If you use the Desura client, you will get a notification in your library if there is any updates. Clicking it brings up the change-log, and whether you want to install the update. If you do the process is more or less automatic 1-click system.

It is maybe the most user-friendly update system out there, though Steams auto-updates works good for me also.

At indiegamestand you get an e-mail for every update, and it's available in the new installer .

Much to my own surprise, I've recently come to like Steam's auto-update feature. I used to hate it because it causes trouble with mods and savegame compatibility. However, with a collection of several hundred games, I find that:
- I don't spend as much time with mods as I used to. Mods were (among other things) always a great way to get more enjoyment out of a game that I already played a lot. With hundreds of unplayed games in my collection, I now tend to pick up one of those instead of applying mods to games I already played.
- With hundreds of games installed, keeping them up to date manually is simply not manageable. Not even with proper notifications. At some point, having the process automated becomes awfully convenient.
- In case I don't want automatic updates for a given game, I can turn them off for that game.

The system still isn't perfect, but Ive come to appreciate it.

Regarding other platforms:

- GOG has much improved in this regard in the past two years. We now get notifications, and the installer version is visible on the download page. Some problems remain, though: Sometimes an installer gets updated without a change in the version number, and often the notification does not get set (apparently this nbeeds to be done manually on each occasion).

- Desura leaves you in the rain unless you use the client, which I mostly don't.

- GamersGate doesn't offer a great service in this regard either (hate to say it since I'm in an active role over there, but there's no point in denying objective facts). A part of the problem is unavoidable - due to the huge catalog, they cannot monitor the games for updates, they have to rely on the publishers for sending them to GG. With 300 games in the catalog, it may be possible to have someone from the staff check periodically which games may have received a patch elsewhere - with 6200 games, it's impossible to do such checks and remain cost-effective. The other part of the problem, however, is home-made by GG: There is no notification in place, and versions often aren't clearly denoted. Sometimes customers have to download a gigabyte of data just to check whether the main installer may have been updated. This is very clunky and will hopefully be improved upon.

- Indiegamestand sends out notifications, but their mails always only reach me as gibberish, and I have to guess from the links what the mail wanted to tell me.

- Bundle sites generally don't seem to care much about updates. Some do update their files (Humble adds an upload date to the installer, so that you can make an educated guess whether it's a newer one than the one you already got), others don't, and some simply don't have to since they are only selling Steam keys anyway.

In general, I think that the handling of updates leaves much room for improvement almost anywhere. GOG seems to have realized that a bit earlier than others.

Imho Desura's works better if one is looking at it from client base perspective - you get notified and you get to choose whether to update. Steam autoupdates ALL (unless you turn things off one at a time - there is no global option to disable this - pain in *** ) -- this is especially important for those on limited cap/bandwidth plans

GOG has gotten a fair amount of flack for it not being as easy to do as Steam, but I do generally know where I stand. Vs the HB where I have no idea when something is updated, and outside of them marking date of the download, there is no real way of finding out if you have the latest.

I'm not a big fan of Steam's tenancy to do all of the driving with no real respect for my time, or bandwidth, and GOG's manual way is pretty solid for doing things the old fashioned way, though it does get a little tiresome if a game has a patch avalanche the way newer titles sometimes do. "The Pit" about drove me crazy getting new ones all of the time. Those are kind of conflicting ideas, so good luck guessing as to what my idea solution would be like. Maybe android like?

This was true until recently, but the situation has improved now. When you start a game that is not currently up to date, Steam now asks you whether you want to update or just play the game. I just wish this functionality would have been in place already when Arkham Origins received two 3 GB updates in a single week ... ;) Steam does offer you more options now. Currently, the Download Settings look like this (see attachment)

You can limit downloads to certain times, limit the bandwidth, and state whether downloads during playtime are allowed.

You still can't disallow all updates, though I don't know what happens if you just limit the allowed time to a second or so.

Thanks for all the info folks, it's a big help, hopefully to other users as well.

I hadn't thought of using the Desura client, I think I'll give that a spin and see how it handles things.

A shame GG doesn't have better maintenance, but every service is different.

I continue to try to narrow down the places I get games from, in the hopes of minimising how many different sources I have to manage. As for bundles, I basically treat them as one-off purchases now. Though HB does at least flag the date on my list so that I can manually see where there is an update.

Thanks again everyone!