3 Cool New Apps You Need To Know About
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3 Cool New Apps You Need To Know About
– by Jim Edwards
© Jim Edwards – All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com
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One of the greatest things about the Internet means that you never run out of new things to try.
Somebody always comes up with the next greatest thing to solve the problems created by the last "next greatest thing" to hit the computing world!
These three software programs (below) rate a must-look if you ever buy a new computer, your hard drive seems sluggish, or you ever worried about the fine print on that software package you’re about to download from the Net.
Oh, and the best news, all 3 are free to try (and only 1 to buy)!
Destroy "BloatWare"
When I bought my wife’s new computer many months ago, I put off setting I up for her for almost four months.
Why?
All the "bloatware" I knew needed to get deleted off the new machine before she could use it.
I ended up uninstalling no fewer than 15 programs, including: Earthlink, AOL, Norton Ghost, Norton Anti-Virus, Google Toolbar, Office 2007 Trial, Yahoo Toolbar, Microsoft Money, Quicken, and more!
"Bloatware" refers to all the software you didn’t ask for that the computer manufacturers force-feed you on a new computer so they can churn a few extra bucks.
Aside from the security risks, the main problem with bloatware basically comes down to the fact that is slows your computer’s performance, eats up hard drive space, clogs your Windows registry, oh, and before I forget, you didn’t ask for it!
Next time you buy a new PC, consider using a free program like www.pcdecrapifier.com to remove these unwanted programs before you start loading it up with the files and software you do want.
The Ultimate De-Frag
Every savvy computer user knows you should perform basic maintenance on your PC on a regular (or semi-regular) basis.
This includes cleaning up old temp files, deleting programs you don’t use, eliminating unused desktop icons, and defragging your hard drive.
In fact, of the items just listed, defragging creates the biggest impact as far as increases in system performance and overall speed.
Unfortunately, the defrag utility that comes with Windows only does a mediocre job.
I recently used a software program called "Diskeeper Professional" from www.diskeeper.com to defrag my hard drive and found it far superior to the windows defrag utility.
After using the program my computer booted windows faster, started other programs faster, and generally lost that "sluggish" feel a computer gets after heavy use for several months.
You can use the software free for 30 days. By the way, I personally did not set up the software to run all the time, but only when I wanted it to actually defrag my hard drive.
EULAlyzer
Be honest: you don’t read those 20 page agreements that appear before you install most software.
Unfortunately, those agreements make it possible for some companies to do nasty things on your computer like serving ads on your desktop.
A free application from www.javacoolsoftware.com called "EULAlyzer" will scan EULAs (End User License Agreements) for any trouble words and bring them to your attention.
Now I wouldn’t worry too much about using it with companies like Microsoft, but would certainly run any EULA from a shareware, contest, or freebie site through the free EULAlyzer filter to look for trouble.
–
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the
co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how
to use free articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted
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15 Responses to “3 Cool New Apps You Need To Know About”
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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
amrit gill
Amrit gill owes me money
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).