The only way was until recently to visit the websites that host the applications manually and check for new versions. Some offered mailing lists or RSS feeds which could be used to stay informed without visiting the website right away.

So called Software Updaters could be the solution. There are actually quite a few programs out there that scan your computer for applications and display a list of outdated ones after the scan. But which one finds the most applications, which has the database that is updated most frequently and which actually works ?

That’s what I’m going to find out today with the battle of the software updaters. The applications that I tried are:

AppGet
Appupdater
File Hippo Update Checker
Secunia Personal Software Inspector
Sumo
Update Star

AppGet:

AppGet was the only software that did not check for updates. I’m not sure if I missed a button somewhere but I was not able to check for updates manually nor find a button to do that automatically. It did find more applications than any other updater but since it did not find any updates it’s pretty useless to me.

The software is Beta which could be the reason but this is the main function of a software updater next to scanning for software. What I liked is that software versions are reported to the central database which means that the database gets updated during a scan for applications.

Appupdater:

The scan found 79 applications of which 16 had to he updated. A button do download all updates and to install all updates was offered as well as options to uninstall the applications. Most applications did not have a (single) download button and false positives where reported. Firefox 2.0.0.11 was in the list although that was the installed version on the computer.

The option to download updates for every installed application independently is missing and the information panel is not showing the current version of the application that it asks you to download.

File Hippo Update Checker:

When you execute the File Hippo application it scans your computer and displays a list of updates on the File Hippo homepage. File Hippo is only scanning for applications that are available on their website which could explain why it did only find 18 applications while Sumo and Update Star found almost twice as much.

All updates have to be downloaded separately using the interface, a way to upload all at once would have been great. I like the way the information are presented, the name of the application the installed version, the latest version and the size of it are displayed.

File Hippo does not take into account licensed software. I have Nero 7 installed for instance and it displays that the latest version of Nero 8 was available. It is however not possible to update unless I would pay for the update.

Secunia Personal Software Inspector:

The Secunia Personal Software Inspector is more a security application than a software updater. It scans your computer for insecure applications and displays them in a list. What puzzles me a bit is that several applications have been listed up to three times in the list.

The newest Beta version of Opera was not recognized as well and I was told to update it. Several buttons are directly accessible in that list, a button to download the latest version, to display information, to open the folder and to rescan the application. It’s a vulnerability scanner however and does not find many free and Open Source applications.

Sumo:

Sumo was one of the two applications that found twice as many updates as all the other tested applications. One reason however could be that it did split components of one application. It did find updates for Nero, Nero Backitup and Nero Home for instance which could all be updated with one update. It did have the same problem that File Hippo had, that it suggested to update to Nero 8 while I was still using Nero 7.

Updates cannot be downloaded directly. If you select a file from the list and click on Get Update a page on the Sumo homepage will be loaded showing statistics of the application, that is how many users are using which version of it. The website offers to search for updates at Major Geeks, File Forum and Google. Direct Download links would make this application way better and are really missing.

Update Star:

If I had to choose the visually most appealing application it would be Update Star. It did find the most updates either, the list can be sorted to only display older programs or include unknown versions or ignored programs as well. Most entries have a download link next to their name, current version and installed version.

Download links lead directly to the programs homepage. There is unfortunately no update all button available which means that you have to click on each download button, visit the homepage, download and install the application and repeat the process until you have updated all applications.

Update Star is as well suggesting to update Nero 7 to Nero 8 which is not possible without purchasing the new version.

Conclusion:

If I would have to choose only one application I would choose the Update Star. It delivers most updates, has a clean way of displaying them in a list and links directly to the authors homepage. A button to download all would have been nice though and a way to disable the scan of commercial applications.

AppGet did not work unfortunately and I will take a look at it when the author is updating the current version.

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Page Update Watcher can do this for you after you add the websites that you want to check from time to time. To do so, you have a very simple interface with logically organized groups of buttons at your disposal. The buttons and menus can be used to add or modify links to websites that you want to observe and it is even possible to create categories for certain subjects or intervals for groups of websites.

It’s also possible to add pages from your bookmarks (IE & FF supported only) instead of typing in links manually. For each page added you can set an interval between individual checks ranging from one minute to a whole month. The most amazing thing about this tiny utility is that it even lets you precisely specify which content should be watched. You can download the page’s source code within the program’s interface to determine the part of code you’re interested in and then set which part of that website is to be controlled. This way, you can avoid many false alerts from dynamically changing sites.

Besides previously mentioned features Page Update Watcher can also send you a notification e-mail when a website update is detected. It can also just sit in the system tray and pop up a clickable link for you to follow to that site.

The application also supports several hot-keys thus improving the interaction with itself and speeding up checks for one category or all of them. No website updates will evade you any more.

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