Like many of you, I have dozens of applications and utilities on my system. However, keeping track of new releases for each product isn’t really something I am interested in… unless the new release patches security issues. So for the past few months, I have been using Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) on my system to keep an eye on these releases for me.
The product is described like so:
The Secunia PSI is a FREE security tool designed to detect vulnerable and out-dated programs and plug-ins which expose your PC to attacks. Attacks exploiting vulnerable programs and plug-ins are rarely blocked by traditional anti-virus and are therefore increasingly "popular" among criminals.
The only solution to block these kind of attacks is to apply security updates, commonly referred to as patches. Patches are offered free-of-charge by most software vendors, however, finding all these patches is a tedious and time consuming task. Secunia PSI automates this and alerts you when your programs and plug-ins require updating to stay secure.
One thing I really like about this tool is that it not only detects and monitors installed applications (i.e. Office, Flash, etc.) but it also tracks portable utilities and browser add-ons as well. Additionally, many of the programs can be updated directly through PSI so it does all the downloading and installation for you.
For those of you who like to keep everything up to date on your system, I would highly recommend giving PSI a look.
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I use Update Checker from FileHippo; it might be an idea to compare the two. There is also the CNET TechTracker, which I was not too keen on when it was released.