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Friday, August 08, 2008

Keep your installed software updated using Personal Software Inspector [PSI]

Installed software in Windows should be kept updated to the latest versions of those software as newer versions not only provide better performance, but also patch any discovered vulnerabilities that could harm your computer. Though most software provide features to look for updates for those software, many don’t. It is also convenient if all the software that are installed can be updated from a single location.

Secunia Personal Software Inspector [PSI]

Secunia’s Personal Software Inspector [PSI], is a Freeware tool, that lets you do just that and quite a lot more. Listing out all the software that have a newer version available, it provides a direct link to most of them for download and update – very useful as you don’t have to bother yourself with trying to figure out which version of the software you need to download based on your computer’s configuration and setup – Secunia does it for you.

Being a software developed by a computer security service provider,  PSI also informs you of the potential vulnerabilities that the installed software posses and the degree of threat posed to your computer by that vulnerability. Based on that information you can take appropriate decision about that installed software, either conclude that the threat posed to your computer isn’t threatening enough or uninstall the software.

Though the number of software for which it informs you of update is vast, there were a few software that I use whose updates are not informed through PSI. They have thoughtfully provided a link using which you may inform them of the need to add that software for monitoring. Still of the around 103 software installed, 7 not being monitored is not that bad a record for this nifty freeware.

One thing that they could also have monitored, would in my opinion, be device drivers. However this may have been a deliberate omission as many choose to install non-official drivers for their hardware.

For keeping my device drivers in Windows updated, I prefer using another freeware – DriverMax.

Godspeed