3 Cool New Apps You Need To Know About

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the great tips. I’ve used the Decrapifier and it lives up to it’s very catchy (and appropriate) name!

Lon Naylor
http://webvideoworkshop.com

I own and use Diskeeper Pro and am thrilled with the way it works. I highly recommend it!

Hi Jim,
Big thanks for the 3 programs they are something I can use a lot

Jim:
Thanks so much for the email with the link to the article! Just got home from shopping for a laptop for my college bound daugther. The sales guys kept telling us we needed to buy their service to remove all the free stuff. Now we don’t have to.
Barbara Rozgonyi
http://www.wiredprworks.com

Hi Jim,

Realize you are writing to a large general audience but you may get some helpful defrag tips in this article, a lengthy read I might add…

http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/2007/04/great-defrag-shootout-part-1.html

Note the defrag programs the author is recommending is freeware. I also use the same software (JkDefrag & Contig) and quite happy having also tested several of the programs in this article. I might add they’re the antithesis of bloatware, and portable.

I agree real-time defrag is overkill. The performance gain from defragging is consumed at least a few times over by the resources used by the defrag program.

Can’t comment on PcDecrapifier since I use and will stick with YourUninstaller [ http://www.ursoftware.com ] to remove unwanted programs. Not free, but a very worthwile investment.

Also cCleaner [ http://www.ccleaner.com ] and CleanUp [ http://www.stevengould.org/index.php ] will remove a tremendous amount of crap (old log files and such) from your hard drive(s). Personal record here, on a 5 year old W2K system, 88,000+ files and 932+ MB. Took 2.5 hours but sure made it run much faster. Both are free/donationware.

Hope this helps…

Rick

Very helpful advice Jim. I just downloaded the pcdecrapifier program and I’m looking forward to
being rid of all the bloatware on my hard drive.

Thank you!

Leon

Pats on the back are always good and I just wanted to say you are doing a “Bang-up” job Jim. Every time you put out some info, I find myself finding holes in my own approach…then going and fixing them.

Thankyou

Hi Jim,

I’m wondering if you’ve tried PerfectDisk to defrag. I use it and really think it does a great job!

Erin

Thanks for the recommendations – but how do I know what is crap for the cleanup to be used properly. You mentioned that aol and Norton antivirus were bloatware for you. I use aol as my email provider and I would not want it gone. I use Norton antivirus to periodically scan my computer. I use Google and Yahoo for various things – so I don’t understand why their toolbars would be considered bloatware. Please point me somewhere so I can become more educated on this. Thanks…..

Hi Susan, I just saw your very intelligent question.

I haven’t been to Jim’s blog before, but I think I’ll be a regular when time permits.

Now this is going to take a bit of explaining so bare with me please……………………….

Regarding your very good question…..
Online toolbars can be problematic because they can introduce severe degrees of what you might call “Search Result’s Bias”.
What I mean by that is that most tool bars for web surfing are produced by businesses and are loaded to send you to THEIR affiliates sites or

THEIR sites or THEIR partners sites etc.

This is what a lot of so called “Spy ware” does also. Although people

generally think that spyware is just about snooping on their surfing or

buying habits. It isn’t that simple. Often when you have spyware on

your machine your click on a google searched site list will take you to

an affiliate sales site that has no relationship to the site link you

just clicked on, rather than the google search list link that you click

on! (This is called browser hijacking, and should be a criminal offence

in my opinion)

You can test this by always right clicking on the link and choosing

“Open in new tab”. If you find your on a page with numerous sales links

but there’s no sign of the name of the google search list site name you

clicked on, simply close the new tab by clicking on the tab X, and then

try opening the google searched site link again, if you have spyware on

your machine, you may need to do this 2 or 3 times before you finally

go to the listed site you wanted to go to!

There’s also another intelligent reason why Jim mentioned those

“Bloatware” software’s. You see when you properly install a utility

software like your AOL customer ISP services, it is easily removeable

via your “Add or remove programs” facility (In windows XP).

But some of the stuff that Jim’s referring to cannot be seen to be

listed in the user accessable registry utilities like “add or remove

programs” if you add other software without removing the offenders

first.

And if you do not remove it before you start installing the utilities

you actually want, the mediocre built in Windows registry error and

defragmentation utilities can lose track of them, so that you end up

with many megabytes or even Gigabytes of useless zero’s and 1′s spread

across the drive, that will never serve to do anything but take up

space uselessly, and add tens of minutes to the time it takes to

defrag, EVERY TIME YOU DEFRAG!

So if you don’t do what Jim suggests when you get the computer, you

waste 10 minutes, or 20 minutes or whatever, every time you defrag,

which means that over the course of a year or more, you’ve affectively

had HOURS of extra time taken to defrag, STOLEN from YOUR computer User

productivity.

Even if you don’t use the puter for business purposes, you lose the

same ammount of time from your enjoyment of it.

You’ve even got to be careful which well known company’s you trust too.

Jim said up the page there that you probably don’t need to worry about

Microsoft, or words to that effect. And that may still be largely true,

but the fact that a company is huge, well known and well trusted does

not mean it won’t screw you over.

I myself had a very bad experience with the previously well trusted

“Creative” “Creative Labs” & “Soundblaster”(Trade Marks).
It came to light around a year or more ago, that they had been

including SPYWARE in the software that you install to use their

soundcards, which were about the best hardware you could get for the

purpose (At the time).

But after that scandal broke, it was found by independent community

analysts, that they had (Allegedly) included SPYWARE HARDWARE CHIPS

also, in their soundcards/products!

And I never saw anything suggesting that they denied the validity of

the accusations, so I removed their products from my machines, (Costing

me a fortune) and will never buy anything to do with that company

again.

I haven’t used the software Jim suggests but I intend to try them out

now I know about them.

I hope that helps Susan. Sorry it’s a long explanation:0)

Alex

I use Diskeeper pro too and I agree that it is an excellent defragmenter. I leave it on auto mode for one of my drives, and the second drive I manually defrag every weekend. Does a great job in keeping fragmentation in check and protects my system performance.

I use diskeeper as well, awesome program. I also recommend an amazing free program to keep your PC clean, CrapCleaner.

Jim

Thanks for the heads up. I’ve used the defragmenter, very successfully, and the pcdecrapifier on a new laptop.

Thanks again..

Rick

I’ve been looking for a way to take all the “trialware” junk off the computer rather than the old windows application remover. I’ll have to try the defrag after I do that. thanks for the tip(s).