Worst downloads of 2008

There is always a Top 10 or Top 5 of something at the end of every year, so we thought you'd like to see if you got sucked into any of what Download.com calls The Worst Downloads of 2008. We took the information directly from their web site.

5) SKAT: In all honestly, this unusually unappealing card game makes my top five worst of 2008 mostly because it's German and named "SKAT." Are you kidding me! That sort of "blue" material might be golden for bawdy comedians, but what about the casual gamer? Unless you're well versed in German and enjoy human-size mice sitting around a photo of an old-timey saloon, you're best passing this diversion by.

4) MB Free Psychic Color Test: It's one thing to exploit users' belief in their own supernatural abilities, but why does pseudoscience have to be so doggone boring?

The free psychic "game" MB Free Psychic Color Test is based on using your psychic abilities to select the color secretly chosen by the computer. The Beginner level starts with five colors; Intermediate brings 10 colors to the mix; and Expert kicks up the fun to 20 colors.

3) Alien Communicator: While I must give this ridiculous program props for winning the unofficial contest for most mind-boggling software program of 2008, it also doesn't do very much of anything remotely useful, aside from randomly generate letters and numbers.

According to "The Story" that comes with this download, the Alien Communicator "translates alien psycho-kinetic control of the random number generation capability of a PC computer into readable letters." Apparently, thoughts travel much faster than the speed of light in spatial dimensions that are scaled smaller than "the four we are familiar with."

2) Psychiatric Diagnosis Suite: When you or someone you care about may have a serious psychiatric problem, the last thing you likely need is a poorly programmed set of canned questions in an interface that's horrible enough to push you over the edge, but that's exactly what you get from Psychiatric Diagnosis Suite. While much of the information in this program is accurate and semi-current, it's nearly impossible for anyone to use it.

1) Automatic Print Email: In a year of "change" where many scientists and concerned citizens believe that our environment is reaching the tipping point when it comes to natural resources, there's no reason to waste paper unnecessarily, yet that's exactly what this software does. For the low, low price of $50, this program will print all of the e-mail from your in-box, creating pages after pages of YouTube links, Viagra spam, Evite invitations, and other minutiae from your friends, relatives, and random strangers.

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CNet Download.com