optimization

After installing, running, and uninstalling multiple programs, registries can get kind of messy, which can slow down your computer's performance. Mz Registry Optimizer analyzes and tidies up your registry, helping to make programs more responsive, at least in theory. You may or may not see a noticeable difference, but if things on your machine are starting to move slowly, it might be worth a try.

Mz Registry Optimizer has an intuitive interface, and even novice users should be able to figure it out pretty easily. We just clicked the Analyze Registry button and waited a few minutes while the … Read more

Nitro MemOptimizer is a simple program that does a simple thing: flush the system memory at regularly scheduled times, freeing up resources and making your PC run more smoothly. It's great for older systems and those with limited amounts of RAM, which typically need more help than newer PCs. It's free, too.

Nitro MemOptimizer's diminutive interface has just two controls, one to set the time interval between the program's operations, with a Reset button; another labeled Optimize Now. The interface displayed our current memory usage; time to the next optimization in hours, minutes, and seconds; and … Read more

Programs like automatic update checkers and "helper" apps create Windows services that on startup whether you use them or not. You can manage Windows services from the Windows Task Manager or Microsoft Management Console, but it can be tedious to turn services on and off that way. Mz Services Manager is a free tool that builds on Windows' native services management capabilities with custom services profiles. You can create special gaming profiles, or a home theater profile, or custom profiles optimized for specific software or processes, then save them and load them almost instantly.

Mz Services Manager's … Read more

Our utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is on bringing you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems. This past week there were updates with a number of maintenance and optimization utilities, in addition to an update for a useful multi-GPU management tool.

Maintenance In maintenance utilities this week, both MacPilot and MacPilot Lite were updated. In the latest … Read more

Uploading images is to Net newbies what parallel parking is to new drivers: it takes a lot of trial and error to get it right. And Megabyte-size snapshots hog Facebook bandwidth. Fileminimizer Pictures 3 from Balesio is a free tool that promises to help solve both issues. It resizes image files by up to 98 percent without zipping and without sacrificing quality. Its Facebook Uploader Module also makes it easy to post your pictures on Facebook.

Fileminimizer's interface is businesslike but attractive, with subtle but effective use of color and highlighting to differentiate the various icons and controls. Most … Read more

Hello, I'm Peggy Yu, senior manager of business development at Download.com. Just like promotions posted in this space by Catherine Hwang, I'm here today to help bring Download.com users the best software deals available. Today we have a particularly good deal for popular maintenance suite Glary Utilities Pro. For the next 24 hours, we have an exclusive offer of 50 percent off Glary Utilities Pro.

Why would you want Glary Utilities Pro? Glary Utilities Pro offers a simple, but nicely designed tabbed interface for performing system cleanup and maintenance. Its basic scan includes a Registry cleaner, … Read more

Search engine optimization software has grown from simple bots to sophisticated packages containing a wide range of utilities that track, analyze, and report Web site traffic and optimize a site's ranking on major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN. That's the case with SEO Suite from Apex Pacific, which aims to give SEO consultants and Web administrators the toolkit they need to manage large-scale SEO campaigns.

When you first run SEO Suite, it asks to fetch updated files online. The main window opens with a page of tutorials, including a prominent link to the fully indexed and … Read more

There's no shortage of software designed to boost, tweak, or otherwise speed up sluggish PCs, enhance your computing security, and clean up your disks to advance both goals. Uniblue Systems' SpeedUpMyPC 2010 describes its mission in its name. It combines several tools in one interface, including a system scanner, RAM optimizer, memory cleaner, start-up manager, and CPU booster, all optimized for the latest versions of Windows.

SpeedUpMyPC's interface is typical of system-boosting utilities, simple and colorful with large, clearly labeled controls and prominent visual and text warnings of your unoptimized system's shortcomings. Scanning our system identified numerous &… Read more

Over time, you can expect a system to start running a little slower than it did when the operating system was fresh. This can be from having more programs installed and running at once, to filling and using more hard drive space, and various settings that may take time to load and interact with each other. For instance, with use the files on the hard drive will get moved around and blocks of data will be less contiguous than they were with a fresh OS installation, leading to slightly increased file access times. While the small performance hits caused by usage over time will not be enough to affect most users, in some situations, you might want to keep the computer running at its optimum speed. Here are some tips for optimizing the system performance in various areas that can affect the speed of the system.… Read more