Where possible it is generally best practice to ensure that your applications have ‘Auto Update’ enabled. However, for a variety of reasons, this may not always be available or possible. With regards to dependent libraries and frameworks from a development perspective, this can also be more difficult. To be kept informed of all changes, I embarked on a search for a Software Update Notification Service.
Software Update Notification Service
Whilst you can subscribe to most vendors’ notifications, it can be somewhat unmanageable to ensure you are subscribed to them all, to the right email address, and they aren’t going to into a spam folder somewhere. What I was hoping to find was a simple software update notification service, either paid or free, where you select the software you want to be kept informed about.
I was imagining an A-Z of software where you could select a checkbox to be kept informed about. Potentially you could do different notification groups for different types of software, such as Development, Security, Accounts and so.
Despite quite a rather in-depth search, I have not found a service that meets this requirement. (If you know of one though, please comment below). However, I have found a workaround to do what I require.
Custom Software Update Notifications
Having failed in my search for the ideal off-the-shelf solution, I started visiting different providers’ release/version/update pages to check how they inform their users of new releases and patches. The thought then occurred to me to use a tool such as ChangeTower to monitor for changes on these pages and to send me an email when these specific pages change.
With ChangeTower, which has Free and Paid tiers, you select specific web pages you would like to monitor, the frequency of checks (every 24 hours), and the email/s addresses you would like to be notified of when a change takes place. You can add numerous pages and add tags to categorize your page monitors to notify different team members.
Useful Update Pages To Monitor
Obviously, the update pages that you monitor will very much be specific to your needs, but here are some of the ones I monitor that may be of use to others.
| Service | Release Pages |
| Adobe Acrobat DC | All Versions |
| Google Chrome | All Versions |
| Microsoft Office 365 | All Versions |
| Slack | Windows | Mac | Android | iOS |
| Windows OS | Windows 10 | Windows 11 |
I would love to get your comments and suggestions on this, please comment below.