PC tune-up software – Buyer beware – 11_13_2011

Putting one group aside up front there are many Registry Cleaners and some are good at what they do from Shareware/Free to paid ones. My only note from my experience is that I do not keep any tools like this running all the time. If the tool has an active component I uninstall it after I complete the task I am focused on.  Simple reason behind this is that even if the tool works correctly having an active component is stealing both memory and cpu cycles. If I am truly worried about performance I am going to want to minimize this loss by uninstalling or shutting off all services related to the tool.

Now on to the onslaught of advertising about how my PC can run faster. From ad like “DoubleMySPeed.com” and “FinallyFast.com”. Those are just 2 of the advertisements . Ascentive, Uniblue, Cyberdefender, even AVG has a tuneup utility they are selling with there virus software.  I am not going to tell  you that I have evaluate each of these because I have not, what I have done is repaired some systems that seemed to be screwed up by these types of software.  On many systems with this software I have simply removed it and found that the systems performance has improved. On some of the lessor known tools I have had malware scanners quarantine them.  These tools are a buyer/user beware zone. Even if the tool works well sometimes they supply features that the users will use to make even deeper changes and screw something up themselves.  I sometimes equate this to giving a unskilled carpenter a box of hammers ranging from a small tap hammer all the way to a sledge hammer. However there task is to hang a picture and they choose a sledge to put the nail in for the hook.  Not that they couldn’t do it but the tool may just be a little overkill for there real needs. 

I have had good experience for general registry and system cleaning with Iolo’s tool but again I do not let this run I uninstall it after complete my fixes.

to give you an idea of some of the problems with these tools I am going to include some links of reviews, complaints and legal actions against just a few. Some of the links are current and some are a few years old but the idea is just to see what others have said.

http://ascentive.pissedconsumer.com/
http://www.whatsabyte.com/P1/speedscan.htm
http://designertoday.com/News/6618/Beware.of.MyCleanPC.com.and.DoubleMySpeed.com.Same.Scam.Same.Company.aspx
http://www.e-geniuses.com/2010/does-doublemyspeed-com-work/ (Beware explicit language). In the first video on this page the author of this blog dittos everything we have been saying to our customers for the past few years.

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