program for finding your driver updates...

i am not sure if this is a software question or if it would fit in here, but i figured people that know about drives would be the ones to ask first.
i usually don't do much more than go to dell, or the respective company for the driver... but i was wondering if there were any freeware(hopefully), or even worthwhile(for that matter) programs to keep you up on updates for your various drivers.
i have seen some pay programs that claim to find all your driver updates, but i would question if there is any free ones. also, i think i have heard some say that they prefer to get the drivers from the manufacturers individually, but i wonder if there is any potential hard in using any program to find your driver updates.

thanks for any advice, and i will move it to software section if needed.

 

Drivers really don't need to be updated, if you are not having problems with them.
And then, they only need updating, if the update fixes the problem you are having.

 

I have seen paid programs like Driver Detective and DriverHQ but IMHO these are borderline malware. They charge a fee (I believe it's annual but I could be wrong) and they scan your PC and I believe they then say "you need driver X; driver Y is out of date" and then they 'force' you to download any drivers from their site only. Naturally, you can exit the program and download the drivers from the manufacturer's site, but then that kind of negates the whole reason behind using the program in the first place. So, to sum it up, I would stay away from these paid 'services', and if you happen to find a free one, I'd stay away from it too. As stated above, drivers rarely need to be updated. Occasionally a new game may recommend a driver update for better performance, but it is seldom a requirement. There's lots of great tools for drivers available here at Major Geeks (link http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads28.html). You can create a list of your drivers, back 'em up, copy your drivers to a "Drivers" folder on an external drive, whatever. These tools can be very handy if you need to reinstall a clean OS, or if you have a bunch of PCs with the same hardware (like in an office environment) that all require the same drivers..... you get the idea....
Hopefully, I didn't confuse the situation too much

 

nope no confusion.
i figured that this would be the case, but i imagined i'd ask anyway just to be sure. i think i usually end up encountering things like this when i get one freeware or something and then they give you the customary extra recommendations or a you might be out of date in something type of response.

thanks:-D