One of the main disadvantages of the Windows operating system is the lack of an internal application handling third party software updates on the computer system. An automatic update system like that offered in the Linux operating system would be increasing system security and stability of the Windows operating system. Several third party software programs are available. A while back we compared five software update checkers which were more or less able to scan the installed software programs to check their versions against a database containing the latest versions.
Update Notifier is an alternative software updates checker which can be installed or run as a portable application. The program uses a clean interface that displays the installed version of scanned software programs, the latest known version in the database and a link to a website from where the application can be downloaded in case a newer version is available. The results were correct for all tested applications which is something that several of the previously tested software updater failed in.
A click on the download button will open the website of the software developer that contains information about the application. It takes another two clicks to start the download that is available directly from the same website. There is unfortunately no direct link to the website of the software developer itself to verify the findings or to download the software from there.
Update Notifier can be configured to filter the results list. Filters include the listing of only commercial or free software as well as listings based on the type of update available. The program can also be pointed at a folder on the local computer system containing portable applications to check those for updates as well.
Related posts:
- Software Update Checker Comparison
- Radarsync checks for driver and application updates
- Software Update Monitoring With SUMO
- Check your programs for updates automatically
- Software UpToDate Finds Updated Versions Of Windows Programs
- Windows Updates Downloader
- Battle of the Software Updaters
- Cnet Techtracker Checks For Software Updates
I more or less gave up on software update checkers. Most of my software is portable – updaters suck at detecting such. And I get update information from RSS feeds anyway and it beats dedicated app in speed.
Well, I am huge RSS fan after all. :)
This looks a lot like Oil Change from way back when. If this works as well as that one did it would certainly be a good find.
This checker is okay but doesn’t have that many programs. Filehippo updatechecker is still the best (but still not a complete solution) for me.
Rss is your friend here!
very useful tool, it’s small and fast, and found more apps than any similar tool i’ve used.
thanks for the great post!