Registry Cleanup
The older your PC is, the more junked-up its Registry becomes. Badly written programs (and plenty of those are around) don't bother to clean the Registry when you uninstall them, and some applications add unnecessary junk. The messier the Registry is, the more likely it is to crash your PC or slow down its operations. Though the benefits of using a Registry cleaner are often debated, these utilities might be worth a try.
Wise Registry Cleaner
This freebie scans the Registry, flags orphaned or bad entries, and identifies entries that are either dangerous or safe to delete. Like most Registry cleaners, the utility will back up your Registry so that you can restore it if need be.
Download Wise Registry Cleaner | Price: Free
Glary Registry Repair
Here's another very good, free Registry cleaner. It lets you choose which changes to accept and to ignore, and creates an Undo file so that you can revert to the previous version of the Registry if problems occur.
Download Glary Registry Repair | Price: Free
Registry First Aid
If you're willing to pay for a Registry cleaner, this is a great choice. Longtime PC World contributor Steve Bass rates it as the best Registry cleaner, with good reason: It does an excellent, thorough job. It also searches the Internet for details about Registry keys, so you can have background information before deciding whether to delete or change them.
Download Registry First Aid | Price: US$28 (Trial)
Auslogics Registry Defrag
Cleaning your Registry may help keep your system in tip-top shape, but you can do something else for it as well: Defragment it. This program shows how fragmented your Registry is, defragments it, and restarts your PC. The program also creates a restore point so you can restore the Registry if necessary.
Download Auslogics Registry Defrag | Price: Free
Security Optimization
If your PC is infected with malware, it runs at less than its peak. So if you have a sluggish system that seems to go on the fritz regularly, an infection may be the cause. Use these programs to kill infections and stop them from attacking your machine in the first place.
Comodo Firewall Pro
This excellent free firewall has been rated as one of the top firewalls by the independent testing site Matousec, which found that it has the highest level of "anti-leak" protection (in essence, a measurement of a firewall's effectiveness). It offers two-way protection, and a great view into your system and your Internet connection as well.
Download Comodo Firewall Pro | Price: Free
Avast
A lightweight freebie, Avast won't weigh down your system by consuming too many resources or RAM--yet it does a great job of killing viruses and live-scanning for them. It also scans e-mail (including Web-based e-mail) for viruses, and offers protection against instant-messaging viruses, peer-to-peer dangers, and other threats.
Download Avast | Price: Free
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
AVG's excellent free antivirus software is similarly prudent with your system resources and RAM. It's simple to use and easily configurable, and it protects your machine. What else could you want?
Download AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition | Price: Free
SpywareBlaster
Keep your system in top running form by stopping the installation of ActiveX-based malware and other types of spyware. A particularly useful feature is the System Snapshot, which will take a snapshot of your PC so that if it gets infected, you can revert to a clean version.
Download SpywareBlaster | Price: Free
Spybot Search & Destroy
A longtime favorite free program, Spybot offers live protection from spyware installation, and scans your system for preexisting spyware and kills it. The software has a restore function, as well.
Download Spybot Search & Destroy | Price: Free
Ad-Aware 2008
Using more than one antispyware scanner is a good idea. So even if you have another, this free one, which has been around for years, is worth trying. It does a great job of scanning, and it lets you put potentially damaging software in a quarantine area, where you can later restore the item if it isn't dangerous.
Download Ad-Aware 2008 | Price: Free
Trend Micro HijackThis
If you think your PC is infected with spyware, but your spyware killer can't track it down, try this freebie. After HijackThis analyzes your Registry and file settings, it creates a log file, which you can upload to a HijackThis Web forum for the community to analyze. Unless you're an expert, you should not try to use this tool to fix problems.
Download Trend Micro HijackThis | Price: Free
