Over the past decade, software updates in general have mostly become another form of malware, as software makers care more about extracting money from their users or adding pointless shiny features than actually making their software fast, stable, or better able to serve the user. As a result, my default policy now is "If it ain't broke, NEVER fix it." Install, then disable all updates, forcibly if necessary. On Wind…
I can never relate to these posts. I always update all my stuff pretty much immediately when I see an update available. I run Windows, so I'm talking Windows Updates, browser updates, drivers, anything and everything. It actually gives me a pleasant feeling knowing I get bug fixes, security fixes, maybe some new feature every now and then. I'm definitely naive enough to hope for performance improvements rather than w…
I can relate to them very well. I've wasted far too many hours cleaning up after one bad update or another. Windows and driver updates have been among the worst offenders. You could argue that the good updates might have protected me from malware that would have wasted even more, but I have no evidence to suggest this is the case.
As a result, I tend to be very binary about updates now. If it's something that involves direct contact with remote systems, it gets updated almost instantly, at least if the update is anything security related. Browsers, email clients, phones, publicly accessible servers, anything like that. The risk of not updating promptly in that situation is too high, even though I've seen many adverse changes when updating those kinds of products too. For most other things I use, if it's doing its job OK already, it probably gets updated if I have a specific reason to want a newer version and otherwise gets left alone.
I detest the modern trend for bundling essential updates like security patches together with other changes that users might not want, as the likes of Microsoft, Google and Apple all now do. Fixing a defective product is one thing. Changing it arbitrarily is something completely different.