This is a free programme as long as you use it for personal use only, the paid version ruins on corporate networks; its called Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI). the company's claim is that 98% of PCs have 1 or more insecure programs installed and that Secunia PSI can check your PC for insecure programs exposing you to security threats. via Personal (PSI) - Vulnerability Scanning - Secunia.com.

The boring reality is that keeping your PC and especially your 3rd party programs updated requires you to search the Internet for updates and patches on a regular basis - for all the programs installed on your PC. Who has the time to do that? Exactly.

The typical user has 30-60 programs installed - do you know which programs you have installed? Do you know which programs expose you to security threats?

Security patches are usually free and available for download from the program vendors and the Secunia PSI pinpoints which patches you need to secure your PC.

Once installed the software scans the PC, checks for versions and updates. It then compares with the latest versions available, warning you when you have an outdated version and giving you an assessment of the level of risk that it entails. Here's my first scan.

The little arrow beneath the "Solution" header opens the dialogue to download and install the updates. Its a opretty simple operation and I managed to update all but the Java installations pretty easily, although I suspect the problem with Java is Java rather than Secunia.

Do you have any experience with secunia? Are there better tools? Comments are open

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