Most of the free suites on offer,
including those we’ve recommended earlier, are cut-down editions of
paid-for software. If you want additional features, you can easily upgrade to
the full version, usually from within the software itself (chances are, you’ll
be nagged to do so!).
Advanced SystemCare, for example, is available
in paid-for Pro and Ultimate editions, and upgrading gives you lots of useful
extra features, including enhanced malware protection, real-time optimization,
an internet booster and smart tools for daily maintenance. In a lot of cases,
however, the additional tools in the paid-for edition will be non-essential
extras that might be handy to have, but which you probably won’t need or use
very often.
While there are plenty of great free
and fully functional programs to choose from, be careful to avoid ‘crippled’
suites that scan your system for free, present you with a list of problems, and
then charge you to do anything about the results. A typical example of this
kind of product is PC Pitstop’s PC Matic.
You should never trust this kind of program, because there’s no way of knowing
how good (or otherwise) it will be at cleaning up your PC until after you’ve
handed over your cash.
Snake-oil software
Some of the cleaning tools you can
download (in both paid-for and free suites) could be described as ‘snake oil’
because they make grand claims for the improvements they perform, but don’t really
fix problems or make your PC run any better. Many experts put Registry cleaners
and Registry defragmenters in this category. Cleaning the Registry can
potentially help if it’s done as part of a full maintenance routine on a PC
that hasn't had any care or attention for a long time, but it does very little
on its own, and in some cases can cause problems.
Accidentally removing a single
important Registry entry is far more damaging than having even hundreds of
incorrect and outdated entries in the Registry, which probably won’t noticeably
slow down your PC or cause problems. There’s nothing wrong with using this
type of tool on the odd occasion, but it’s certainly not a magic bullet to fix
all your system woes.
Similarly, defragging your hard drive
is unlikely to deliver massive speed boosts. Modern drives are so fast that the
difference in seeking data on an optimized or un-optimized drive will be
minimal. In fact, the process can lessen the lifespan of a regular HDD if it’s over used, and should never be used at
all on an SSD. You should only defrag a drive once a month, at most, using a
trusted tool such as Defraggler.
