Should I use third-party driver updaters?

A driver or a device driver is a computer program that makes a connection between hardware and the operating system (Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux), so it can be recognized and work properly on your PC.

Do driver updaters are safe to use? Most of the third-party driver updaters are not viruses or malicious software, but it’s common that anti-virus programs (such as Malwarebytes, ESET, Dr.Web) detect these tools as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program). Therefore, in order to use it, you might need to temporarily disable your anti-virus protection. You can use VirusTotal.com to check for viruses just to be sure. Ruin your PC: You should beware that using third-party automated driver updaters, in rare cases, can cause serious issues to your PC (even if the driver has passed WHQL testing), it is not recommended using it unless you are a computer novice, or you are very short on time. Moreover, make sure to create a system restore point and backup your private data before using it and review each driver manually before updating (sometimes they are not accurate, offering you a driver from a different manufacturer, for example, an Asus driver was offered as an upgrade to an Intel device).

Don’t get paranoid about driver updates, you probably won’t need them! It will not improve the performance of your system or stability (the only drivers that you should update frequently are for graphics cards, sound cards, and LANs). If you don’t have any problems, such as faulty/broken drivers or unrecognized devices, then it’s better to stay off. Most of the time, driver updates just add support for new hardware (and probably driver-updaters can’t determine the difference). Please relax and don’t get compulsive about it!

There is no “Best Driver Updater”. We really don’t know how reliable driver updaters are. We tested about ten apps and each one gave us a different result after scanning. You should be aware that there are scam apps that just show you fake driver updates and issues or use other misleading tactics (like scaring you with bad words – crashes or blue screens, etc.), to try convincing you to buy them.

Anyway, you can be sure that the driver’s updaters that are listed on our website are real, genuine, and reliable (This does not mean that the other driver updaters solution are not good). And one more thing to say: don’t be impressed by the name or the brand, because we tested driver updaters on known software brands, and they showed very bad results. It's better to use an in-house driver update program from computer/laptop manufacturers or to do it manually (looking up for each driver individually on a device manufacturer’s website, although you can get help from these tools to just identify available updates, making your work a little faster), it is time-consuming, but it's better that way.

Finally. The best driver update tools are probably the Windows built-in “Device Manager” (you have the option to auto search for drivers on the web for each device – open device manager by typing “devmgmt. msc” on Run dialog box, right-click on the device you want to check, then click “Update Driver”), and “Windows Update” (Microsoft has made major improvements on their automatic driver detection in the recent years), and you won’t need anything else (there are some rare cases where they won’t help you).