UpdateStar Appears Dim Compared to Other Patch-and-Update Utilities
Some software seems to ne'er update; some seems to update hebdomadally. It's easy to be few releases behind the curve, which send away follow anything from mildly irritation to–if there's a major security hole in the version you're using–straight-out desperate. UpdateStar bequeath scan your installed programs, check their versions, and look away at their database to determine if you penury to upgrade. In the freeware version of UpdateStar, all it bequeath do is tell you–you have to Adam run the newest version happening your own. Don't get me wrong: This is still effectual, arsenic I discovered I was seriously behind the curve along some software I use regularly.
UpdateStar is sometimes a little quirky about how it decides versions, and doesn't mark between new versions of a program and new programs in a serial or line. For example, I downloaded Bioshock via Steam a while back. UpdateStar tells me I am out of appointment–but it's basing this on the world of Bioshock 2, an entirely various secret plan, and isn't seeing if I have the latest patch installed to Bioshock 1. This can be debatable in smaller shipway. I am non eager to move to Office 2010, but I do want to be sure I have the latest patches to Spot 2007. Even so, UpdateStar's database is non with-it plenty to draw that eminence.
UpdateStar Premium ($35) kicks upbound the functionality quite a bit. For one thing, you force out click the "Download" button and immediately be taken to the administrative body download website for the current version. "Minor" upgrades (1.1245 to 1.1246) become visible in the window. It also offers community-driven security department ratings. UpdateStar Clear suffers from the "teaseware" problem to a partial extent; spell some functions are clearly marked as not available, others will seem active voice until you can snap on them.
Because of the community-driven nature of UpdateStar, information technology can often be frustrating. For example, I am in the beta for a game called APB Unlimited. I seaport't updated my beta in a while, existence busy, and so I clicked the "download" selection in UpdateStar. This took me to the UpdateStar Webpage, where I launch a number of banner ads that characteristic big, shiny "download" buttons to tempt casual OR careless users into clicking them. Buried in infinitesimal print at the bottom of the actual content on the page, I unearthed a notice that no download for the beta was available, and would I please like to add one? I mightiness ask why the program itself isn't astute enough to disable the "Download" choice if no such link exists, just the do is simple: If it did that, there would cost to a lesser extent cause for me to go the Web site and see the revenue-generating banner ads.
While I recognize that companies often accept gnomish control terminated the content of banner ads served to their place, the ubiquitous fake "download" buttons when taken to a Thomas Nelson Page whose main purpose is to leave a "secure" download for updates is counter-productive. I do not know what, if anything, UpdateStar can do to filter these ads, but perhaps not displaying them to "Premium" customers would be possible. "Pay for ad-free" is a common business modelling.
Another return I experienced was that when I went to look for an update to PopCap Games' popular Spangly, I was linked to a paginate for "Easy Bejeweled," a halt from a different caller. I was informed that the database update is semi-automated but human-moderated, and these kinds of erroneous matches are known, but rare. Thus, check cautiously to make up sure you're looking at the right program.
Happening the plus side, UpdateStar's background rake has alerted me, in the pair of one hebdomad, to trine updates to programs I probable would have missed.
Overall, I found UpdateStar to be a great idea with a lot of functions I could use, marred by the apparent design intent to funnel users into publicizing-full pages whether there was any meaningful content there or not. The database is at the same time across-the-board and partial; there are many programs it knows active, but the detail for apiece political platform varies greatly. The ad-cluttered Web site and the occasional data errors I've experienced all work on to undermine the chief selling point of UpdateStar as a one-stop-shop for safe and current downloads. PCWorld favorite Secunia PSI is a bettor bet.
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/481536/updatestar.html
Posted by: biermannoccowell.blogspot.com
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