Can you recommend any free apps for cleaning up a pc? Anti spy, adware etc, defrag, junk files, reg cleaners etc?

Ta

Ubuntu

CCleaner (link)

Microsoft security essential.
Malwarebytes' Anti-malware (scan as normal so need to scan in Safemode).

CCleaner – clean most of the junk out (this is not AV)

Start with the above to see how things go.

🙂

openoffice for office and avast for anti-virus

TFC is better than ccleaner. More thorough and safer.

Avoid registry cleaners. Your registry isn't dirty.

+1 for MSE and MDAM as Chewkw said.

Standard tools; Windows Update, checkdisk and defrag. Uninstall anything you're not using. Get rid of pointless toolbars.

Have a look at Secunia for finding patches for other applications. Its terminology is a bit scaremongery, but if you ignore that it's a nice way of spotting when updates are available for things like Flash (which is a really common injection point for malware at the moment.)

Cheers. Just trying to clean up my mums viao. Binned off norton and a whole heap of other junk on there. Stopped about 15 programs starting on startup, found 16 trojans and hundreds of dodgy adware files!
Just installed essentials thanks

Malwarebytes' Anti-malware (scan as normal so need to scan in Safemode).

D'oh! Should be "scan as normal so NO need to scan in Safemode because that's how it works unlike others.

🙂

If it's Windows XP then Microsoft Bootviz can make a hell of a difference to startup and shutdown times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BootVis

Big reason for crap performance is lots of programs when you install them for some reason want to install some sort of speed up/check for updates/enhance the program startup speed process into the startup. Google, Yahoo, Adobe are some of the favourites for this, just using CC cleaner and looking at what's loaded at startup, then Google'ing it to see what it's for then disabling it if it's a bit of carp makes a huge difference to startup and the amount of RAM used before you load any programs. Remember to do this again after updating anything involving Google/Adobe etc cos they will stick their items back in the startup again after an auto-update.

Cougar – Member

TFC is better than ccleaner. More thorough and safer.

I am not sure how much better TFC is but CCleaner (very safe) cleans all temp files too so just do this.

CCleaner -> Option -> Advance -> then uncheck second box "Only delete file in Windows Temp folder older than 24 hours."

There you go. You now delete all temp files immediately otherwise you delete them in 24hrs time when you next fire up CCleaner.

🙂

p/s: if your system is infected I suggest you clear the temp files immediately as above rather then after 24hrs then proceed with AV scanning etc.

Cheers guys

malwarebytes

And make sure Windows firewall is on and isn't full of exceptions left by dodgy programmes. Don't be tempted to put any other firewall software on there unless you're sure what you're doing. Try shields-up to see if it's working.

Auralogic Defragger – much quicker than the default one.

+1 CCleaner and Malwarebytes

Also check out Spyware Terminator.

I don't bother trying to 'clean up' anymore, its easier to back up your files and just reinstall windows selecting the 'format hard drive' option. You start with a completely clean slate, reinstall the programs you use, and reinstate your files. Also uninstall any bundled stuff that is automatically installed from the manufacturers CD.

If the PC is relatively organised, backing up should just consist of copying 'My Documents' and Outlook email and calender files, do a quick Google for the correct process.

Then you install most of the stuff above as preventative measures.