Someone's Listening

very good
key review info
application features
  • A few bug fixes (rare instances of tray icon not appearing or FreeRAM XP Pro interfering with shutdown/restart)
  • (4 more, see all...)

Thank You FreeRAM

Has someone heard my call lately? Has someone listened to what I've wanted a RAM optimizer to do? Has someone actually made a program that's worth writing a good review about? I think this has officially happened with FreeRAM XP Pro. I have finally found a memory optimizer that I fully approve of.

What's Inside

There's so much goodness, I guess I'll start from the beginning. I know that most are thinking that a program which looks like it's a blast from the past can't be this good, but it is. The GUI leaves more to be desired, that's for sure. For a newer program, it looks like it's made for a Windows 95 system. But just because it doesn't look as pretty as a little bumble bee doesn't mean it doesn't do a great job.

You have one basic window with an interactive graph of what your memory is presently up to. You also have the option to see a full process report on your current memory usage (this includes which programs are running and how much RAM they're currently using).

The main window enables you to 'AutoFree', or automatically optimizes your system to balance speed and memory. If you want to know what was changed, you're able to click a checkbox that automatically generates a report of what was freed.

The log file looks as follows:

Was AutoFree used?: Yes Actual amount of RAM allocated: 257 MB Was automatically freeing?: No Global process memory compression: Disabled Free RAM before freeing: 200 MB (39%) Free RAM now after freeing: 216 MB (42%) RAM gained since starting: 15 MB (7%) Time when started: 6:16:43 PM 11/25/2005 Time when ended: 6:16:50 PM 11/25/2005 Elapsed time for entire operation: 7 seconds Current free virtual memory: 530 MB (69%) Current free total memory: 746 MB (58%)

If you don't want to automatically optimize your system, you can switch to the option that lets you predetermine the amount of Mb you want freed (you can also get a log file of this event as well).

This program doesn't DEFRAG RAM per say (impossible to do) but does manage to purge unused memory addresses. You also have a lot of other options to work with. A feature that I liked a lot was that you can automatically set it to perform a memory optimization every X minutes, or assign it some rules. Perform an optimization if my RAM is below X Mb.

The last cool little trick FreeRAM had was its ability to create a RAM-cut. This lets you launch a selected program after FreeRAM frees up some memory (you can also choose how much RAM you want freed).

The Good

A RAM optimizer that not only works, but offers you great features. You have lots of optimization functions at your disposal and a sweet feature like RAM-cut. It gives you reports on what optimization it did and with what's going on with your system's RAM. You can also set it for automatic optimizations.

The Bad

This GUI could definitely use a revamp.

The Truth

FreeRAM performs well, it shows you current records of your system's RAM usage and tells you everything it does before it does it. You can set it for auto-optimizations, you have great functionality, and it fulfills its scope. FreeRAM is definitely worth the download.

Check out the pics below.

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user interface 2
features 5
ease of use 5
pricing / value 5


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 

Photo Gallery (2 Images)