Gear Software Manager

Gear Software Manager is an easy-to-use piece of software designed to verify whether installed programs have the latest version or not, and to provide download links whenever possible.
It does not contain complex options or configuration parameters, making it accessible to all types of users, even those inexperienced with computer software.

Quick setup and clean UI

The installation procedure is fast. However, users should be careful when going through the wizard, since the app offers to download and install third-party tools that it does not need to work properly.
As far as the interface is concerned, Gear Software Manager sports a clean window with a neatly organized structure.

View current and latest app versions

An initial scan is required to identify all installed programs. It takes little time to finish and populates a list with all apps in need of updates, along with their current and latest version, download link, and another link with in-depth product description detailed on Gear Software Manager's website.
The upper bar shows total updates and installed software products, and lets users refresh the list with the click of a button. In addition, you can switch to another tab to view popular software.

Bonus: system and registry cleaners

Gear Software Manager implements two additional features: a system and registry cleaner, respectively. The first one handles any unwanted content pertaining to Windows (e.g. temporary files, Prefetch folder, Run history) and web browsers (e.g. IE and Firefox cache and history), while the latter cleaning module removes all orphaned registry items when it comes to shared DLLs, unused file extensions, fonts, MUI cache, and so on. It is possible to back up the registry and restore it later if any issues should occur.

Testing performance

The program is low-demanding when it comes to CPU and RAM, so it does not hog system resources. However, we have encountered some issues during our evaluation, when Gear Software Manager either displayed versions incorrectly (latest one was lowest than the current one) or did not identify the local version at all. However, we must also keep in mind that the tool has not been updated for a long time.