic is pretty much just a glorified portal that dumps you back at Microsoft's own website to download PowerPoint as part of the paid MS 365 bundle (they also have a free one-month trial version). So it doesn't look like it really exists as a standalone product at this point.
I would be very wary of trying to get any kind of downloadable software from any site other than the actual company that makes/sells it, there's a lot of potential for malware or other nasties to get into your system -- even on a Mac system.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:25 PM on September 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
I would be very wary of trying to get any kind of downloadable software from any site other than the actual company that makes/sells it, there's a lot of potential for malware or other nasties to get into your system -- even on a Mac system.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:25 PM on September 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: I have a Microsoft Office account. At one point years ago, to save space on my computer, I deleted all the big programs that I never used, including Powerpoint. But now I'm back in school and need powerpoint. I'm trying to figure out how I can install that without dealing with some 10 gb Microsoft office suite download file. I don't need to pirate anything.
posted by andoatnp at 7:23 PM on September 8, 2022
posted by andoatnp at 7:23 PM on September 8, 2022
PowerPoint is available to download on the Mac App Store on its own. It's just the license/subscription that's bundled, but you can download only PowerPoint.
posted by hoyland at 7:42 PM on September 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by hoyland at 7:42 PM on September 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: PowerPoint is available to download on the Mac App Store on its own. It's just the license/subscription that's bundled, but you can download only PowerPoint.
This worked. I'm not sure how I missed that. The microsoft website seemed to make it impossible to download powerpoint as a standalone, and I didn't think to check the Mac app store.
posted by andoatnp at 8:46 PM on September 8, 2022
This worked. I'm not sure how I missed that. The microsoft website seemed to make it impossible to download powerpoint as a standalone, and I didn't think to check the Mac app store.
posted by andoatnp at 8:46 PM on September 8, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
OpenOffice is likely your best free solution, i don't think PowerPoint viewer(free) is available from Microsoft for mac.
posted by TheAdamist at 6:14 PM on September 8, 2022 [2 favorites]