Why I Don’t Like Driver Update Programs

There is a plethora of software programs out there that claim to manage your driver updates for you. (A driver is special software that helps an operating system communicate with hardware, such as a printer or Wi-Fi antenna.) Many of these programs have a shady provenance and others try to charge you for this “privilege” – I’m looking at you, Norton. We’ve been conditioned to apply updates as they are published, but the exception in my opinion is drivers. We usually only recommend updating drivers during a tune-up when you’ve set aside time. Automatic driver updates can occur (and break something) when it’s least convenient. But my biggest gripe is that these programs don’t list the source of the drivers they are downloading. We have no way to know they are installing the official driver, or even the correct driver. Because it’s such an opaque process we don’t recommend it unless the software is from the actual manufacturer (for example, Dell Update or Intel Support Assistant). Our recommendation is to remove any unofficial driver updater program on your computer, but set aside a few times a year to manually update the drivers. We’re happy to help with this process!