CleanMyPC

There are numerous utilities designed to whip your computer back into tip-top condition after a fragmented hard drive, junk files, and registry issues slows system performance?CleanMyPC is one of them. The $39.99 utility does a decent job of whipping worn PCs back into shape, but its license limitation?the price tag covers just one PC!?will make other apps such as Comodo System Utilities, Iolo System Mechanic 11?, and SlimWare Utilities SlimCleaner?more attractive.

The Basics
The Windows 8 and Windows 7-compatible CleanMyPC features a soft, attractive blue-and-white interface. It's very simply designed; the left column houses My Computer, Hibernation, Registry Maintenance, Complete Uninstall, Gadgets & Extensions Manager, Autorun, Privacy Guard, and Secure Erase tools. They are designed to free up hard drive space, safeguard your privacy, and repair the registry?the source of many a Windows problem.

A minute or so after I clicked the scan icon in the main screen, CleanMyPC revealed several GB of "unneeded data." Unlike SlimWare SlimCleaner Utilities, CleanMyPC didn't serve up detailed listings of what needed to go. It did, however, reveal how much free space it freed up and what I could do with it. 1.9GB of space, for example, is enough room to store 400 MP3s tracks or 1,000 photos.

Performance Improvements
I tested CleanMyPC's ability to whip a PC back into shape by performing two tests?running the Geekbench system performance tool and measuring boot times?before and after running the software. I ran each test three times and averaged the results. CleanMyPC scrubbed the system (a 2-GHz Intel Core i7 X990 Style-Note notebook with 4GB of RAM, and an 80GB Intel SSD drive) to achieve a 5,914 Geekbench score and 50.3 seconds boot time.

My testbeds performance improved after I ran CleanMyPC. The GeekBench score rose to 6,454 (which beat Iolo System Mechanic 11 by two points to take the crown) and the boot time decreased to 39.4 seconds (which placed middle of the road, and eight seconds behind Iolo System Mechanic 11). Check out our chart for to see how CleanMyPC fared against competing products.

Those numbers wouldn't mean much if it didn't translate into user-noticeable improvements?fortunately, it does. Windows and menus opened with extra pep that wasn't present when the machine was junked up. So did heavy-duty apps like iTunes. Still, I wished for an overall faster system boot.

CleanMyPC's biggest issue isn't performance, but price. The $39.99 price tag grants you just one license. Comodo System Utilities (free), Iolo System Mechanic 11 ($49.99), and SlimCleaner (free) have no such limitations?you can install the software on as many PCs as you wish. CleanMyPC offers two license ($59.99) and five license ($99.95) tiers, but they're pricey. If you live in a multi-PC home, you may want to look elsewhere.

Should You Use CleanMyPC To Clean Up Your PC?
CleanMyPC delivered the best GeekBench performance of all the tune-up utilities tested (beating Iolo System Mechanic 11 by a couple of points), but it drops the ball in terms of license limitations and it's boot time improvement isn't the best. If you need to tune-up just one PC CleanMyPC is worth a consideration, but Iolo System Mechanic 11 and SlimWare Utilities Slimcleaner are better all-around choices.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/D3XL21aeOLU/0,2817,2411293,00.asp

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