Keeping your software up to date

I'm back from summer vacation and trying to focus on getting some work done, in spite of the nasty case of poison ivy I picked up while I was camping on Cape Cod. This plant is just plain mean, for no good reason that I can think of...

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Although it's sometimes annoying, I get some warm fuzzies from Windows Update, because I like the idea that I have the most recent bug fixes for the software I'm using. What Windows Update does for the operating system, Secunia PSI does for applications, but only to the extent of finding software updates that plug security holes. If a piece of software I'm using has a new version available that fixes other kinds of bugs, or adds new capabilities, I would also like to know about that.

Featured Software:
FileHippo Update Checker

When I was researching Secunia PSI, I ran across a blogger's mention of another program -- FileHippo Update Checker -- which seems to find out about all available updates, whether security-related or not. For the more adventurous, it even provides links to available beta test versions of software you are running.

Since I ran across this before updating my software with Secunia PSI, I decided to compare what these two programs found. As one would hope, FileHippo Update Checker found a superset of the updates that Secunia PSI found.

I created a short Guide, here , which describes FileHippo Update Checker, and compares it to Secunia PSI. Give it a look and tell me what you think... Do we need both programs?