14 DAY TRIAL // It is not too difficult to find software suites designed to maintain your computer running at peak performance. However, Glary Utilities is one of the most complete packs you’ll find on the Internet. The bundle features an impressive collection of tools aimed at cleaning and optimizing the system.
The Pro version of the package is regularly priced at $39.95, but at the moment it can be purchased 30% cheaper, at $27.97.
Despite the huge number of modules it comes with, the suite take little time to install on the system. Its modular architecture makes overall handling an easy task. All the tools are grouped into several modules, each fulfilling its specific purpose: cleaning the system of useless files, correcting errors, improving overall performance, securing your privacy, handling files and folders or accessing system tools, both of its own as well as those built into Windows.
Clean Up & Repair module consists of a disk and registry cleaning utilities, a shortcut fixer and an uninstaller. Each of them is very simple in structure and you won’t have any trouble handling them. Worth noting is the fact that the instruments carry their own configuration panel.
The junk file cleaner is pre-configured with a set of file types it should detect as useless, but you can add your own formats as well. Scans are thorough and check every nook and cranny of the selected drive. Inclusion and exclusion lists can be created so that it omits certain locations or empties specific folders of content.
As any PC maintenance suite, Glary Utilities is equipped with a registry cleaner ready to eliminate useless entries. It goes through the entire registry quite fast and it offers the possibility to check the results of its findings. Moreover, it also provides the reason it picked up the entries and, in case of a false positives it lets you correct the problem by instructing it to leave the entry untouched or mark it for exclusion from future scans.
If you have any broken shortcuts on the computer, Glary Utilities has a fix for you. It can detect invalid shortcuts in any location of your hard disk(s) and delete them for you. However, we noticed that in some cases it tends to overdo its job and it might pick entire folders for deletion. In our case it wiped folders belonging to a portable version of Google Chrome, so it is advised to check the items it reports as invalid.
On the upside, the data is sent to Recycle Bin, so you can restore it if needed. As an additional measure of precaution Glary utilities creates a backup of the deleted data, which can be restored at any time.
Last in the Clean Up & Repair module is the uninstall manager. It has few impressive features, as it runs the removal procedure by executing the command line of the targeted program. There is no hunt for left-overs afterwards, the registry cleaner partially covers this. On the bright side, it lets you uninstall multiple programs at once, through its batch uninstall function and it can fix invalid entries for you.
Optimize & Improve module comes with four utilities bent to better the boot speed, free up RAM in the background, customize the context menu and defragment the registry.
Glary Utilities PRO sports a full-fledged startup manager, capable not only to handle the items loading up with the operating system, but also to delay their start. Thus, besides the basic options, such as disabling/enabling, removing/adding startup items you’ll be able to set them to launch after a certain period of time, which goes up to three minutes.
Everything works nice and smooth and you can even rate applications based on your experience. The information is then sent to the entire Glary Utilities community so everybody has an idea about the importance of said startup program.
Memory Optimizer is considered a pretty useless application on Windows 7, where RAM is handled and allotted by the OS itself, based on user’s habits. But XP users, who are still dominant in Windows environment, may appreciate it.
This tool can automatically free up a user-amount of RAM whenever the value drops below a specific threshold. It can also load up with Windows so that you benefit from its optimization procedure at all times. Additionally, it can be instructed to run only when CPU usage is below a certain value, so it does not interfere with other tasks.
The Context Menu Manager is extremely helpful on all supported operating systems as it lets you customize the right-click options for files and folders, but it is not limited to them alone. “New” and “Send To” Windows menus can also be configured to your needs.
There is no way to add new functions to the default lists, but if there are too many elements you don’t use, you can trim them out and leave only what’s essential.
Defragmenting the registry is generally a good way to improve the performance of lower-specced systems. Although we ran it on an intensely used computer, with plenty of programs installed, it informed us it could not bring any improvement.
Despite this, compacting the registry data is a procedure that needs to be run every once in a while, to keep the items contiguous.
