Software Update Software

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

http://live.pirillo.com/ – Managing updates for all your software is a tremendous task. I recently came across a wonderful application to do this FOR me on my Macs. Chad West then turned me on to the Windows equivalent. These apps are amazing… taking the work involved with keeping up-to-date right out of my hands.

AppFresh for OS X is a nifty little program that will scan your application directory to get the release information on your installed programs. It will then look at a website to check your versions against the most current release. If you don’t have the latest version installed, AppFresh downloads and installs it for you! How much easier can that get? It even caught some out-of-date widgets I had, and updated those.

I Twittered this information, excited to have found this. I also asked if there were any Windows equivalent programs. Low and behold, there are two. Personal Software Inspector is still in the Beta stage, but appears to be much like AppFresh. It categorises your software into one of three categories: Up-to-Date, Insecure, or End-of-Life. It then gives you direct download links to the newest versions of whatever software needs to be updated and/or replaced.

FileHippo is also a free program. There isn’t even a user interface for this one! Simply double click, allow it to scan, and let it tell you what needs to be updated. This doesn’t only check your programs… it also checks your Java version, and drivers! That’s just insanely cool.

What other programs are out there that you may use? Do you prefer to update things by hand, or let a program do it for you? I always love your feedback… so send it to me!

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