AVG Driver Updater

AVG Driver Updater is an application for Windows PCs that keeps all your computer’s drivers up to date. It works on Windows 7, 8, and 10.

Each of the major components of your computer system has its own driver software. Drivers are the bridge between the hardware and the operating system. Often, hardware device manufacturers will release updates to drivers that improve performance, squash bugs, or patch security issues. 

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In our AVG Driver Updater review, we test its user interface, features, and performance to decide whether it’s the best driver update software available today.

Download the free trial of AVG Driver Updater to try it for yourself (Image credit: Avast)

Plans and pricing

AVG Driver Updater has a single paid plan—$39.99/year/computer. You can download a free trial, but it can’t be used to update your drivers, only to see which of them are out of date.

At $39.99/year/computer, AVG Driver Updater is pretty expensive. It makes little sense as a tool for an office with many computers as you need a license for each PC. Even using AVG Driver Updater in a home with multiple PCs could cost hundreds of dollars per year for a program you don’t really need to run very often.

AVG Driver Updater found 18 outdated drivers on our test PC (Image credit: Avast)

Features

AVG Driver Updater is extremely simple. It essentially has one major function—scanning your existing drivers and checking whether newer versions of the driver software exist online.

You can see the version numbers and release dates of the drivers you have installed (Image credit: Avast)

When you click on Show Details, you can see the version number of the driver you currently have installed and the latest version that’s available online. The dates these drivers were released are listed too, so you can see just how out of date your current drivers are.

You can change where backup drivers are stored by changing the setting in the menu (Image credit: Avast)

When a driver is updated, AVG Driver Updater will make a backup of the original in case you decide you want to roll back to the previous version. You can choose where the backups are stored on your computer in the Settings menu.

Interface and in use

AVG Driver Updater is designed to be as simple as possible to use. Installation is a breeze. You download the software, install it, and it’s ready to run.

The Settings menu reveals a few options. You can choose to be notified when you have an outdated driver, set the language, and switch the taskbar icon on or off. That’s about it.

Details on your app usage can be used to offer your third-party products unless you disable these options (Image credit: AVG Driver Updater )

There is a Personal Privacy menu where you set the information that’s sent from your computer to AVG. By default, everything is checked, which means details on your app usage can be sent to third-party analytics tools and be used to offer you upgrades, other AVG products, and even third-party products. We’d prefer if these options were disabled by default.

AVG Driver Updater found 18 drivers that needed to be updated on our test machine. This is on par with the best driver update software we’ve tested, so it performs well at its primary function.

However, we also noticed the software used a significant amount of CPU while just running in the background. On a mid-range PC, this amounted to almost 20% CPU usage, enough to cause a noticeable dip in performance when running alongside other demanding applications. For a program designed to improve performance, this is counterproductive.

Support

Clicking on Help within the application brings you to a short FAQ detailing what AVG Driver Updater does and how to use it. It’s a very basic page that offers little useful information.

AVG Driver Updater shares a community support forum with other AVG products (Image credit: Avast)

For support, you’re first directed to the AVG Support Community forum. AVG Driver Updater doesn’t have its own forum. Instead, it’s lumped in with ‘Other Products,’ so finding previous answers to the queries people have had on the product is difficult.

There is also live chat support, and you can get phone support by calling a number in the USA, Canada, Australia, or the UK. Both options are only available to paying customers. In our testing, the live chat support was prompt, friendly, and knowledgeable.

The competition

AVG Driver Updater has no lack of competition. IObit Driver Booster is a better choice if you have multiple computers, as at $22.95/year it costs much less than AVG Driver Updater and you can use it on up to three PCs.

Driver Reviver is a similar tool to AVG Driver Update but you can use its free version to install drivers manually. Sure, it’s a little more work than using the one-click process AVG Driver Updater offers, but if you only need to update your drivers once or twice a year, it could save you a lot of money in the long term.

Final verdict

AVG Driver Update is extremely simple to use, making it a good choice for less experienced computer users who want to keep their drivers updated.

But we’d expect more for $39.99/computer/year. AVG Driver Updater is a poor choice if you have more than one computer, as there are no features for updating multiple computers at a time and the licensing model makes AVG Driver Updater expensive for an office to use.

But its core feature—finding outdated drivers and updating them—works well. In our testing, AVG Driver Updater found all the missing drivers on our old computer system. If you don’t mind paying through the roof for the AVG brand name, Driver Updater is a fine option.

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