r/MacOS • u/LeedsBorn1948 • 8h ago

News Version Tracker

Anyone who's been sad to see MacUpdater go, please take a look at Version Tracker.

Superb!

Deep in features, easy-to-use, pleasing interface, fast and (I venture to say) likely to be an all round winner…

(I'm just a fellow user like you. No investment in the product or company; except that it took me barely 10 minutes to subscribe.)

0 Upvotes

46% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

4

u/640kilobytes 8h ago

Just use brew to install anything. Problem solved

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u/LeedsBorn1948 7h ago

Can HB manage every single app, every last type of dependent file that needs updating? I was surprised, for instance, that Version Tracker was able to manage my VST files for music notation software, and Obsidian plugins etc.

I accept, it's not for everyone. But my intention for those who do and can see the value and may not have seen this relatively new app… (with an impressive pedigree).

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u/screemingegg 7h ago

Isn't this the spyware one?

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u/markdiesel 8h ago

Wow. I remember the OG versiontracker.com, which was absolutely indispensable for those of us in the support industry back in the early 2000s—nothing auto-updated, and you had to just keep checking manufacturer's websites for new versions of things. Then MacUpdate came along (for us Mac nerds), which was nice. I sadly don't see much of a need for this type of thing these days, but hey, to each their own.

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u/Standard-Ant874 7h ago

I just opened the link, but couldn't figure out how it's suppose to be use. Mind to elaborate the use case?

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u/LeedsBorn1948 7h ago

u/Standard-Ant874 - you download, install, maybe have a peek at the settings (although the defaults work very well in most cases), then Scan.

It will report back on the status (multiple attributes) of all the apps it finds (which was many more in my case than either the excellent MacUpdater or Updatest).

Review the outdated apps, dependencies etc and either download updates, or have Version Tracker curate the updates for you. Adoption to HB also seems to work pretty seamlessly.

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u/Standard-Ant874 7h ago

I see, kinda like system admin tool. Thanks for explaining 🙂 

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u/LeedsBorn1948 7h ago

u/Standard-Ant874 - to begin with, Yes.

But very much more: security; compliance; avoidance of fakery; using HB's suggestions for possibly also-useful software; time-saving; double-checking for compatibilities and duplicates; record-keeping; authenticity - and so on.

But, as I say, my OP was intended merely to draw folks' attention to a fully-featured and streamlined piece of software which obviously fills a gap for the many who graduated from the original VT site/service to MacUpdate then the soon to be defunct MacUpdater. Not a case for such software at all.

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u/lemmathru 8h ago

Sorry to be “that guy” but I’m puzzled that this is even a thing. Back when the internet was slow and not… well, not updated as often, I could see the appeal of such services, but nowadays? Every third party app I use has built in “check for updates” and the googles and bings of the world can easily tell me what’s out there.

Is this meant for a certain OCD subset of Mac nerdery that needs a kind of insta-almanac of every bit of software out there?

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u/LeedsBorn1948 8h ago

u/lemmathru - have you looked at what this software does?

I was surprised at how far these apps have come. Version Tracker takes things to a new level, it really does.

I'd draw attention to these three features to start with:

  1. it fetches reliable, 'horse's mouth' data from over 50 sources
  2. it gets the official updates from authentic, credible sources; and integrates with HomeBew, which offers a range of advantages of its own over the many manual processes necessary if you have to go through every app you use (and do not use), maybe missing some - and perhaps dependencies - which could present security risks
  3. it allows both several levels of automation and logging of update history.

Those are big and necessary advantages (at least to me) in an environment as complex as that of the many versions of macOS,

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u/lemmathru 8h ago

None of those things have I missed in all the years of my Mac life. (Especially #3?!?! Update history? Yep this is OCD level stuff)

We’ll have to agree to disagree, though the other comment here makes me feel good that I’m not alone in finding this stuff antiquated and unnecessary (and not worth any $)

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u/AceMcLoud27 7h ago

For compliance reasons (ISO stuff for example) you'll want to be able to show when and what you updated and which CVE was handled.

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u/LeedsBorn1948 7h ago

u/AceMcLoud27,

which CVE was handled

Yes, I was impressed with that. It's a feature of Version Tracker which is so far missing from the main competition, Updatest, which also works very well.

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u/LeedsBorn1948 8h ago

Of course. I guess my post (I rarely feel so positive about software) wasn't intended for users who take perhaps (maybe I'm wrong, no slur intended, I promise!) a more relaxed and carefree approach to maintaining their systems.

I'm still curious: have you looked at the software in action?