How to Clean My PC and Make it Run Faster - Free
When you buy a PC or Laptop, either new or pre-owned, you pretty much have something that is ready to go, straight out of the box, and you start to modify the machine to suit your needs or personal requirements. 
 
Firstly, if you require a powerful machine for video or audio editing, or online gaming, you are going to be purchasing a powerful, and probably expensive laptop or desktop. If you want an all round utility machine, then it's going to be a notebook of some kind, and if you want something that is really only for internet use, then it might be a sub-notebook or net-book (a sub-notebook is pretty much a net-book that has a dvd drive)
If you have a name brand laptop, such as Acer, Asus, Toshiba, etc. you might have the ability to use a built in recovery program. With Acer machines, HP, some Dells, you can run the recovery software to return the machine to factory condition, but you also have the option of just recovering the Operating System and keeping your files and documents intact, but original software and system files are restored. This cleans out the crap and is handy if a virus has damaged system files or maybe your having start-up issues. If you are running a W8 machine, you can boot into Safe mode and run the 'Refresh Your PC' option. Boot to desktop, open the charms bar and go to restart your machine, but before you click restart, hold down the shift key and your pc will restart into safe mode.


The main performance improvement that you can make to any machine is to increase the RAM (memory) of the machine, but take care if you have a warranty on the machine. Upgrading hardware will invalidate your warranty. Some machines cannot be upgraded, maybe the memory is on-board, there are some net-books that cannot be upgraded for this reason, or the maximum memory is already installed.

All of these machine's have different boards, different processors, different memory, and run at different speeds in different ways, and each has it's limit. A net-book will never be a notebook and a sub-notebook will never be a gaming machine. The best thing that you can do to keep your machine optimised to perform at it's best is to keep the PC clean. This refers to not filling the keyboard with crumbs just as much as keeping the software in tiptop condition.


I mention external cleaning for a couple of reasons, firstly, it never gets mentioned, and secondly, crap blocking the internal heat-sink can cause the machine to overheat and cause catastrophic hardware failure. Try to use the PC or laptop in a dust free environment, use caution if you use a laptop on the bed, as it will sink into the soft duvet, and the heat vents then get blocked and cannot expel the hot air from the machine.

Software

Microsoft's Windows Operating Systems are installed on most machines today and most of the software on the market is either designed for Windows or is Windows compatible. Because Windows runs a registry system, this can slow a computer down as it fills over time, also, Windows records most of what you do, so it's cache memory fills up. Programs are stored on the hard-drive, which fill it with unnecessary files and fragmented information, and these are just some of the reasons that over time, a machine will slow down. If you fill your internet browser with toolbars, this will seriously slow your internet access.

There are, of course, many free to download programs designed to clear out the crap, but which of them actually work. Sometimes when you download and install a program, the installer shows little boxes with ticks in, telling you that it's going to install a piece of software that it's promoting or a toolbar that you don't need, sometimes a cleaner software of some-kind. Be cautious as these are usually bogus. They pretend to be super cleaners, they scan your machine, then clean it...for a fee. If you are installing a program, be aware of other pieces of software trying to install themselves, and don't just click your way through the install process, read what is going into your machine. PC Cleaner Pro is a well known cleaner that was, in fact, Malware (Scam software), another well known offender was Security cleaner Pro from a few years ago.




I'm going to run through some legitimate software, all of these programs are FREE to download and use, for personal use. They are programs that I have used and most of them I still do. They all work and you will find that most are easy to use. But first, the software sites themselves. The links that I will be providing, will mostly be for the manufacturers websites, but some of them will be links to host sites. These are sites that list software for manufacturer's, and there are free software, trial and shareware and software for sale. 

 

Softonic.com a spanish site, mainly for shareware, but has a fair amount of free stuff. I use this site on occasion


CNET Download.com Used to be the biggest download site on the web, I stopped using it around 2011, when it introduced a new installer to include adware to the software that users were downloading, a browser hijacker, and the installation manager would keep offering to install add-ons like browser toolbars which change default homepages

Softpedia.com This romanian site covers pretty much everything from technology, science, health, and entertainment topics from external and in-house sources and provides phone, software and game reviews. The site is nicely laid out, and covers probably all O.S,'s including android. This is the main site that I download from.


FileHippo.com FileHippo is a site that offers downloadable software for Windows, but also carries older versions of all software in its archives. A very good site if you need a specific version of adobe or flash or winrar, etc. The site name was registered a trademark in 2011, recently the site has undergone a face lift with new features added, such as Techbeat News. I use this site quite often.

 Techradar.com Not really a download site, but has a pretty good download section that is always worth a look. 


If you are unsure of any sites or software, simply google the name and findout if it's reputation is good or bad.

