eli5: Why do we need to constantly do software updates? What happens if I dont?
In: Technology
There’s many reasons but the main 3 are security features, device compatibility, and new things being added.
The big one (and reason to regularly update) is security. Imagine securing software like trying to make a door that only you can walk through. After you use it enough times, other people trying to also walk through that door (steal your data, personal info, or financial info) might pick up on patterns and think of ways of keeping the door propped open, messing with the locks, etc. Security updates close these loopholes and keep the door only opening for you.
Another one is new devices. An app might’ve been written for the iPhone X but a few years later we’re now on the iPhone 15 with a completely different operating system and features that didn’t exist when the app was written. It needs to know how to recognize and interact with that new OS (and any future updates to the OS) or it could introduce bugs and crash the app.
Finally, and most straight forward, is them adding new stuff to the software. As people use something they provide feedback and the company uses updates to add that feedback into the software.
Software is never perfect, and we’re always finding things where it can be safer, faster, or otherwise better. There are a lot of pieces of software at play when you’re doing any given thing on your computer, each with their own problems, bugs, and security issues. It’s all made by people and it’s basically impossible to create perfect code, even after several iterations.
By skipping updates, at best you miss out on tiny iterations or features, at worst you miss major security fixes that a bad actor might use to attack your computer.
Other people have covered the reasons pretty clearly.
But to add some color I’m old enough that you couldn’t make adjustments to software with an internet up date.
If there was a problem, and there always is, you’d just be stuck with it, possibly forever or at least until they could get new disks on the shelves, which would could be months to years.
If the software I spent $200 on , before subscriptions became the norm, had some major issue, oh well. Can’t return it.
Constant updates is a good problem to have.
There are 3 main classes of changes which will be brought in updates:
1. New features and fixes for existing features. If you don’t get these updates, it’s not so bad. The software will just keep working the way it always has.
2. Fixes for vulnerabilities discovered. If you don’t get these updates and the software is externally accessible (connected to the internet) then this can be quite bad. The software will technically keep working the same way it always has, but the bad actors outside now know how to exploit it, so it will actually become dangerous to use where it wasn’t before.
3. Compatibility updates for other software that it depends on. Programs often don’t run in isolation, and actually depend on other things to keep running (like changes in OS, changes in external servers, etc.). If you don’t get these updates, it can be bad. The software may stop working completely, because it relies on something external for some functionality, and the old version of your software can no longer work with the newly updated external service.
#2 is very bad to skip. #3 is kinda bad to skip (but the worst that can happen is that it stops working). #1 would theoretically be fine to skip, but in reality it gets bundled into updates with #2 and #3, so you can’t actually skip them in theory.
There are three kinds of updates:
-We added something new: Skipping means you miss out on new features
-We fixed somethin broken: Skipping means you may run into issues that have been fixed in new version
-We Maintained Compatibility: Something else changed (Hardware, other programs, whatever) that requires this update to work. Skipping means it might not work with that thing anymore.
That’s really it, and depending on the situation, you often can delay updates just fine.
There are three kinds of updates:
-We added something new: Skipping means you miss out on new features
-We fixed somethin broken: Skipping means you may run into issues that have been fixed in new version
-We Maintained Compatibility: Something else changed (Hardware, other programs, whatever) that requires this update to work. Skipping means it might not work with that thing anymore.
That’s really it, and depending on the situation, you often can delay updates just fine.
Latest Answers