Download of the Week: Secunia PSI

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Jos

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Keeping your operating system up to date is vital to having a malware-free computer. But even if you've got Windows fully patched, any one of your installed applications can be a potential point of entry for attackers should you forget or are just too lazy to grab the latest version. Enter Secunia PSI, a freeware security tool that makes it easy to find and fix old programs on your PC, even those that lack automatic update features.


The program can recognize thousands of software products and gathers update information from a variety of online sources. After performing a system scan, you'll be presented with a list of insecure apps that have available updates, as well as "end-of-life" programs that are no longer being supported by the developer. The overview also provides an overall system score as well as basic information about your programs, with a ton more easily accessible by switching to the advanced interface mode.


Apart from providing a detailed listing of potential threats, Secunia PSI will offer download links to their respective updated versions, which you'll have to install manually. By default, the program is set to launch on boot and will start monitoring your system for new software or newly discovered security holes. If you prefer manual scans, you can turn this off and save system resources using the settings tab in the advanced mode.

Needless to say, Secunia PSI is not meant to replace your antivirus or firewall tools, but it does provides an extra layer of protection for ensuring that your software is as secure as it can be.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/36772-download-of-the-week-secunia-psi.html

 
Interesting little program. It found 4 Flash player problems - versions 7 - 10 (I didn't even know that I had version 7!) and Quicktime. Once I applied the solution, all was OK. Cool.
 
Secunia PSI > Advanced > Settings > PSI Settings
Remove the tick: "Start the Secunia PSI on boot"
Mine was running at a whopping 40+Meg of Ram
Generally the program is quite good though :)
 
I feel tempted to give this software a try, but ultimately... it's just another bit of security that bogs down my machine. I haven't had any serious or even minor security problems (that I am aware of) in ages, so I think I'm doing a pretty good job taking care of my machine by myself.
 
I just want to say, Been there, Done that.....and then un-installed it, I don't think I need to install another software on my computer just so that it may alert me to install more
No need for this in any actual home or office environment, too many nags, memory usage and the update process isn't as smooth as it may look, in my opinion the most simple such utility is the FileHippo.com's Program Update Checker, which does the same, is portable and you can download and run it any time on any pc, its size is on 155kb and it does a very decent job of finding old software and giving links to downloads on one single webpage.

FileHippo.com Program Update Checker:
http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker/
Download the stand-alone version without the installer, sun it, update your system and then forget about it..... :)
 
I downloaded the program on my Vista 64bit laptop. The program was fast and takes up very little system resources when scanning. If you x out of the program, the program will still be running in the system tray.

How well it works is another question. I had my laptop scanned and it didn't find any threats.
 
I love trying out these neat freeware programs. Even though I lack knowledge of Linux, I still love the idea of open source and freeware, and am excited to give this a try.
 
Sweet, I'm going to get this right away. I've been looking for something just like this for awhile now.
 
I like these weekly downloads, but I find that I end up using them about once, think "this is awesome", then forget they exist. lol
 
You know, whenever it comes to all these neat little freeware apps, I'll always just download it and find it awesome for like a week. After that it's normally just another app that I realize I never use so I remove it, but sometimes I end up keeping them; stuff like VistaSwitcher and RM-Clock, those things are pretty awesome.
 
I'll give it a try and see if it really worth installing.

Ok been there done that. Nice apps. This is what I got

Your Secunia System Score of 100% is 5% HIGHER than the average user from -, Philippines.
 
I used to use an online service like this very long ago to scan manually
It is in my opinion very nice when you have many apps installed and want to find updates to them, granted I usually keep my system updated manually tho, I just prefer it that way

Oh,and another vote for UltraMon, I actually covered it here in TS long ago in our news but it deserves another mention
https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic7610.html
 
mattfrompa said:
I love trying out these neat freeware programs. Even though I lack knowledge of Linux, I still love the idea of open source and freeware, and am excited to give this a try.
Click to expand...

Then first thing you should learn is that freeware is not necessarily open source, and open source is not necessarily free software (read GPL).

Little apps like this should make Microsoft consider stealing some ideas from the Ubuntu camp. The software updater more precisely. I like how Ubuntu updates almost 90% of all your installed software and this feature is definetly needed in Windows.
Windows made some progress with the third party drivers update feature in Windows Update for Vista/7, but Adobe, Apple and other Windows software are often more dangerous if not kept up to date. Of course some of the apps come with their own automatic update manager, but most not so knowledgeable people ignore those. And other updaters, like the silent Google Chrome Updater, are just scary.

One solution would be to implement a Ubuntu like third-party software system. When you install an app you get the option to add its repository address to your Windows Software Updater. Then the software updater works like the normal Windows Update and checks the repos of theese apps for updates at a chosen time interval.
 
do they deem everything that isnt up to date "insecure"?
Thats a bit... paranoid. Not to mention that some updates introduce security holes that weren't there before. And I cant imagine they have the resources to check up on every new update of the tons of programs in their database.

Oh well, might be interesting for some.. I dont think its a necessity for me
 
I'm going to have to give this app a shot when I get home from work. Although I'll be turning the settings off for it to start up automatically. I hate that every app you download now a days automatically starts with your pc, giving some people that don't know any better an insane amount of start up items that do nothing but hog memory and generally are only needed when you would want to go manually use them. For example does anyone seriously notice any difference using adobe readers speed launcher start up exe? I sure don't.
 
I don't think I'll use it myself, but as the family's "IT person" it may be a good program to run on other people's machines to see if there's any glaring problem.
 
I wonder how "user friendly" this is. This should be deigned for people who do not know much about PC's. Question is if they are going to run it, if they are too lazy to do the updates.
 
I've been telling people about this software for a long time. It's great at helping users determine what is out of date on their machine. So many people still run old versions of things like Java, Acrobat, Flash, etc.

Hope this gets the word out to more people.
 
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