Free Software to Speed Up Your Computer

CCleaner is one of, if not, the best software on the Internet that cleans unneeded junk from your computer. And it's completely free! Before I go on you may be asking "What is CCleaner?" Well CCleaner is a piece of software that scans your computer for unnecessary files that take up space and use system resources. This is important because as you might have noticed (or not) that your computers performance decreases over time. Unneeded files build up, your hardrive's space decreases, etc. CCleaner's job is to get rid of all of this junk for you. And it does it's job very well.

So I mentioned "unnecessary files" but that means nothing until you actually know what those files are. You can look at the picture above to see some of the files I am about to explain.

Temporary Internet Files is actually the name of a folder stored on your hard disk that keeps track of the contents of previously visited websites. What happens is whenever you visit a webpage, such as this one, the images, videos, audio, etc., are stored in this folder. The benefit of this is that if you visit that webpage again your computer won't have to access the web server in order to load the page. Instead it will scan through your Temporary Internet Files to find the resources it needs. Look at the diagrams slightly above to see this process. The good thing about this is that 1: It speeds up your computer and 2: You can use offline browsing for previously visited sites. But there is a drawback. First of all the folder takes up valuable space, and second, it endangers your privacy. Anyone that has access to this folder can open it up and see all of the websites you've been to and when. It's your decision of whether you would like CCleaner to delete these or not. I do because I feel that space and privacy are more important than speeding up the loading time of a webpage by half a second, but its up to you to decide.

Cookies: Anyone that has been around computers has probably heard of cookies but might not know what they actually are. Cookies are pretty much just some information that gets stored on a web browser when you either submit something on a website or just visit it. So lets say you create a username and password on a website. Well then that information is stored as a cookie so that you don't have to enter it in again. Another common example is if you visit a website, then the web server creates a cookie that recognizes you have visited the website. Then the next time you visit the website the browser recognizes that you have already visited the website and that you are not a new visitor. Cookies can be useful but for the most part are useless for you. Remember, the goal is to get rid of unnecessary files and not to let them build up.

Internet History:This is pretty self explanatory but I will quickly explain anyways. Whenever you visit a website your browser recognizes that and adds the website to your Internet history. One example of this is when you start typing the URL of a website you have visited before and a box comes down with several options of previously visited websites for you to choose from so you don't have to type the full URL.

There are also many more options you have but I will not get inot all of those and you can find information on what it is by researching if you don't know. Keep in mind that all of these options are optional and you can choose for CCleaner to delete all or some of the listed files in the program. All of the files with a checked box next to them will be deleted so all it takes is one click to have those files spared.

Tip: It is wise to uncheck "autocomplete form history"because this can be a very useful tool. An example of your computer auto completing form history is when you have to enter a username and password, it will automatically fill in the required information so all you have to do is click "login." By unchecking the option to delete this you will continue to have your forms completed for you which saves time.

The part about CCleaner I like is how simple it is to use. Looking at the picture at the very top of the page may be helpful when I explain this. So first you are going to make sure you are under the "Cleaner" section of CCleaner and not the "Registry, Tools, or Options." Once there review both the "Windows" and "Application" tabs in the program and check and uncheck files that will be deleted as you wish. Once you are happy with what files you are going to delete and save, click the "Run Cleaner" button to start getting rid of these files. You can also click the "Analyze" button before "Run Cleaner" but I only did this once and all it tells you is about how much space you will save. And it takes awhile to analyze so I just get to the point and run it.

So by now I hope you are on your way to downloading the most amazing free software on the web to help you speed up and save space on your computer. Look below to find the link to download this software and thank you for reading this. If you have any questions or comments please email me or leave a comment below. Thank you and Enjoy!