Software updaters.

Anyone who has a Windows computer or laptop,will know that Windows scans your computer on a regular basis to check for viruses and out of date software. But Windows will only scan for Microsoft products and Internet Explorer browsers nothing else,and will only install updates for these. But what about your other web browsers and other software that you have downloaded and installed from the Internet? Well,this is where software updaters come in.There are several updaters available online that are free to use and install very easy.


 

A software updater or software informer will scan for every software you have on your computer or laptop,including your web browsers like Flock and Google Chrome. They will tell you if your web browsers and other software is up to date and most will offer you a download link to download a newer version of that software. 

Some software updaters will tell you if certain software is secure or not,which means if some software you have is putting your computer at risk of viruses.There are many different types of software updaters one is Cnet Teck Tracker,which will scan all of your web browsers and other software and tell you if it is up to date. But the disadvantage of Cnet Tech Tracker is it will only scan for products that are on the Cnet website. 

So if you have a browser or something else that is not included in their site,it won't be scanned. Other software updaters such as Software Informer and R-Updater will scan for all software and update it ,if you wish to.Other updaters such as Secunia PSI scan your software but also scan for it's security as well.I use Secunia and this is a very useful product as it tells you which software is secure or not and offers solutions. 

Some of the solutions it offers is to install the latest version of that software or if there is no solution it will advise you to uninstall that particular software.It will also tell you if your web browsers are secure and will also patch software to make it more secure. Which a lot of other software updaters will not do. Although Secunia will tell you which software is up to date or not it concentrates mainly on security issues of your software. 

Which means it will tell you which items of software is putting your computer at risk of viruses. But Secunia is not a virus protection programmer it is only a software scanner and updater. So you will still have to install a virus protection program from the Internet if you want your computer protected from viruses. 

Although you do not have to do this with Windows as Windows Firewall will protect your computer from unsafe programs and notify you if any are found.Secunia is a free tool and can be used on it's own or with another software scanner such as Cnet Tech Tracker or another product. But I use Secunia on it's own as I find many other updaters do not tell you about all of your software. So at this present time I do not have another updater installed,I just have Secunia. I find this tool has helped me a lot and one of the interesting things it has told me is that it said my edition of Java was insecure. 

But it said there was no solution except to uninstall it,which I did and it has not effected the running of my laptop. It also said the Adobe flash player was not secure, but as I need this to play and record my videos on the websites, I could not uninstall it. I do not advise you to uninstall every item of software on your computer that Secunia or another software updater tells you to. 

As many of your installed software is needed to run your computer or laptop and uninstalling certain software,could mess up your PC. But as Java is a product not used so much now,uninstalling this does not effect the running of your computer. I will explain this more in my next post. Also having a software updater does not effect the running of Windows and Windows will still scan and update it's software.While your software updater will scan other installed software.