Speed up & Optimize your PC

SPEED UP & OPTIMIZE YOUR PC reads the blurb over at "Tune up". But this could be about any of a million utilities programs out there.

Something that's been a doubt since my XP days. Specifically i have a copy of "Tune Up" utilities hence my reference. It and many include Registery cleaners. The pro's & cons of fiddling with the registry has been debated elsewhere.

But what about all the other bells & whistles they push? Fine-tuning my internet speed, tweek this and tweek that and so on.

Let me be blunt...

Do they really "Speed up & Optimize your PC" or is it just snake oil?

 

To call all of these suites "snake oil" is an oversimplification and incorrect. But you shouldn't believe every marketing word coming from the companies behind them as absolute truths too.

Instead of going with the extremes of subjective opinions, you can actually test, benchmark and reach the valid objective conclusions.

PC MAG for instance regularly makes many tests and benchmarks with some of these suites.

http://www.pcmag.com/image_popup/0,1871,iid=352668,00.asp
http://www.pcmag.com/products/1595

Their current Editor's Choice in this category is Iolo System Mechanic 11:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371043,00.asp

FWIW, they also praised TuneUp Utilities 2013:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371494,00.asp

 

Snake oil.

I've been in the business since before the 8-bit days Of the Commodore-64 and Apple II, and I'd like to think I've seen it all.

By and large, these tools are resource hogs in and of themselves and aren't going to magically double the speed of anything. No sir. Look, if there is a glaring issue, a major problem, some setting horribly mis-adjusted - things like that - these tools might catch something or put a setting back to the way it's supposed to be. But you're just as likely to have already done similar during the course of troubleshooting - perhaps in an online or phone session.

If you want whiz-bang speedups and blistering performance increases, you'll need to upgrade your hardware. Ram, SSD's, processors, graphics cards, things like that.

One thing I do like is keeping the amount of junk build-up to a minimum. This is universal to all systems. Orderly file systems are great for stability and smoothness and generally easier to sort through and work with. And there are tons of utilities that do well in this area. Especially the ones that let you add-in your own rules and selections.

 

I used to have TuneUp Utilities when I had Windows XP.
I no longer use them with Windows Seven.

Many users claim that TuneUp Utilities are not what they used to be; bloatware etc.

 

Tune-Up Utilities was a good product at one point, but they have turned their application into a non effective piece of bloatware.

I tend to stick with Auslogics products and CCleaner, nothing else. Thats just me though....everyone seems to use some or none at all. I say try a few to see what your take is on it.

Just a heads up, some of these registry cleaners and or all in one suites can or may cause problems.

 

ditto! very well said

 

I'm not going to rehash on the 'registry cleaning' topic here - that has been done plenty of times.

As for the 'tweaks' provided: these usually can be done manually (.reg files or disabling services for example) or through the use of free tweaking apps. Some of these tools provide tweaks that don't work or even detrimental at times. If you're into tweaking, it's best to find out what the tweak does (since every tweak comes at a cost) and make sure it hasn't been 'debunked' as a 'myth' or listed as a 'bad tweak'. Here are a few examples:

http://lifehacker.com/5033518/debunking-common-windows-performance-tweaking-myths
http://www.tweakhound.com/windows7/tweaking/14.html
http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/xptweaks/supertweaks11.htm
http://www.tweakhound.com/2011/09/20/bad-tweaks/
http://www.winvistaclub.com/e1.html

Even if it isn't a snake oil, there's little reason why you would want to pay for 1. Better save that spare cash for other uses such as treating your gf a dinner, donating it to charity or upgrading hardware components if possible.

Now, if you wish to, here are a few guides:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/8001/how-to-fix-the-10-biggest-windows-annoyances/
http://www.tweakhound.com/windows7/tweaking/index.html
http://www.tweakhound.com/ssd-tweak-guide-sort-of/
http://www.tweakguides.com/System.html
http://www.blackviper.com/
http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm
http://www.speedguide.net/tcpoptimizer.php

 

Not just you,me too

 

Piriform and Auslogics served my cleaning and maintenance needs for a good number of years now. I see little reason to go beyond them.

I like to use the file placement order feature from Ultimate Defrag (disktrix) once in a while on my mechanical disks. SSD's have no need for that. I also keep SysInternals Suite in my toolbox should I ever need it.

My main goal is keeping extraneous unused files out of the system.

 

Thanks

 

Good set of choices

 

There is a time and place for these utils. Its not for anyone reading these forums, that's for sure. I think the tools like CCleaner are way too intimidating and confusing for your average user. They can get one of these tune up programs which will probably get rid of a bunch of extra toolbars/ancient cruft on their system, do the common tweaks most of us do anyway, and do it in a user friendly way.

 

I would not consider them all as snake oil and they do keep a computer nice and tidy.

8 bit and 16bit computers did not need optimising in any shape or form.
I used a commodore amiga 500 computer for over ten years and always ran as fresh as the day i got it.
We tend to disregard these old computers but they never caused half as much hassle as some modern computers do.

 

I dont fall for the Speed up & Optimize your PC software garbage.

All I've used is Piriform CCleaner and Auslogics disk defrag,that it!

It's just like security software,you dont need to bloat your PC to keep it running as fast as the day you brought it home-period.

 

Well said.

On one hand utility suites most definitely can improve performance in certain situations.
On the other hand, they are often promoted with misleading claims - e.g. saying they will make your computer run like new (a highly unlikely scenario), and being able to fix problems - when the reality is they can increase performance but there is very little they can do to fix problems.

At least software like TuneUp Utilities comes with a fully functional trial version, so you can actually test the program before deciding to part with your cash.

 

Agree. Also these tweaking softwares gives the average user the ability to find all the OS settings in 1 place , like in Windows 7 the "GOD mode". So they don't have to search deep in the OS to turn off something. Yes there is the possibility to turn off functions that they need but that's the risk they willing to take if they wanna' mess with the settings.

 

snake oil, for the most part.

i use BleachBit and CCleaner.
but i think i'm gonna get rid of CCleaner because BleachBit does what i need.

 

From comments I've read such as "....CCleaner has a huge active database..." & what my trusty LooknStop whispers to me ("CCleaner is always dialling home after every clean to snitch on what goodies it came across") I think you are picking the wrong one. CCleaner seems to be dedicated to its work & I think will win out over the competition because they're always working on the database, gathering & fine-tuning. Their releases are so regular & constant.

 

I've used SlimCleaner, CCleaner, WinUtilities, System Mechanic and Glary. While they all did somewhat the same job (though each with a slight twist), none of them made a night-and-day difference. I mainly use one or the other for a privacy cleaner.

 

after BleachBit is done, the only thing left for CCleaner to clean are Windows Error logs.