November 7th, 2007
Is the update burden getting to be too much?
Are we being bombarded by far too many update? Wrox editor Jim Minatel thinks we are.
He has a point. Take a look at this list that he posted on his blog:
- ITunes and IPod update. I’ve commented before that these update way too often and are annoying.
- The iTunes and iPod junk continues as they also require me to frequently update QuickTime. QT IMO is trojanware. I sure didn’t want it installed on my PC and prior to iTunes, did everything I could to keep it away.
- Norton AntiVirus. OK, this one’s partially useful. Yes, the weekly check for new virus definitions is a must regardless of your AV solution. I’m on the fence as to whether or not their LiveUpdate auto-updater is good or bad though and whether to allow it frequent program updates for the 9 application components (including LiveUpdate) it wants to check on top of the AV and Worm signature updates
- The HP I bought is configured to check weekly for software and hardware updates. The update it’s recommending today is “required” to fix a problem logging into an HP support site. Really?
- But there’s actually a 2nd HP related updater based on Install Shield that checks for updates for a different set of applications and drivers. Combined, neither of these along with Windows update has every actually found or notified me of actually useful updates, like the video driver and bios updates I still had to find and install manually
- FireFox. argh. This one’s annoying 2x. 2 times this week I’ve had to update firefox and you know how that goes: do it now or do it on next restart.
- At home, I’ve eliminated the frequent Adobe Acrobat updates by moving to Foxit Reader. That’s not an option so I get Adobe Acrobat Reader and Adobe Digital Editions updates far too often.
That a long list, but unfortunately more and more people are finding that they are having to continually update applications to plug up security vulnerabilities and cater for new features. Some applications (for example, the Sophos AV that I use) seem to update regularly without making any fuss about it. Other applications (Firefox springs to mind) is pretty easy to deal with but I think that they process could be streamlined. Other applications, the majority in fact, are a real pain in the rear (iTunes springs to mind).
Jim suggests that much of this burden could be handed over to a central update mechanism. I’m not too sure about that but I think that developers could do more to make the update process as smooth as possible.
What’s your update workload like? Do you feel like you have a handle on it or is it spiraling out of hand?
Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
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