IObit Driver Booster 4 Free RC review

[Godlygamer23]

I understand that this is a review of an RC product, but I'm going to do it anyways because this is a version that IObit hopes will make it to the very end and become a "stable product," so here goes. I was actually updating IObit's Smart Defrag program on my PC, and it ran into an issue where I couldn't actually use the Update Now button, so I downloaded it manually, and landed on that page. So I said "what the heck," and decided to give it a shot on my laptop running Windows 10. The screenshots provided were taken with Snipping Tool, a default Windows 7(Vista too?) and above program. Bear in mind that all screenshots will be in spoilers to avoid excessive scrolling, and unneeded distractions.

 

The first interface that you're greeted with is where you're going to be performing your scan. It highlights a few things like "driver status," "Device Drivers," "Game Components," the whole "Oh if your drivers are out-of-date, then your PC could be unusable" information, and of course the ad at the bottom which is totally stupid and click-baity.

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Alright, so I clicked on the scan button, so what happens after that?

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The interface largely stays the same with a total of four things changing. The Scan button now turns into a Stop button, there's a percentage with a progress bar going around the button(please keep those. I love progress bars!), the driver that's currently being scanned, and the Activate Now button is grayed out. So far, the interface I'd say is actually pretty nice.

 

One additional screenshot showing the scanning process:

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Moving on, we finally get the main window showcasing all of the drivers that need updated, and according to this program, I have a few that I could update.

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Above are all of my outdated drivers, where the program is claiming they're extremely old. We also see another banner above saying "Hey, if you purchase our product, you can update an additional device!" I actually wonder what that device is, except it won't tell me, even if I click on it. But the banner does annoy me in another way as you'll see in a few screenshots. Up above, you'll see an "UpToDate" button which needs to be changed. IObit, if you're reading this, it should read "Up-to-date," not what you have there. They also have the "Action Center" tab which I'll highlight in another screenshot. They list the out-of-date drivers first, allowing you to do everything at one shot if it is permitted by the drivers.  As far as the control of the updates is concerned, the drop-down menu(not shown) provides the user with a few options: Details; Update; Roll Back; Uninstall; Ignore; and Export List. Most of them are pretty blank, except for Details, which will be shown below using one of Realtek's drivers as an example.

 

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Here we have the Driver Details window. They give you the aforementioned options again which is nice, the version that you have, and the one that they want to install, even giving a little WHQL icon for user confidence(though it shouldn't necessarily bestow any). It also shows which device is using the driver, and the publisher as well. But, I wish they would've done something a little more with this, namely showing release notes if possible, so the user can make a more informed decision about their download. Some drivers are simply bug fixes that the user is not experiencing, and therefore the update is not necessary. Release notes would be useful here.

 

Now onto Action Center, which is something I like when programs incorporate in their own little way.

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I love when companies bring all of their other programs together into one place, allowing the user to launch other apps that they may have installed and if I don't, they provide me with a link to get it, and the program is even telling me that I have an update for Smart Defrag. Awesome. But I have no idea how the issues were found with the "System Performance" section as this is not the point of the program.

 

After selecting which driver I want to install(I did them individually for the most part), it gave me a little installation notice:

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They give a little notice that you may experience interference from your security software, and if you're updating the video card drivers, that you may experience a black screen and program crashes, but I think here IObit needs to improve on their sentence structure here a little bit. For the first part of the second notice, it should read: "You may encounter an occasional black screen and program crashes when updating graphics drivers." As for the second part of it, I would change it to "Please save your work and exit other running programs before proceeding" or something along those lines.

 

After installing a number of drivers, I get my first reboot prompt:

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The update button now gets replaced with the Reboot button, but you can still update your other drivers if you so desire. After I clicked the reboot button, I got a second prompt which you can find below:

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I like programs that remind the user to save their work and close everything before proceeding.

 

Okay, the last thing I wanted to show was the banner annoyance. This is something that I find to be completely unnecessary. The banner tells me everything that the company should honestly need to tell me, but it becomes invasive if you mouse over it as you will below:

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Unfortunately, my mouse is not visible there because I used the Print Screen tool which apparently did not capture my cursor. But nonetheless, it now takes up the entire window where the drivers can be viewed. This needs to be changed as it is downright annoying. At least give us the ability to disable that function in the Settings.

 

Okay, so that was my rundown of the program from IObit strictly discussing the free version as you can tell. I found the program to be pretty competent at what it does, although my Intel Graphics driver will not install through the application which is odd. It keeps failing. But overall, I think that IObit developed a good program for people to use if they're worried about keeping all of their drivers up-to-date which also includes controller updates as well for say an Xbox 360 controller. I won't give an official rating for this program, nor will I personally use it, but for people who want something to do that for them, this may be up your alley.

Edited September 2, 2016 by Godlygamer23
Title change.