Antivirus

Ok, lets start with Antivirus. All Windows machines must have antivirus to surf todays World Wide Web. If you buy a laptop you will probably see on the desktop a symbol for McAfee or Norton Antivirus. Please be warned that these are trial software, which you will get to use for free for around 30 days, and then you will be unprotected if you don't subscribe, basic packages are around £30 a year. The main problem with these bloatware security packs is that people don't realise they run out, and they also don't realise that you should only run ONE antivirus program, unless you install a second one that is designed to be a backup antivirus, and there are only a few on the market. If you have a trial antivirus and your not going to buy it after the trial, Uninstall it. There is usually an uninstall option or google for an uninstaller for that particular product. Once it's removed, replace it with a free Antivirus, of which there are plenty.
Avast Free Antivirus - http://www.avast.com/en-gb/index

Avast Free Antivirus is an outstanding program, fully customisable to your needs, and works brilliantly straight out of the box. On install, you have the option to install chrome, I don't, so I untick the boxes. The machine requires a restart, and gives you 30 days to try the product, and register. When registered, you are covered for a year, and just re-register each year, completely free for personal use. Full range of scans, including a boot time scan. I used this program until I installed Windows 10 and now use Windows Defender (built into windows) because Avast have been accused of collecting usage data in recent years without informing the user, and as of early 2020 are under investigation


AVG free Antivirus has had it's up's and down's, and popularity of this antivirus has been sporadic. The program itself works fine, somewhere around 2009 there were complaints that you only got it free for one year, then you had to purchase or re-install it for another year. There have been reports dating back to 2012 that the AVG SafeGuard Toolbar installs itself without the consent of the user, causing significant RAM issues, and is damn near impossible to remove without it re-installing itself. Also, in 2016, Avast acquired AVG for $1.3 billion.




Bitdefender is a rather good piece of kit, but has been prone to issues with bad updates. Also there have been reports of false positives (marking items as viruses when they weren't), but most of those issues have been dealt with, according to the manufacturer. As of 2019, this antivirus has become very popular as a free antivirus option
Panda Cloud Antivirus - http://www.cloudantivirus.com/en/

Panda Cloud Antivirus, a spanish based subsiduary of panda security, is a different type of antivirus, as it isn't situated on your machine, it is cloud based in the sense that files are scanned on a remote server without using the processing power of the user's machine, so instead of updating the program, it's updating itself by way of 'collective intelligence'. Used by net-book users due to it not needing a large chunk of drive space, but please note that in the rare event of the server being compromised, the user becomes vulnerable.






Avira free antivirus, reported to be rather good on android, and has a rather good malware detection rate across the board. The 2014 version has had it's firewall technology replaced with a more Windows compatible version, and has been inplementing definitions cache cleaning and smaller updates to improve performance.

Cleaner Programs
So,you have a laptop or desktop that is starting to run a little slow, it's being used on a daily basis, it has antivirus, all the updates are installed but it needs a good cleanout and a bit of basic maintenance. There is a huge amount of software availible to help with this task and I'm going to run through them here.




 From Piriform, we have one of the best and most well known, and probably one of the easiest to use, of all the cleaner software programs. Originally known as CrapCleaner, Ccleaner is a utility program designed to remove unwanted files such as temporary internet files (where malicious programs and code tend to reside) and invalid Windows Registry entries from a computer. Simply install, setup to your preference and its just four buttons in the left hand menu. The company produces free, paid for, and a portable version, there is a mac and a network edition and a corporate edition. Other pieces of software availible are Defraggler, Recuva and Speccy. I have used Piriform products for years, but always the portable versions, due to researchers discovering that in 2017, CCleaner was compromised by hackers who inserted a backdoor into the software. Also, in 2017, the company was bought by Avast.

Advanced Systemcare ( Not to be confused with Advanced-System-Care, which is malware ) is a program from a company called IObit, that I have used, but not for sometime. I have been asked about this a few times, so I'm going to list it here. When downloading this utility program, It will say that it is free, but ad-supported. Ad-supported programs should really be classed as shareware, because most of the crap it's going to be cleaning is what it creates. I would have recommended earlier versions of this, here I will say give it a go, but there are other programs out there if you don't like this one. (Update Jan 2020 - This program has reverted back to freeware)


This utility is actually available from Softpedia as installer and a portable, and both work just fine. This program is very easy on resources and take up very little room on the harddrive. It has a lot of tools, but is still an easy interface to handle, and all designed to improve software perfomance. If you are a beginner in the world of computers, there is a 1-Click Maintenance option, that runs a set of default tools to try and solve issues for you. I've used this a time or two, and never really had any problems, it's actually pretty effective.



Auslogic BoostSpeed - http://www.auslogics.com/en/

The first release of this program was actually version 3, because the developers simply weren't happy with it, and kept on working on it. Latest release is version 6, and is packed with tools to optimise your computer. I really like this company, and have been using their products for years. This particular program will require a bit of patience when you first familiarise yourself with it. But it is a lovely bit of kit and highly effective. Unfortunately, the free version is restricted to cleaning the junk files, and a lot of the functions are locked, unless you decide to buy.

Stopping unnecessary programs from starting when you boot up can speed up the boot time and get you running quicker. If you have lots of programs running at any given time, they are all using resources such as memory, and will slow down your computer.

Unfortunately, people with a limited knowledge of computers think that by installing such titles as 'PC Performance Pro' type programs will speed things up, and when the program doesn't do anything, they download the next one, then the next, and all that happens is that they end up compounding the situation. Don't have more programs running, if you want to go faster, reduce the number of programs.

