Dec 25

Ultimate Software Update Monitor?

Posted in: Freeware, Newly Released, Reviews, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on January 23, 2008 by CyberNet.

I’m still on a quest to find a great software update monitor so that I know when new versions of my favorite apps are released, and I just found a new one that looks promising. To recap we’ve showed you how to create your own software update monitor, reviewed UpdateStar, tried out AppSnap, played with File Hippo’s Update Checker, and gave Secunia PSI a whirl. That’s a lot of different ways to check for updated programs, and now we’ll add SUMo to the list.

This program is like any of the others in that it analyzes what applications you have installed, and checks to see if a newer version is available. I wanted to try it out, but using my primary computer wouldn’t put the program through its paces. Instead I decided to use it on my test machine which I knew was running a lot of outdated software, and the results were rather impressive.

To use SUMo you have to download and install it, let it scan for installed apps, and then hit the Check button to compare your versions with a remote database. My results looked something like this:

SUMo Update Monitor

Out of the 81 programs that I had installed there were 36 of them that were out of date. No, I wasn’t surprised since I hardly ever update the software that is on this machine. But compared to the other applications available I would say that SUMo provided the best results. I did notice it telling me that Flock 1.0.5 was the latest version despite 1.0.6 being released today, but I wasn’t expecting the software to catch on to updates that fast.

One thing that makes me a little hesitant about this program is that it recommended an update to Opera 9.25 telling me that Opera 9.5.9745 was the latest version. It’s not wrong, but Opera 9.5 hasn’t officially been released yet. So it is essentially telling me to upgrade my stable software to a Beta copy. Knowledgeable users will be able to catch things like this, but other people may unknowingly upgrade to software that isn’t ready for prime time.

When you decide that it’s time to update a program you can click the Get Update button, but I’ll forewarn you that it’s not all that helpful. It will take you to a site, such as this one, that gives you links to search for the download on various other download sites. A link to the program’s homepage would be more helpful, but as long as your Google skills are good I think SUMo should work out well for you.

Get SUMo Software Update Monitor
Thanks Jeremy for the tip!

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