I work in an IT support company, so I keep a cache of offline installers for com
ID: 661084 • Letter: I
Question
I work in an IT support company, so I keep a cache of offline installers for common software for myself and my colleagues, as it is VERY useful for use when updating my own computers, setting up computers for clients, installing on-demand while onsite in locations with poor Internet connectivity, rolling out from the server, etc.
These installers need to be kept up-to-date, so, currently, every couple of days I just check filehippo.com/latest and every couple of months I go through all the software's websites and download the latest installers for the software I keep.
Obviously, this is very time-consuming and horribly inefficient so my question is this:
Is there a website or database anywhere that contains the versions of major software (see below)? Preferably with the ability to order by newest? That way, I can just compare the version numbers on the website to the setup file rather than having to visit every single website, download the software, determine the version number (which can be very drawn out), etc. for every single piece of software.
Just to be clear, I am not asking for software that can scan my computer and inform me that updates are available for software that's installed.
Examples of major software: Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Reader, Dropbox, ESET antivirus, FileZilla, Google Chrome, iTunes, LogMeIn Rescue, Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, Notepad++, SABnzbd, Sandboxie, VLC Player, VMware Workstation, WinRAR, etc.
Explanation / Answer
This is not quite what you asked for, but I would like to suggest a slightly different tact on the same problem that does not suffer from the hassle you describe.
Ninite is a sweet little installer gizmo that does what you have been doing manually for you. They keep an up to date list of a bunch of common software packages and auto-download and install a set of them on demand. You check off which ones you want and get sent a little binary that does the dirty work for you. You can even keep the binary around in case you want to install the same set of software on another computer. The install process does not ask any questions and saves you from clicking "next" a few dozen times.
As an added benefit, the batch install process auto-de-selects any junk "bundled" options such as "toolbars". Only the base software package with sane default options are installed.
Of your list there are a few cases that are not on the list (usually ethier because they have not been requested or it is not possible to batch install them) -- specifically you will need to keep track of ESET antivirus, LogMeIn Rescue, SABnzbd, Sandboxie, and VMware Workstation yourself. All the others and many more you can scratch from you list of things to keep track of.