Almost every software vendor urges it’s users to keep their respective software up to date by enabling automatic online checks. There are also quite a few third party software like the previously mentioned UpdateStar that helps you keep your installed application up to date.
But like most users, I prefer to download the latest setup packages and install it myself than allow automatic installation of updates. I found that Ketarin, an open source utility, to be very useful in this regard. Unlike applications like UpdateStar that automatically recognizes all installed applications and offers update for the same, Ketarin does not scan your system for applications automatically. You have to configure the program for each application that you want to download the installer of.
That involves a fair amount of work but it has at least 2 major advantages:
- It does not update the application online, rather downloads the latest available installer. This is good for users like me who like to keep their setup packages along with the application updated.
- Ketarin allows you to automatically download installer packages of applications NOT installed on your system. For instance, you might keep installers of two or more anti-virus applications updated even though you have only one of them installed.
Other features of Ketarin include
- Group applications by user defined categories
- Flexible methods to specify save paths
- Regular expression support
- XML based import/export of applications
- Run custom commands after downloading
In my opinion, both Ketarin and UpdateStar are excellent applications. You just have to pick one depending on what you want.
If you look at a product that someone put a lot of time and effort into then at least have the decency to spell its name correctly (I am not the author of Ketarin.
Thanks for pointing out the error. It took 3 years for someone to take notice 🙂