Best Free PC Tune-up Utility

Tune-up utilities are needed to keep your computer running fast and error-free. There are a variety of tasks tune-up programs can do, such as disk cleaning, disk defragging, registry cleaning or registry defragging. It is especially useful for people who use resource intensive programs, such as modern computer games.

My top pick is Glary Utilities. The installation installs the Ask toolbar and sets Ask as the default search engine by default, so remember to untick this option unless you want it! The interface is clear and easy to use with all the features organised into different modules. It has one-click cleaning for some common tasks. It contains the most tools, however, quite a few of the tools are of a lower standard than specialist products (such as the privacy tools, disk cleaner and uninstaller). I recommend this if you prefer to use individual components of the programs manually (such as the process manager or uninstaller). Glary Utilities free offers:

• a process, startup, uninstall and context menu manager 
• a disk and privacy cleaner
• removal of broken shortcuts, duplicate files and empty folders 
• disk space analysis
• erasing, recovery, encryption/decryption and splitting/joining of files 
• registry cleaner and defrag
• a memory optimizer
• management of Internet Explorer add-ons
• access to some Windows tools

The shareware version adds scheduling, support and consent for commercial use.

Some people have reported problems with using Microsoft Flight Simulator when running the registry cleaner of Glary Utilities.

Another excellent product is Advanced WindowsCare Personal from IObit. It is very simple to use, with one-click cleaning for most of its tasks. I personally find the "Iobit News Centre" that loads every time I open Advanced WindowsCare rather annoying. I recommend this if you want a simple solution with the least user interaction. The Personal version offers:

• spyware cleaning and immunization
• process, startup and uninstall manager
• disk, privacy and registry cleaner
• system and security tweaks
• system information

The Professional version adds some advanced tuning tweaks, scheduling, support and consent for commercial use.

Currently Advanced WindowsCare Personal 3 beta is available. It adds much more features but since it is a beta it could be unstable, so use it at your own risk.

These two products are impressive free packages and are recommended for non-technical users. They lack in one major area: hard-drive defragmentation. I recommend you to read Gizmo's Best Free Disk De-fragmenter and run one of those disk-defragmenters regularly. IObit's SmartDefrag is particularly good if you want an automatic solution. If you use one of these disk de-fragmenters in conjunction with one of the tune-up suites, you'll have a remarkably complete tune-up package.

Special Offers:

Computeractive is offering Ashampoo WinOptimizer 4 for free.

Vnunet has VCOM Fix-It Utilities 7 Express for free.

Vnunet also has a free six month licence for System Mechanic.

These three are all excellent products with a disk de-fragmenter, however, they require registration which involves giving your e-mail address. Also, Ashampoo WinOptimizer 4 does not provide further further updates and they are already at version 5.

Remember that cleaning your PC always involves a small element of risk, so backup your data and create a System Restore Point before you start.

Some of these products have some form spyware scanning (this does not include Advanced WindowCare's "Security Defense"). These are not recommended as I believe specialised products are necessary for security. Specialised products are are generally safer and have been tested to some degree.

We recommend that you run the tune-up programs monthly. After each monthly Windows update is an excellent time to run a clean up. If you install and uninstall a lot of products, you may want to increase this frequency to weekly or even daily.

If you have never tuned up your PC, then you should see a real improvement in speed and responsiveness the first time you run these programs. However, on subsequent runs the improvement may be much less noticeable.

Related Topics

• Best Free File Cleaner
• Best Free Browser Scrubber
• Best Free Duplicate File Finder
• Best Free Registry Cleaner
• Best Free Disk De-fragmenter
• Best Free Program Uninstaller
• Best Free Startup Manager
• Someone's Cleanup Kit

Product Details

Glary Utilities
Website: http://glaryutilities.com/gu.html
Download link: www.download.com/3001-2094_4-10840459.html
Author: Glarysoft
Version: 2.6.1
Date: August 22, 2008
Download file size: 6.32MB
License: Free for personal use
Operating systems supported: 98, ME, NT, 2000, 2003, XP, Vista
64 bit version available: This is a native 64 bit application
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: Albanian, Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, Chinese Simplified and Traditional, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian
Additional software required: None

Advanced WindowsCare Personal
Website: http://www.iobit.com/AdvancedWindowsCarePersonal/index.html
Download link: http://www.download.com/Advanced-WindowsCare-Personal/3000-2086-10407614.html?part=dl-AdvancedW&subj=dl&tag=button
Author: IObit
Version: 2.8.6
Date: August 20, 2008
Download file size: 6.24MB
License: Free for personal use
Operating systems supported: 2000, XP, Vista
64 Bit version available: This is a native 64 bit application
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: Arabic, Bosnian, Chinese Simplified and Traditionall, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Srpski, Turkish, Valencian
Additional software required: None

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 4
Website: www2.ashampoo.com/webcache/html/1/product_2_1606__.htm
Download link: www.computeractive.co.uk/vnunet/downloads/2219165/ashampoo-winoptimizer
Version: 4.51
Date: May 20, 2008
Download file size: 8.8MB
Author: Ashampoo
License: Free but no updates
Operating systems supported: 2000, XP, Vista
64-Bit version available: This is a native 64 bit application
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish, Spanish, Russian, Slovak
Additional software required: None

VCOM Fix-It Utilities 7 Express
Website: www.avanquest.com/UK/pc-tools/pc-security-pc-health/security-suite/VCOM_Fix-It_Utilities_7_Express.html
Download link: www.vnunet.com/vnunet/downloads/2215035/vcom-fix-utilities-express
Author: Avanquest
Version: 7
Date: April 24, 2008
Download file size: 54MB
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: 2000, XP, Vista
64-Bit version available: No, this program will not run in a 64 bit environment
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: Unknown
Additional software required: None

System Mechanic 8
Website: www.iolo.com/system-mechanic/standard/
Download link: www.vnunet.com/vnunet/downloads/2224043/system-mechanic
Version: 8
Date: July 8, 2008
Download file size: 42.3MB
Author: iolo Technologies
License: Free for half a year
Operating systems supported: 2000, XP, Vista
64-Bit version available: No, this program will not run in a 64 bit environment
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: Unknown
Additional software required: None

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