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Tune up Utilities


pcpunk

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"Slimeware Utilities"

pretty much says it all for me .

 

personally , i do not recommend items such as these that promise to make your computer run so much better that you don't even have to plug it in .

most of these items include "file cleaners" and "software updaters" and so-forth ... learn to take care of these things for yourself and your machine will be happier for it .

automatically updating software can cause a problem .

let's say that the updater downloads and installs *something* and you are not fully aware of what happened ...

further , suddenly your machine is not functioning as it should/was ... trying to figure out what happened/what was broken can be a royal pain .

 

CCleaner is a good utility that will get rid of dead files and such that accumulate .

stay out of the registry ... this is not a place for a novice to be in .

 

there are other "clean up" utilities that are used over in the malware removal side ...

perhaps a couple of the other members would elaborate on them .

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OMG that is funny "Slimeware" lol, can't believe I did that.  It has a very good write-up at PCmag.com but I guess these guys are being paid for advertising?  Should I not trust these guys that much because of their business relationship with these people? http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388692,00.asp  

Just want to get my Google Chrome to start-up faster but I guess it's going to be safer to just live with it.  It performs well enough after it starts up and what can i expect with such an old system right?  I tried CCleaner once and deleted all of my log-ins, what a pain in the arse!  

I have run Ausologics Defrag, Advanced settings chosen on IE and add-ons that I don't use have been disabled.  I also used the avast optimizer or something and eliminated some things that I did not need.

 

I asked this before but don't know if I can find it: I need a screen capture so that I can get help from you techies.  I would like to use the one that comes with XP but it does not work for some reason.  I am so afraid of downloading ANY software that I did not do so yea but need a Screen Capture badly to do anything lol.  Thanks again guys! 

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  It has a very good write-up at PCmag.com but I guess these guys are being paid for advertising? 

 

BINGO !

 

That's been the case of Ziff Davis Publishing for quite a while now.

 

Take that from someone who had an article published in PCMag in 1988 !  :D

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" I tried CCleaner once and deleted all of my log-ins, what a pain in the arse!"

hmmm ... one has to be cautious about what options are selected .

if you tell it to clean the network passwords , auto complete , saved passwords , etc ... it will do just that .

there are sections for each browser and application .

i have used ccleaner for years with no deleterious results .

 

the only thing i use IE for is the windows updates .

elsewise , i use firefox (now in conjunction with "classic theme restorer") .

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And when CCleaner upgrades to a new version, always reconfirm your settings before you run it.

 

Some time ago, CCleaner added a default check mark to one of my popular &essential third-party applications, Mailwasher Pro.

I caught wind of it before it caused me a problem, but some MWP users ended up with seriously messed-up settings and configurations that required reinstalling, etc. when they ran a new version of CCleaner without removing MWP from the list of applications to be cleaned.

(This has since been rectified, but you get the idea.)

 

From the "been there, almost done that" camp,

 

daledoc1

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Aw, c'mon. :P

 

Used correctly, CCleaner is perfectly safe.

One just needs to know what options to disable and what features to ignore.

There are features and options I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.

 

<I'll stop there, lest this devolve into a flame war PRO and CON for CCleaner>

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heh ... as i recall , the windows disk cleanup was capable of causing one say words that would make your momma chase after you with a bar of soap .

still , ccleaner is a little nicer than the old norton utilities pack (i forget the name) ... uuuggghh .

 

go ahead , call me a flame fanner .

:lol::P

 

ps : @ OP : do you have plans for *eliminating* XP ?

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The biggest problem in here is that no one person can define what safe usage is for a program that makes recommendations of removing things from your computer if you do not know whether they are required by your computer or not.

 

I don't rely on registry cleaners b/c of many of the reasons in the link that Dale first linked to.  I clean my own HDs myself using batch files and built-in tools like Disk Cleanup, and monitor my startups carefully through WinPatrol and monitoring installations of software using advanced / custom installations (when offered).

 

If you don't know whether something is required or not, and you let a computer program make the decision for you, you take the risk of damaging something somewhere in your system - it might be insignificant damage or it may be completely debilitating, to the point of crippling your system.

 

Even programs that have a lot of testing behind them, like CCleaner, even programs like MBAM, can have a small glitch that turns into a very large mess.

 

Bottom line - don't let a computer program make decisions for you in situations like this.  Make the decisions yourself - do the research, ask questions, and never take the attitude of "well, XXX program says it is not needed, so I should be safe" without researching first.

 

And that is the only way to use a program correctly.

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Great feedback guys, I guess I will not do anything lol because I am not smart enough to understand all this stuff.  I am looking into Disabling my Xfinity addon to gain some startup speed on Google Chrome.  I might not even do that though as there might be some advantages to having it I don't know yet.  Some of the guys from BC ran some tools on my pc that should have cleaned it up so maybe it is just my old system having slow startup.

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I have more than a few browsers on my system.

 

Firefox, with 57 tabs loaded into different groups, always starts up faster than Chrome, with 3 tabs, and Opera with 5.

 

I have maybe 5 or 6 addons in Chrome, none in Opera, and around 25 in Firefox.

 

In addition, as loaded above, Chrome already takes up well over a GB or RAM and continues to climb as I use it.  Firefox, OTOH, starts out at around 380 - 450 MB, but it will climb throughout a day as well.

 

So, FWIW, I've stopped using chrome.

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Ooo thanks John, that's the kind of info that I can use lol.  I do have FF installed also and a techie friend of mine says he likes it best also.  He says that he likes and advises me to use it Incognito all the time if possible as it can be set this way.  I will have to take this into consideration.  When I first started using GC I thought it to be faster but things have changed in a short time from what I have read!

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It depends upon what you call faster.

 

Think about a car - a car can be fast to:

 

  1. Start (as in starting the engine)
  2. Warm up the cabin interior
  3. Go from 0 - 60 MPH
  4. Go from 60 - 0 MPH
  5. Shift from any given gear to another gear
  6. Turn on the windshield wipers
  7. Corner a 90° L-shaped turn
  8. Run a 10 cone slalom
  9. Run a 250' figure 8
  10. Run the full Nürburg-Ring Gesamtstrecke

And on and on and on.  Not to mention there are different factors involved that contribute to the speediness of any of these measurable components.

 

Same way with the browser.  It does a lot of different things, and one browser may be faster than another at certain things but not as fast as another browser in other things.

 

The only way you're going to know if it does what you want it to the way you want it to is to try them (the different browsers) yourself.

 

One you pick one, assuming it is not IE, get rid of the ones you don't use - no sense in having them around, unless you're a web developer.  If you pick IE as your default browser, then keep at least one other one around for those times when IE may act strangely / not work correctly / not work at all.

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No,  Unless you have a program starting up when the PC boots, having it installed does not normally affect your boot up time of the PC.  Boot time is affected by many things, one of which is what is loading at boot.

 

However, if you are running extremely low on space, uninstalling it can help just a little.  By extremely low, I mean less than 500 MB of free space.

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