Before we can get down to the difficult business of breaking our resolutions, we're giving 2010 one last hurrah. Watch CNET editor at large Brian Cooley round up the worst software releases of the past 12 months. Did we miss your most hated software of 2010? Tell us what's on your "worst-of" list in the comments below.

What's the No. 1 New Year's resolution? To lose weight and get in shape, of course. What's one of the best ways to do both? Running.

If you're a novice runner, an app like Couch to 5k is a great place to start. But for anyone who's already accustomed to hitting the pavement, I've yet to find an app I like better than RunKeeper.

The Pro version normally costs $9.99, but from now until the end of January, you can get RunKeeper Pro absolutely free.

Way back in July 2009, I called RunKeeper the "coolest freakin' iPhone application ever." And to this day I still think it ranks in the top 10.

The app tracks your physical activities: running, walking, biking, skiing, and even gym-based stuff like treadmills. For most of these it relies on your iPhone's GPS to monitor your location, speed, distance, time, route, and so on.

When you're done with, say, a run, one tap is all it takes to upload your data to the RunKeeper Web site, where you can review your route on a map and check all your statistics.

Along the way, RunKeeper can pipe your chosen playlist and/or provide audio cues, like your time, distance, and average pace. It also offer "coaching" options (target pace and interval training) and geo-tagged photos (which are a pain to take while running, but still cool).

In short, it's nothing short of a killer app for runners. There are countless others, but I haven't found any reason to switch. It's definitely worth $10, so getting it for free is like getting a belated holiday present.

While we're on the subject of fitness, be sure to check out my previous post on four apps that can help you lose weight. Now put down that Twinkie and get off the couch! (This from the guy whose butt has been in a desk chair all day.)

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

With the steady rise in Chrome, 1 out of every 10 people surfing the Web in December used Google's browser.

Chrome's gains have come largely at the expense of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, whose usage share has been dropping for years, but there's also a ray of hope for Redmond. IE9, which embodies Microsoft's ambition to build a cutting-edge browser once again, is showing signs of real adoption with usage that grew from 0.4 percent in November to 0.5 percent in December, according to new statistics from Net Applications.

Fractions of a percent may sound insignificant, but with hundreds of millions of people using the Web, they actually represent a large number of real users. And in the current competitive market, browser makers are attuned to where the growth is occurring.

For months now, Chrome has risen. Most recently, it rose from 9.3 percent in November statistics to 10 percent in December, according to Net Applications. That's helpful for Google's ambition to speed up the Web overall; Chrome is a vehicle by which the company can explore, develop, and promote new features, such as Native Client, SPDY, WebP, and False Start, that Google hopes will speed the Web and make it a more powerful foundation for applications.

Mozilla's Firefox, the second-place browser, stayed flat at about 22.8 percent, Apple's Safari rose from 5.6 percent to 5.9 percent, and Opera was flat at about 2.2 percent. Chrome and Safari grew at the expense of IE, which dropped from 58.4 percent to 57.1 percent.

Note that because browser usage overall is increasing, even percentages that remain flat from month to month still mean a growing user base.

Microsoft can take consolation that its share losses have come from older versions of its browser. IE6, an advanced browser when released nearly a decade ago but now despised among Web developers for retarding progress on the Web, dropped from 13.7 percent in November to 13.1 percent in December. IE7 dropped from 9.5 percent to 8.8 percent.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

The end of the year is the perfect time to reflect back on the achievements of the past 12 months and look expectantly ahead to the potential advancements coming in the near future. So we here at Download.com we did just that.

For starters, we rounded up our top 10 most popular downloads from 2010. The site served up billions of downloads in 2010; check out the roundup and you can find out which 10 Windows programs were the most popular throughout the year.

We also made some predictions for CES 2011. Software and services may take a back seat at the Vegas-based trade show, but they're becoming more prevalent--particularly in the mobile space.

Finally, we wanted to make sure all of your systems--desktop and mobile alike--were up to date. To that end, don't miss out on our New Year, New PC package, where you'll find great deals on software and have access to some of the best exclusive offers available. Plus, we've updated our starter kits for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry devices.