Thoughts Please

[quandam]

Found this programme in download.com's 'most popular' list. Have used it and so far (?) it seems to be excellent and has some good write ups from users. I use several individual 'clean up' progs around twice a week but this one found a huge amount of extra items to fix. Wondered what you guys thought of it?

Here is the link: http://download.cnet.com/Advanced-SystemCare-Free/3000-2086_4-10407614.html?tag=contentBody;mostPopTwoColWrap

[Sebby]

My feeling about these programs is that they often do more harm that good, or at least nothing noticeable. I would be very weary about the "errors" it finds. Still, if it has good write-ups, it must be fairly decent.

[Simon]

I agree with Sebby.  A lot of these types of programs are unnecessary, and require payment for a 'full' version before they will actually do anything.  I would advise caution.

[Gary]

My thoughts Echo the above, these rarely do any good, defragging and using Ccleaner to wipe junk now and then is all you need, if you ave specific issus then registry editing is a last resort. You get zero performance gains from cleaning out a few kb's of registry left overs. Defragging with something like PerfectDisc so you can defragment your metadata with an offline degrag is better, also occasionally running chkdisc will be fine as well and then running CCleaner after. Apart from that leave it all well alone

[D-Dan]

My colleague over at Gizmo's gave it the highest rating.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-pc-tune-up-utility.htm

And I always trust what we guys over there have to say

Steve

[Simon]

It may have a top rating, but it also says that the program is full of adverts, so it's not something I would use on my own PC.  Good, honest review though, Steve. 

[quandam]

My colleague over at Gizmo's gave it the highest rating.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-pc-tune-up-utility.htm

And I always trust what we guys over there have to say

Steve

Thanks for your thoughts.

So far, the prog has worked well for me. The 'adverts' referred to in the report are the 'upgrade' inducers. Once you have sussed out the only items you are able to use on the free version you are not bothered with them again. As I say, so far so good

[Gary]

Thanks for your thoughts.

So far, the prog has worked well for me. The 'adverts' referred to in the report are the 'upgrade' inducers. Once you have sussed out the only items you are able to use on the free version you are not bothered with them again. As I say, so far so good

Glad its working for you, but rather you than me, I noticed it said people had experienced some troubles after using it, the thing is I do not think windows needs this type of thing, Cleaning out old temp files and defragging, running disc checks is one thing but take registry cleaners for instance, they all give different results depending on which version you use. They all use algorithms to try and safely clean the registry, but most generally remove needed settings, or HKEY's that maybe redundant because they are not being used, no cleaner can ever guarantee safety hence you back up your registry, maybe compressing the registry may help but I doubt it would be noticeable, if you do some research there is no real proof of performance gains, its all just ways of getting you to part with your money, and tbh they do nothing to help and more to hinder in general. And any program that tries to get you to upgrade via advertising within the program is adware in my book.

[quandam]

Thanks for your thoughts.

So far, the prog has worked well for me. The 'adverts' referred to in the report are the 'upgrade' inducers. Once you have sussed out the only items you are able to use on the free version you are not bothered with them again. As I say, so far so good

Update re above. If you don't want the 'upgrade' inducement ads popping up go for version 3,3,2. Version (Free). The 3,3,3 (Pro) version is only free for a trial period and the ads keep popping up.

Gary, thanks for your advice and I expect, in the long run, you will be proved correct. However, Download.com alone have had 19 million downloads of this prog,  I haven't looked at others like Major Geeks etc. As they say in the trade 19 million+ people can't be wrong I always feel that if it all should go wrong you can always return to a previous recovery point to put things right

[Gary]

Update re above. If you don't want the 'upgrade' inducement ads popping up go for version 3,3,2. Version (Free). The 3,3,3 (Pro) version is only free for a trial period and the ads keep popping up.

Gary, thanks for your advice and I expect, in the long run, you will be proved correct. However, Download.com alone have had 19 million downloads of this prog,  I haven't looked at others like Major Geeks etc. As they say in the trade 19 million+ people can't be wrong I always feel that if it all should go wrong you can always return to a previous recovery point to put things right

Very true, but just because its been downloaded loads does not make it good, a decent defrag program like PerfectDisc CCleaner and a good AV gives you pretty mush what you have there, and you have less to boot up and slow your pc down. But its good to try new things out, I have just learnt that if its not broken don't fix it these days  but as you say you can go back if needed.