All of our products have the ability to check for updates, bug fixes and new versions of themselves. In the "Software Updates" pane of the preferences panel, you can set whether the application automatically checks for updates or not. If automatic checking is enabled, you can also set if you want to have the application check weekly, fortnightly (every two weeks), monthly or quarterly (every three months). You can also manually check at any time. If a new version or update is available the application will let you know and let you see the release notes, and some brief information about the download including its approximate size.
With that knowledge, you can choose to either skip this update, wait until later or go ahead and download it. If you skip the update, the application won't tell you about it again, but will continue to look for even newer versions.
If you choose to download from within the application, the SHA-1 checksums that we use, will automatically be checked for you. And if everything goes ok, and the download produces the correct checksum, the application will let you know that you can now install the new version.
Optional System Information
During these update checks you can also allow the application to send certain aspects of your system to our server. We use this data to help us better support the system configurations and languages that are being used. You can always turn this option off without affecting the software update checks. Know that if you allow your system information to be sent, it is sent with a system ID that is not tied to your personal information and is different from the computer ID that is used during product registration and validation. We value your privacy (see our web site for our privacy policy), so the information sent is not tied to your personal data and is never revealed individually. But the data is grouped and the resulting statistics are made public to help other developers in knowing what systems configurations are the most common.
From the same "Software Updates" pane on the preferences panel, you can click the "See What Is Sent..." button to see exactly what information is sent.