Under Privacy & Security module you’ll find the tools to erase the traces of your web browsing, wipe data securely so it cannot be recovered, encrypt/decrypt files to protect them from unauthorized access as well as recover accidentally deleted items.
Just like all the instruments in the suite Tracks Eraser is extremely easy to use. All you need to do is check the preset areas you want to delete and run the process. It supports the major web browsers on the market (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome) but it can also be used to purge traces in Windows and other software on the system.
During our tests we managed to perform a thorough clean up only for Google Chrome. In the case of Firefox the cache, history and cookies persisted and with IE9 some temporary files were left behind, while cookies and history were wiped completely.
Glary Utilities’ file shredder does an awesome job. The application touches its goal in the most simplistic manner: drag and drop the data, choose how many times you want it overwritten and start the wiping process.
File and folder names as well as extensions are also overwritten, so even if you manage to recover the data it would not be of much use. However, the data is highly corrupted and even if you add the right extension nothing can be used. Also, all the files are renamed the same name, so you have to save the items individually on the disk and rename each of them.
The undeleter is also useful, but only if certain requirements are met, just like in the case of all such software. The app won’t be able to get your files back if the drive has been formatted or if the data becomes corrupted.
Encrypting and decrypting your files is a seamless operation that requires you to input the right password. The Glary Utilities tool will do all the hard work. Moreover, it can wrap everything into a self-extracting file so that authorized persons without Glary’s decrypter can also unpack the files.
Further optimization of your system is carried out through Files and Folders module. Here you’ll find utilities that can inform of the largest files on the disk, pick up duplicates and eliminate them or eliminate any empty folders encountered on the drives.
Disk analysis can be carried out for any drive available to the system or only for user-defined folders. This should give you an idea of the data gulping up the most disk space. All counting is done pretty fast and result is displayed in cold numbers as well as in percentage. Exploring a selected location and going deeper in a folder is possible.
Finding duplicate items on the disk is not what we had expected. Although it comes with an assistant that guides you through every step of rooting out the dupes, it does not sport one of the most important comparison criteria: bit-by-bit. As such its accuracy is not top notch, making it inefficient if matching criteria is not well established by the user.
The last module in Glary Utilities is System Tools. This is the place to go if you want to check processes running on your system or view details about your machine. Also, it represents a gateway to accessing standard Windows tools, like CheckDisk, Disk Defragmenter, System Restore or the built-in backup utility.
If you get comfortable with Glary Utilities’ process manager you can set it to replace Windows’ default Task Manager. Glary’s instrument is not as versatile as Windows’, but it makes for a simple way to control running processes. As distinct feature, it displays the modules used by each item.
Additionally, it can prevent certain processes from running. Block function helps you ensure that selected items won’t run on your computer unless you take them off the blacklist. This is helpful in the case of suspicious executable files.
System Information may not be as accurate or elaborate as standalone applications, but during our tests it managed to get the right details about the test machine.
You can run each application in the bundle individually, but Glary utilities comes with an automatic mode (1-Click Maintenance) that can run the tools that keep the system clean of clutter: registry/temporary files cleaner, tracks eraser, startup manager and shortcuts fixer. All these can be scheduled to run at a particular time and automatically repair all encountered problems.
Besides optimization of the system there are also instruments showing the active processes or the files taking up the most disk space. Security has also been taken into consideration and the package contains the right instruments to keep your files protected from prying eyes by ensure their secure deletion as well as encrypting them. 1-Click Maintenance can scan the system and take care of clutter automatically. Precaution measures are enforced through automatic backups for the deleted data (registry/disk cleaner, shortcuts fixer, empty folders, uninstall/startup manager), which can be restored at any time. As a result of our testing, there is plenty of improvement in the case of several applications, like Tracks Eraser, Shortcut Fixer or Duplicate Files Finder. Overall, Glary Utilities can help turn your computer into a faster machine, free of clutter and it gives a hand at keeping sensitive files private and out of reach of unauthorized persons.
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