Top 5 Free Programs to Clean Up Your Computer

Most of us don’t keep our computer as clean as it should be. I’m not talking about the exterior (although I’m sure that could be cleaned as well). I’m talking about cleaning up your hard drive and getting rid of all the unneeded junk that everyone accumulates over the years. You might have anything from partial installs to some nice malware or spyware. Either way, it slows you and your computer down. The following programs will help you keep your computer clean and running fast.

Defraggler



10.5 gigs of fragmented files, I’m glad I wrote this article. Defraggler is an application that will replace the default Windows defragging options. Defraggler is great, because it is extremely light weight and works much faster than defragging in Windows. It also allows you to pick and choose the files you want to defrag. This can make defragging painless and much quicker.

nCleaner



nCleaner is the Swiss Army Knife of this list. It allows you to clean your system, find unneeded junk, tweak your settings and manage your startup. In the past, I had a few programs that did all of the things that are included in this program, but I only need nCleaner now. It’s extremely easy to use, because it is very clear about what settings are recommended and what settings are not. Cleaning programs can often be intimidating or unclear about what they are changing, but nCleaner makes sure to be clear about the changes it is making on your computer.

AVG Free



AVG Free is often regarded as the best free anti-virus software available. It offers basic anti-virus and anti-spyware protection for your computer. The protection is basic, but if you know your way around the Internet and know what to avoid, it should provide sufficient protection.

Spybot-Search & Destroy



Spyware is a problem for most computer users, and the thought of something trying to collect as much personal information as possible from my computer is more than enough to scare me. Spybot S&D is one of the best tools to remove all of that spyware and make your computer more private and run faster.

Ad-Aware 2008



Ad-Aware does for malware what Spybot does for spyware. It will clean up and remove any malicious software that the other programs may miss. Ad-Aware rounds out my list of programs you need to get all of that stuff on your hard drive trying to slow you down.

Using all of these programs together will help keep your computer running fast for years to come.