Removable storage devices such as USB flash drives can also become fragmented.

RUN DISK DEFRAGMENTER (BUT NOT ON SOLID STATE DRIVES)Īs stated on Microsoft’s website, “Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer.

While you shouldn’t expect a huge performance jump, clearing your browser history regularly or setting your browser to automatically clear its history when you close it can help speeds.ģ. You can even schedule a Disk Cleanup to clean your computer automatically. It’s focused on freeing up space on your hard drive, but it will also delete old temporary files and other useless things. For older versions of Windows, from the Start menu point to All Programs->Accessories->System Tools and select Disk Cleanup.Īlternatively, simply find and right-click on the drive you want to clean up in My Computer, and select the option in the drop-down menu for Disk Cleanup. This can most easily be found on Windows Vista and up by typing “Disk Cleanup” into your Start menu search bar. Run the Disk Cleanup tool included with Windows. Now that we know what to avoid, these steps will take you through the same process the paid PC cleanup/speed-up applications will do, for free! And a bonus is every utility on here can be set to run on a schedule, so you’ll be saving both money and time. Why throw your money away for products you already own? While these programs may do everything they claim, the functions that they use to clean and speed up your computer are already built into your operating system. This is a scare tactic to make you believe there are things severely wrong with your computer that you must pay them money to fix. These are usually not errors at all, but every individual instance of things like temporary files and cookies (which hardly have an effect on your computer’s speed anyways). Many of these applications will run your computer through an initial “diagnostic” which generally shows thousands of errors. There are many companies and programs promising to clean and speed up your PC, for a modest price of course.

Clean computer