Driver Easy is one of the many pieces of software that can help you update your outdated Windows drivers, which is one of the first things you should think about doing if you’re having some problem with your PC. As I’d previously reviewed a competing driver updater, Driver Genius (see my Driver Genius review), I was quite eager to take Driver Easy for a proper spin. Click here to skip to my verdict on Driver Easy or keep reading for a detailed review and FAQ.
First: Who’s the company behind Driver Easy?
Driver Easy was developed by a company called Easeware Technology Limited, which describes itself as a “small, innovative company based in Hong Kong.” Small sounds like an accurate description being that they don’t even have a functional website beyond drivereasy.com (the official company domain, easeware.net, just takes you to drivereasy.com), and their other software outside of Driver Easy seems to be almost entirely unknown. Driver Easy, however, is certainly not unknown: it’s been downloaded around 22 million times on CNET alone, and is one of the most well known driver update tools.
On the about us page for DriverEasy.com several employees of the company are listed, and they are definitely real people (e.g. the CEO is on LinkedIn here).
Downloading and Installing Driver Easy
Go to DriverEasy.com and click the green FREE TRIAL button to download the .exe installer (5MB). It’s a very quick install process:
On my laptop, this was literally done in less than 1 minute.
How to use Driver Easy
Open the software for the first time and you’ll see this:
Using the software is pretty easy, then: click the big green “Scan Now” button to get started: 🙂
Then the scan will run like this:
The scan for me was done in about 1 minute, so very quick. Here are the results on my laptop:
If you click the dropdown arrow next to a driver entry here, you can view details about it before deciding to update it. Here’s an example:
If you actually click to update, Driver Easy will first prompt you to make a restore point:
If you’re downloading drivers for common hardware, it’s highly unlikely downloading the new driver will mess up your computer. This is just a precaution. However, as Driver Easy recommends, it’s worth doing, and this is an advantage of the Pro version as it does this for you automatically. Still, not a big deal to do it yourself in Windows 10.
Downloading a driver:
Then, installing the driver:
As you can see, Driver Easy constantly tries to sell you the Pro version. When it comes to manually updating drivers (which you’ll have to do if you’re using the free version of Driver Easy), it’s simple and shouldn’t take you anywhere near 1 hour as Driver Easy claims it might. On their own website Driver Easy has a simple guide on how to update drivers manually. Still, if you’re updating multiple drivers (Driver Easy found 19 drivers that could be updated on my laptop), it’s almost certainly getting the Pro version to save you a lot of time.
Other features of Driver Easy
The core feature of Driver Easy (finding all outdated drivers on your computer and letting you update all of them in 1 click) is what 99% of users would get the software for. Driver Easy also has a “Hardware Info” feature (which just displays information about the hardware on your computer – you should be able to just do this in Windows itself) and a “Tools” section with “Driver Backup,” “Driver Restore” and “Driver Uninstall” features. These are actually quite useful, as they’ll save you some time if for some reason you updated a driver and then want to go back to the old driver. Before updating all your drivers with Driver Easy, I recommend doing a full driver backup along with creating a system restore point in Windows.
Is Driver Easy safe?
Driver Easy is definitely not a virus, and it’s 100% safe to use as long as you a) create a system restore point in Windows before doing driver updates (just in case the new drivers have some kind of issue) and b) backup your drivers with the software before updating them. Driver Easy also appears to go to great care to ensure the drivers they get you via their software will work with your particular hardware, as they do not merely trust a driver because it happens to be certified by Microsoft — they also claim to do a lot of their own testing (if you look at the screenshots above, Driver Easy has a badge for whether the driver is not just certified by Microsoft, but also Driver Easy). While I can’t verify for sure that Driver Easy is as thorough and diligent with their driver testing as they claim, I’ll take their word for it.
Is there a crack, torrent or activation key for Driver Easy?
No, and as always, we don’t condone stealing software.
Is Driver Easy legit? Does it work?
Driver Easy is legit, and it works, as demonstrated above.
How much does Driver Easy cost?
Driver Easy costs $29.95/year for up to 3 PC’s.
Does Driver Easy give refunds?
Driver Easy claims the following:
If you don’t like it, tell us within 30 days, and we’ll give you your money back. All of it. Immediately. No questions asked.
They definitely honor this as well, as in searching TrustPilot for reviews with the keyword ‘refund’ you’ll see that whenever a customer asks for a refund, it’s done.
Are there any coupons or discounts for Driver Easy?
Yes. Buy Driver Genius through this link and use the coupon EASE-6YPW-GGYA to get 20% off (working as of 2021):
How does Driver Easy compare to its alternatives and competitors?
Alternatives to Driver Easy include Driver Booster, Driver Max, Big Easy Driver, the aforementioned Driver Genius and more. Have a quick read through my Driver Genius review again where I summarize some of the main driver update software on the market. I haven’t tested all driver update software in depth, but definitely get the sense Driver Easy is one of the cleanest and best.
Can I recommend Driver Easy?
I can definitely recommend Driver Easy, especially if you get it for 20% off by going through this link and entering the coupon code EASE-6YPW-GGYA, as shown above.
