Secunia Personal Software Inspector 3.0.0.11005

Overview

Secunia Personal Software Inspector offers a convenient way of scanning your system and providing quick reports on software that needs updates. In case you still wonder why you would want to update your software, be aware that keeping your apps up to date is an important security prerequisite. Cybercriminals constantly find breaches and wholes in programs and use them to infiltrate users’ systems for a variety of reasons. Developers, on the other hand, release updates that contain patches to those holes and breaches. This is the main reason why you need to keep your apps updated.

Secunia PSI is not just a scanner and report generator. It takes on the entire task of updating your numerous programs from the convenience of the only interface. Secunia compares metadata of your software located in EXE, DLL and OCX files with data on Secunia servers. If the data do not match, Secunia initiates updates.

Installation

Installation of Secunia PSI is simple and straightforward. Secunia requires the latest version of MS Windows Update Agent installed to function properly. This is the part when you click on update your WUA which requires IE launching. However, IE and our antivirus, McAfee, suggested we do not proceed to the website because it poses a threat. Hopefully, this issue gets resolved soon. Secunia installed and functioned properly without WUA updated, though.

Interface

Secunia sports a simplistic and very intuitive interface. There is just no chance you can go wrong with it. The main window displays the scanning process and then the scan results in a convenient layout and easy-to-understand verbiage.

Overall, GUI is simple and neat making this application accessible for novice users. There is not much to customize; users can choose the level of user involvement they prefer. You can set Secunia to run software updates without user interference, see notifications of updates downloaded and choose whether to install, or have full control over download and update process.

Some programs will require user attention anyway because you need to download updates directly from developer’s website. Most of the programs, however, can be updated directly from Secunia’s interface. It is also possible to create ‘ignore list’ to skip particular programs you do not wish to update. You can also choose drives to scan.

If you're having trouble using the GUI, you can watch the walkthrough videos on the PSI developer's page.

Pros

We ran a test on a Win 7 Dell laptop and Secunia was ready within a minute with the scan results. Our  software had only one software that required an update, so the entire process took about 2-3 minutes. Overall, the program was rather fast in response. Nonetheless, scan time depends on the amount of programs you have installed.

A simplistic and self-descriptive user interface makes it easy to sort things out with the program’s features. Overall, Secunia seems to provide highly accurate results with a non-intrusive scanning process; it covers more than 3000 vendors and identifies missing patches for their products. It reports both up-to-date and outdated programs, and what is more important, programs that are no longer supported.

In a business environment, users, or administrators can connect PSI to CSI in order to protect a business/SMB network.

Cons

Advanced users may miss some of the powerful features. However, given the fact that Secunia does its job rather flawlessly, and it is free, the app is worth a try.

There is, however, one security concern – Secunia servers do retrieve data from your computers. It is said to be treated as highly confidential and is automatically deleted from the server after a YEAR you have stopped using the service.

Alternatives