Before looking at where you can download free drivers, know that free drivers are the norm, not the other way around. Don't let those costly driver download programs and websites fool you with pricey software programs and subscription fees. Easily find and download software and drivers for your HP products including pcs, laptops, desktops, printers, tablets, apps and services from HP Customer Support.
Keeping your drivers up-to-date is always a good idea, but who has time to manually check for updates for each and every driver? Drivers For Free makes short work of this task, scanning for driver updates and installing them automatically. We think it's a great way to keep on top of this tedious but necessary job.
Drivers For Free starts by automatically detecting what kind of computer you're using, but that feature didn't work so well for us; the program thought we were using a Dell, but in reality we're running Windows on a Mac. That wasn't a huge problem, though, as we were able to use the 'My Computer Is Custom Built' option instead to find our drivers. Drivers For Free quickly scanned our system and returned four drivers that were out of date: for our audio controller, our printer, our PCI bridge, and our universal host controller. Next to the first two drivers were buttons allowing us to view them on the Web, while the other two showed buttons allowing us to download them directly. Clicking on any of the buttons brought up a screen asking us to log in with either our Drivers For Free account or our Facebook account. We opted to create a Drivers For Free account, which required us to supply an e-mail address. Once that was done, we were able to quickly download and install each driver without any issues. Drivers For Free doesn't come with a Help file, but we didn't find that to be a big drawback; if you're the sort of person who knows what drivers are and why they need to be updated, you probably won't have any trouble using it. Overall, we found Drivers For Free to be a no-fuss way to keep our drivers up to date, and we recommend it.
Drivers For Free installs a desktop icon without asking but uninstalls cleanly.
What do you need to know about free software?
Need free drivers for your hardware but not sure where to look? There are plenty of websites selling programs and services that download drivers for you but, obviously, drivers for free is a better deal.
Free driver downloads are certainly available but where do you find them?
Before looking at where you can download free drivers, know that free drivers are the norm, not the other way around. Don't let those costly driver download programs and websites fool you with pricey software programs and subscription fees. Charging for driver downloads is a scheme that no one should fall victim to.
Here are the different ways you can download free drivers for your hardware, ordered in the same way you should look for them:
Directly From the Hardware Manufacturer
The first and best place to look for free device drivers is from the hardware manufacturer's website. These are the original drivers that the manufacturer itself is handing out - go there before you look anywhere else. You simply download them and then update the driver on your computer.
For example, if you've just purchased a Logitech webcam for your computer, you can visit the Logitech Support website to find and download the right driver that it needs in order to work correctly.
Using a Trusted Software Sharing Website
In the rare situation that you can't find drivers for your hardware at your hardware manufacturer's website, there are several other driver download sources available. This might happen if the company is out of business or you're looking for a driver for a very old piece of hardware. No matter the reason, you shouldn't have to pay for it.
Updating a driver is a very easy task that anyone can do.
Through a Free Driver Updater Tool
That said, there are driver downloader-updater programs out there that can be useful, at very least to save you time. Fortunately, there are lots of free ones that are just as good as any you might pay for.
While most of them work in almost the same way, our favorite is Driver Booster. This program will scan your computer for all the missing and outdated drivers that it can find, and then will download the right driver for you. All you have to do is click a few buttons and confirm the installations.
Truly Free Driver Update SoftwareThings to Remember About Downloading Drivers
So, remember, all drivers are free! You should be able to download nearly any driver direct from the driver's source - the manufacturer - without incurring any cost whatsoever. However, even if you can't, the other options from above are usually very beneficial for finding free drivers.
Free Driver Downloads For Windows 7
Please know that you do not need to update your drivers on a regular basis. If you're not experiencing issues with your hardware, and you're not looking for additional features, then you don't need to update your drivers at all.
Free Driver Downloads For Samsung Phones
For example, if your sound no longer works, it's possible the sound card driver has been corrupted or removed, in which case you can reinstall the sound card driver. However, if your sound card has been working fine, there isn't a requirement to update it even if it could be updated to a new version.
Some people are wary about updating device drivers, maybe because they've had a bad experience in the past or because they're afraid it will make their device stop working. This is another reason you shouldn't worry about updating the driver for a device that doesn't obviously need the update.
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November 2020
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