Keep Your Software Up To Date with Personal Software Inspector
How many times have you been to a website only to find out you don't have the correct version of Flash or Shockwave, or received a document or file that will not work with the current version of software you have installed?
For Windows you can always turn on Automatic Updates, and with software applications there is often an option to automatically check for updates, but not always, so we are left with researching and manually updating all of these applications. This is not a very efficient way for a busy user to get things done, so today we will take a look at a great utility called Secunia Personal Software Inspector that will help avoid these time wasting annoyances.
Using Secunia PSI
After installing SPSI it will start scanning your system right away for out of date and non secure applications.
When the scan is complete you receive a detailed report of old, patched, or unsecure software residing on your PC. You can use either Simple or Advanced mode and both feature an easy to follow program patch process. This example is the Simple mode for the less tech savvy user.
In Advanced mode much more technical information is provided. Everything is laid out in an easy to read format with charts and graphs to represent different statistics.
So after SPSI finds an out of date or potentially flawed application you will be provided with detailed information indicating why it has been flagged.
Then just below the information report there is different options to gather more information, ignore, or easily fix it. The first option is a direct download solution which links to the most current version.
One caveat is sometimes manual scans can be a bit long but because it takes up few system resources it doesn't interfere with normal computing.
Conclusion
Secunia Personal Software Inspector is a great utility to have for making sure applications are up to date and secure. By default it will run in the background all the time keeping an eye on your applications. They also offer a free online scan of your PC from their website. This allows you to test it's ability without having to install anything. This freeware app is definitely a handy utility to have for keeping up to date on your current system or older computers still in use.
Daily Email Updates
You can get our how-to articles in your inbox each day for free. Just enter your name and email below:
Filehippo.com Update Checker from http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker is also a good little app for making sure your pc programs are very much up to date
And for Macs, the free desktop widget Application Update does the same thing smoothly and behind the scenes. It even has Growl integration so you can get notified when updates are available.
This one worked really well for me. I was having an issue with my Screencast.com software, and installed and ran Secunia PSI. I found out my Macromedia Flash was out of date. Updated it, and everything works fine now. Thanks Geek!
Is this needed if you use windows update?
@Mark
Yes it is, Windows update won't update your third party apps generally speaking.
One thing to remember when you update Java it's very important to uninstall old versions, this tool works very well but has a few limitations.
The typical Norton anti-virus program does not provide this same kind of updating service, does it? Thanks…
@ Mark
No it does not. Norton takes care of itself with regards to updating and nothing else. This product will search your computer, and look at all of the software you have installed whether you're currently using it or not, and find out if it is up to date as far as versions, and security patches are concerned. Then it provides links to those patches for you to, or not to, install.
I Haven't tried this one or Filehippo, but I certainly will.
Previously I have used Belarc Advisor and can tell you it's mighty impressive.
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
Filehippo is the way to go..
I just wanted to comment. Your content was informative to me and thanks.