Free and open source software recommendation

From now on, we’ll be talking about some free software that you might consider having on your PC. There are lots of free programs around that do various tasks as well or nearly as well as their paid counterparts. So check this corner now and then, or come and recommend something you have found. We shall kick off with 2 programs that should be on every PC. If your PC has become quite slow or you would like to prevent it from going that direction, Ccleaner and Auslogics Disc Defrag could be part of the solution. The 2 are not known to have hidden spyware.

Ccleaner

CCleaner is the number-one tool for cleaning your Windows PC. It protects your privacy online and makes your computer faster and more secure by cleaning key areas of the PC. It is easy to use and a small, fast download.

• It cleans temporary files, history, cookies, Autocomplete form history left by Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Apple Safari and some other browsers.
• Cleans Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
• Has advanced features to remove unused and old registry entries.
• It has lots of options allowing you to uninstall software, view and edit programs that run when you start the PC and much more. Get the latest download from one of the mirrors at http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download (around 3Mb)
  See some screenshots: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/screenshots
  Watch a video tutorial showing how to use it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzBMzVd0H90

Auslogics Disc Defrag

Disk Defrag is a vital maintenance tool that will improve your PC’s performance by defragmenting and re-arranging files on your disk. This is like what you do when you have kids messing up a house by leaving stuff lying allover the floor and other wrong places. What you do is to set sometime aside to create order. This program does that.

I prefer using Disc Defrag to Windows onboard alternative as I find this faster. The first time you defragment, especially if you have lots of data or large partitions of many dozen or hundred gigabytes, it may take a long time but, if you defragment regularly, like every 2, 3 weeks, it should be much faster.

Download Disc Defrag from http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/download (About 4.46 MB) – Choose the FREE version!

Once installed, start it and at least select partition/drive “C” (or wherever Windows is installed, normally C) and “Defrag”. You can of course select all other drives, if they are not pre-selected.