How to Find Free Printer Driver Downloads In Three Easy Steps

We all need drivers, all the time. We buy or inherit a new gadget, we need to hook it up to PC and then at that point if we are not among the lucky ones that have the CD included with the package, the search begins.

This driver download search becomes extra tricky with printer driver downloads. Since printer have all these different brands and model number that continuously change, in most cases we can not find the printer software we need at the manufacturer Website. So what can we do? Buy it, beg for it, how to find that special printer driver software?

Here is what I do every time I need a printer driver download. It is not rocket science, in fact it is pretty straight forward and but I get lucky almost 95% of the time. Some of us sometimes don’t even do these simple steps before we start getting really frustrated.

1 – Search for Printer Driver on the Manufacturer Website (Success Rate 30-40%). Even though most of time you can really find it, still does not hurt to start the search there. Usually this is how I search for on printer manufacturer’s Website. I go to Google or Yahoo and type in this to search for the driver “site:manufacturer.com printer model number, driver “(and usually that works faster and better than just doing a search using the printer manufacturer’s website). For example this is how I do it for a Dell Printer A940 driver download search “site:dell.com driver a940” .

2- Search for Printer Driver in Search Engine Database (Success Rate 15-25%). I go to a search engine (for me Yahoo works best, then Google, then Ask), and simply search for the driver download. This is what I enter in the search box. “printer brand, printer model, and keyword driver”. As an example, for a Canon Pixma IP1600, I search for “Canon Pixma IP1600 Driver”.

3- Search for Printer Driver on a Printer Driver Download Site (Success Rate 50+%). This is probably the highest success rate of all three methods. I put as the last resort because you need to register for this driver download site, and that’s usually not a very good thing. Just takes time, and registration. You might get email ads, or even with some less reputable sites you can possibly get some type of spyware (who knows?)., That’s fine, even though possibly the easiest method, this is my least favorite method. Some of the rather better driver downloads sites in the market are (I will not put .com at the end, you can go ahead and do that if you want to visit their sites).

DriverGuide
DriversCollection
DriverFiles (this one has a .net at the end)
OpenDrivers

This is the three step free driver download search methodology from me. Any other ideas please post in the comment section of this article.

This article is prepared by Christy Berger who writes for PrintCountry.com. A longer version of this article can be found at Free Printer Driver Download Search. Main resource of this article is Printer Driver Download Section at Print Country.