Actual cleaners dont start up on boot unless you specifically tell them to, and when you stop them the don't drop to the taskbar and continue running.

If you feel confident enough to navigate your Windows operating system, there are some tools to improve performance built into Windows. There is a cleanup utility within Windows, this is the software used by some bogus softwares to scan your machine, when you think that the bogus software is doing the scan.

On your Windows desktop, there is a 'Start' button, which brings up a menu, and under 'All Programs' there is a folder named 'Accessories'. Open and find a folder named 'System Tools' and in there is a program named 'Disk Cleanup'. When the Disk Cleanup window appears, simply choose the drive you want to clean, and it will scan and list dead files, choose those files you want to remove and let it run. If you are running Windows 8, press the Windows key + X to open the Quick Access Menu,and choose Control Panel. At the control panel, open 'Administrative Tools' and click on Disk Cleanup

If you open the search function, Vista and W7 its on the start menu, W8 its on the charms bar or hold the windows key + R. In the search box type 'msconfig' and Enter. You will get the 'System Configuration Window'. A couple of simple things you can do here are, 'Boot' tab, then 'Advanced Options' button, in the BOOT advanced options, tick 'Number of Processors', by default, this will use one processor to boot your machine, the higher the number here, the more processors used at boot, the quicker the machine starts. You can also change how much memory is used at boot here also. Dont change anything else here unless you know what your doing. Go to 'Services' tab and click 'Hide all Microsoft Services', this will show what is starting up when you boot simply turn off what you dont need, google what you dont recognise. Same with the 'Startup' tab, but be very careful with these settings. When your done exit with or without a restart.

Click start or open a window such as documents, and in the menu find the icon for 'Computer', hover the mouse cursor over the computer icon and right-click, in the menu that appears you will see the option 'Manage', click this option and the 'Computer Management Window' will open. In the left -hand menu find 'Services and Applications', then 'Services'. You will now see all programs running in the background of Windows. The listing you are looking for is 'Windows Search', this program uses a large amount of memory, yet it is rarely used, click it to open the properties window, and change the startup type to disabled.

Malware Scanner


If you have been using your machine online and think that I may have become infected, you can scan with your antivirus, but some forms of Malware can get past the antivirus, so If you need a Malware scanner, there are many on the market.

The one most people rave about it Spybot Search and Destroy. This program goes back to the early days of Windows 95/98, and has been a firm favorite of many. If I'm to be honest, I have never liked it. It's not really for beginners, the interface hasn't really changed, and I've had a few issues when trying to get it to find deep rooted malware. SuperAntiSpyware is another that I have never liked, due to the free version being relatively useless due to the restrictions placed upon it, and also that it has a look and feel about it of a bogus software. HijackThis has always been reliable for regular hits or deep rooted problems, but let's get down to brass tacks. I going to recommend MalwareBytes Anti-Malware.



MalwareBytes Anti-Malware never misses, It's the one I've always used for Hijackware viruses that take control of your machine, and pretend to be an antivirus program or the Police/FBI/Interpol. It's effective on rootkits, spyware, pretty much anything and everything. And to put the icing on the cake, I have found that the Free version performs as good as, if not better than the paid version.

Maintenance

There are certain simple types of maintenance that you can do with your machine. You have used Ccleaner and cleaned out the dead files and cleaned the registry. If you are running a Windows XP machine, your thinking about defragging your harddrive. We are told that this is not needed since Vista came out, and most machines have fast SATA drives (or even SSD's) but defragging a harddrive will increase performance and will be less wear on the harddrive itself. Just a note here, never defrag an SSD.

 

If you can think of the harddrive spinning away at 7200rpm., and you are saving data to this spinning harddrive at speed, the data isnt going to go on the disk uniformally, bits and pieces are going to be dropped all over the harddrive, and the harddrive has to know where the bits are and it takes time to read the bits in the right order. Defragging the harddrive is when you use a defrag program to gather all of those bits together, which shortens the read time of the harddrive in finding the files that you need. When you talk of large harddrives used by modern computers, your talking of billions upon billions of bits. Also, by gathering the bits together, you actually reclaim extra drive space.

Windows Operating Systems have always had a built in defrag software, but it is rather slow and arthritic. I use two programs myself, depending on the machine. For smaller harddrives, I tend to use Defraggler from Piriform, and Larger Harddrives I use a defrag software from a company called Auslogics. 
 

Auslogics Disk Defrag Free (http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/)is a quick and effective program. The company specialises in harddrive applications, but is branching out into other areas such as antivirus. They are Microsoft affiliated as Microsoft Gold Application Developer's and their products are excellent. Unfortunately, their antivirus is only on a 30 trial, no free edition, or I would probably be using it.

Auslogic also has another defrag tool, The Auslogics Registry Defrag Tool (http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/registry-defrag/after-download/)

People don't realise that the registry can become fragmented like a harddrive, this will defrag your registry and speed up your boot time.

Caution

Remember not to download anything you aren't 100% certain of

Remember don't physically open the computer if it's still under warranty.

    Remember you shouldn't delete a file unless you're sure it's safe to delete

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