Software Informer: A Powerful, Community-Driven Software Updater

I shared in this blog months ago about a free software called Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI), which gives us free scans and updates on some of our applications & Windows system. While it is a very useful tool, it has its weaknesses, some of which i really dislike. Firstly, Secunia PSI is only meant to be a vulnerability scanner and a security add-on, meaning to say that it only gives users update over software with vulnerabilities and issue links towards security patches in order to secure your PC. Secondly, Secunia PSI is extremely sensitive towards connection strength & firewall settings; if you happened to have a weak connection or a very intrusive firewall installed on your PC, Secunia may not even run at all. Lastly and perhaps most annoyingly, Secunia can easily hang and crash due to it being reliant on internet connections and online software databases.

Due to the above issues with Secunia, i spent weeks trying to find an alternative to it and by chances i stumbled across Software Informer, a little tool provided by Informer Technologies Inc. Software Informer is a small but powerful software updates informer, much more better than Secunia, in fact. It resolves all the issues users will have with Secunia, which are unreliable performances and limited features. It loads and sits quietly in your system tray and shows only a small, semi-transparent update box on the desktop, consuming less RAM and CPU performance compared to Secunia PSI. Not only does it shows updates for vulnerable application software, it also shows other applications which do not have vulnerability issues. It also runs much more smoothly than Secunia PSI, with no crashes, hangs or lagging performances.


Having said that, Software Informer is not just as simple as that. It is actually also a community-driven software updater, where registered users can participate in providing updates on various types of software, updates and security patches. These feedback and recommendations from users apart from the developers' own database update are the key to Software Informer's software database information. Besides, users can also give feedback on a certain software by leaving a comment and using its star-rating system. That way, other users who happened to run the same application on their PC will get some ideas on what other users think about that particular application when they browse throught their list of installed applications with Software Informer.


Another two good things about Software Informer is that it provides very detailed information regarding an application and is very easy to use. It will mention the developers or companies responsible for the software, version numbers, file size and the amounts of users running the same application. It is very easy to use because it provides search option for users to filter down their software list, in case they installed a lot of applications in their PC. Users can also do lots of task with Software Informer, including uninstalling an application, visiting an application's website through direct links and ask a question regarding an application.

In short, Software Informer is a must-have for users who like to keep their software up-to-date. While it doesn't emphasize on security as much as Secunia had been, it is overall, a much more better choice than Secunia because it touches on every aspects on software-updating issues. I strongly recommend users to install this freeware, as it definitely makes software management a much easier task!

Software Informer works with Windows 200o and above, including Windows Server & Windows 7.

Visit Software Informer's Official Site by clicking on this link

To download Software Informer now, click this download link

(Note: users who have IObit's Advanced SystemCare v3 installed on their PC can download the software directly in its program. Simply launch the program and click on the 'Utilities' button and you can see Software Informer's download link under the Tuneup tab)