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 Instead I decided to use it on my test machine which I knew was running a lot of outdated software, and the results were rather impressive.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:
Out of the 81 programs that I had installed there were 36 of them that were out of date.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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Tags: Freeware, Newly Released, Software, Applications, Reviews
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@Ryan:
I was thinking on using Hippo’s Update Checker. Have you tried it? If positive, could you share with us its features?
Thanks a lot.
Omar.-
@Omar
Hippo Update Checker is very good, and clicking the update link will take you to Hippo’s own website with direct download link. The downside: Hippo only has “limited” software collection (but common ones).
I’m using “File Hippo Checker” daily since I discovered it.
While it doesn’t check 100% of my soft it does a great job at it.
Besides, it detects updates amazingly fast.
And you can choose to download from them or follow the link to the official page.
I tried Sumo before. it detects the updates quite nicely, but unless the “Get update” process is improved I’m not interested
Its not bad but Updatestar is much better as shows the version you have and the version update. So won’t be keeping this not as good.
just a quick note to tony before i do a quick review: tony, there are 2 columns that show exactly what you’re complaining about.
that said, my very first program on the list is Comodo, it says i have version 1.0.0.1 installed and that version 2.4.0 is available….but when i check the ‘about’ on comodo…it shows i have version 3.0.13.268
not sure if i want to waste the time going through all the software or not. may have to look into updatestar.
Hello has anyone heard of Synaptic and Apt.
Gosh.. this just might the 13456th reason to switch to linux.
regarding synaptic and apt, i imagine that if there were as few windows programs as there are for linux, perhaps there could be some sort of repository…but i’d prefer to have many many options and manually look fot the updates than just a few and have them hand fed to me. just my personal preference.
driver problems, such as creative resisting releasing code for linux to reverse engineer and create sound blaster live drivers, may be the 13457th reason to wait to switch to linux until it becomes just a bit more mainstream.
nothing personal, just tired of people entering forums and somehow finding a remote reason to promote linux, they’re starting to get as annoying as yankee fans. hehe.
(and yes, i’ve run linux. dual booted my vista machine with ubuntu, kubuntu, and a couple other flavors…i just prefer good sound and the ability to run my good programs without having to switch to a virtual machine)
I’m just using RSS for filehippo-like sites.
blaszta hit it right on the head. It’s a nice application for checking for updates, but it’s limited in what it is able to check for.
It does show both the version you have and the version available.
Huh, guess it can’t catch them all. And it did so well on the ones that I went through.
That is one of my favorite things about Linux, but there are also several things that make it difficult for me to switch over 100%. So right now I’m hanging out between Vista and Ubuntu.
Are you kidding, Linux package managers are a nightmare (Only Linux distro I’ve ever used that didn’t trash itself was Ubuntu (Suse is trashed immediately after install if you choose the update everything now option
)). While they have gotten better, at least in Ubuntu, I’d still prefer the way windows is now, to the Linux package managers. If you wanna compare to a package system that works, and works really well, how about the FreeBSD ports system, I have never had a single problem with it.
I use Secunia Personal Software Inspector (RC1) which you can download at http://psi.secunia.com
I’ve tried several of these types of programs and i have to say that SUMo is the best yet. It’s not great, and there’s a lot of room for improvement, but the others are so poor that this comes out the best.
Hippo, UpdateStar, AppGet etc are for various reasons subpar. Either because the amount of software checked is very limited or because the database of “recent” versions is ancient. UpdateStar hardly seems to get updated and it mentioned an older version than the one i had installed to be the newest, recommending i “update” to what was actually an older version than the one i had installed (and no, it wasn’t because i had installed a beta). It does look more slick than SUMo however, but i found that counted for nothing. I manually entered updated info on some of my apps and sent it to them through their product, but after a week nothing was updated so i figured that because they are supposed to help ME rather than the other way around, their product was useless to me (for now anyways).
I find Secunia to be the best but unfortunately it is not a software monitor as much as a patch monitor, only letting you know about updates in case some software installed on your PC has vulnerability issues.
Have you tried Software Informer?
Hadn’t heard of that before actually. Looks like it has a nice interface though, and so I’ll have to check that out. Thanks!