Reasons for updating your software and getting rid of old versions.

During your usual computer usage, whether at work or at home, sometimes you may receive a sudden notification or message after opening a program informing you that there is a new version available for the program and you need to update it. In such cases, most users would click on the “Remind Me Later” button, while others may not care about updates at all and continue using the program in its initial version despite newer versions being released. The reason for this is often due to lack of understanding of the importance of updates and whether they are beneficial or not. That’s why we have prepared this article to discuss the reasons that we hope will convince you to get rid of old versions of your programs and keep them updated, along with providing real-life examples from our experience to illustrate the importance of updating software for enhancing and improving your computer usage.

Old versions of programs make your computer vulnerable to constant threats due to the vulnerabilities and weaknesses they contain. This makes the old version of the software a gateway for viruses and malicious software to easily infiltrate your computer, as well as for hackers who seek to exploit these known vulnerabilities to spy on you. Therefore, companies and developers of software work on fixing these vulnerabilities and security loopholes permanently, but the user will only benefit from these fixes through updates. Updating your software can be considered as a step towards protecting your computer from viruses.

Let’s take a popular browser as an example, as it is always a target for spying on your internet activity. For example, Google Chrome recently released a new update with version 56. If we visit Google Chrome’s official blog, we will see a list of the latest versions and updates. You will notice that the new version includes over 50 security fixes and patches that were discovered by security researchers at Google and others (ethical hackers).

Typically, after a computer program is developed, the last step is to test it on multiple devices with different capabilities to ensure its stability and identify any issues during usage. However, this doesn’t mean that the program will remain problem-free forever. After using it for a period, you may encounter issues such as persistent sluggishness despite the high performance of your computer or instability and data loss. The solution sometimes comes after updating the program, as part of the update process is aimed at fixing bugs and issues in the software.

Let’s take a well-known program like Internet Download Manager (IDM) as an example, which is essential for many users. Common issues with IDM include compatibility issues with browsers, the download icon not appearing on YouTube videos, sluggishness, and freezing. The developers of the program strive to address these issues and solve them quickly, notifying users of new updates and their contents, often addressing many problems that were present in the program.

Apart from problem-solving, updating software and getting rid of old versions will help increase your productivity while using those programs. Updates often come with new features, providing faster performance and improved efficiency to carry out tasks with higher productivity. Additionally, many enhancements focus on the user interface, modifying parts of it to add new options or change the overall user interface to make the program easier to use. You may have noticed this if you regularly update antivirus software, as developers annually adjust the user interface of their programs.

In any case, we will not take antivirus programs as an example but rather a popular program like Free Download Manager (FDM), which is somewhat known and has a large number of users. It competes with Internet Download Manager, especially since it is free and similar in usage. Since its initial launch, the program had the appearance as shown in the previous image, combining the look of Internet Download Manager and µTorrent due to its ability to download torrent files. However, a radical update was recently released, introducing a completely new user interface as well as a vast array of features that make it competitive with other download programs, as well as support for Mac OS. These are some of the goals of software updates.