Relieve Your System from Clutter

The longer you use your computer, the more clutter it collects and all unnecessary data will eventually impact on overall performance. The more data on the hard disk, the longer maintenance tasks, such as defragmentation, take. Internet browser’s cache, Windows temporary files and other types of data created for a specific task and never cleaned up can pile up in huge amounts, taking valuable disk space.

An experienced computer user knows exactly how to clean up all the junk in order to benefit from as much disk space as possible and keep system performance at high rates. But doing this manually every now and then takes its toll in terms of effort and time spent, so automatic cleaning of certain folders and ridding specific types of data is always an easy way out.

Reohix’s Platinum Guard gives you a hand in cleaning the junk data on your computer. Regularly, the application comes at a price of $13.99, but for a year long, you can grab it for free from the developer, through Softpedia, so we can safely refer to it as a freebie in the article.

Platinum Guard is not unlike other programs shaped for the same clutter cleaning task, but it has the advantage of letting you choose which data should be eliminated instead of performing an overall scan of the system and present you its findings. The lean interface holds the three types of cleaning methods, as well as statistics of disk space gained per cleaning session.

The Smart Computer Clean gives the possibility of eliminating information accumulated in time through web browsing and temporary Windows files residing on the hard disk. There is support for all four major web browsers fighting for a larger chunk of the market share today (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome) and you can opt to clean cookies, history, or cache of each of them, individually. Some users may see as a downside the fact that it does not automatically detect the web browsers installed on your system, but once you configure this part of the program, it will preserve the settings for the next session.

Cleaning up web browsers’ data may not be viewed as an advantage as each web surfing application supported by Platinum Guard comes with its own cleaning options. But if you think of how many times a user actually employs those functions, Reohix’s app comes in handy as it lets you eliminate cache, cookies and browsing history together with Windows’ temp data.

As far as the clutter Windows stores in its temporary folders, Platinum Guard does a wonderful job at emptying them, on both Windows 7 and XP. The application is efficient both in the case of local temporary data and Windows Temp directory. Even more, it can automatically purge clipboard contents, recent open and save list, documents list, Recycle Bin or Run menu list. As far as DNS clearing is concerned, for some reason, the program was unable to abide by our wish.

Custom locations can also be easily cleaned with the help of Platinum Guard. The menu lets you browse for the specific folder you want to purge of data and see its contents. More than this, the location can be preserved for future cleaning sessions, or you can select a different path each time clutter is eliminated. In order to avoid any sort of unnecessary trouble, make sure that after selecting the directory you want to clean, the data to be removed is visible in the right hand part of the screen and the path under My Custom Directory field is correct.

In the case of custom location cleaning, Platinum Guard seems not to run as smoothly as it should. Although it sports an option designed to help you out and clean the custom location of all data, including folders and their content, once enabled, it will lead to deleting the entire location completely. However, leaving this disabled, the application will do its job according to expectations: eliminate all files available, but not the folders and their content.

For a more pervasive scan and cleaning of the system, Platinum Guard makes available Intensive Computer Clean method, which permits a complete check of the hard disk (either per drive or all partitions at once). There are also presets to make the user’s life easier. Thus, you can go for a complete scan that draws out all clutter, or decide for one of the presets available that can hold out Windows thumbnail cache, Prefetch files, or some types of file formats (selective scanning).

All this can be configured from Intensive Scan Settings page; otherwise, you can continue with the default layout that covers a complete check of the system drive. Each file sentenced to deletion is displayed during the scan, together with its size and location. Also, the total amount of unnecessary data discovered by the application is shown in the lower part of the screen, along with total of space they amount to. But before proceeding to the actual cleaning, you’ll have the chance to study the findings and decide which stays and which goes.

Besides cleaning options, Platinum Guard also brings some maintenance tools for optimizing Firefox’s databases (SQLite database defragger) and decompressing old files under XP.

Platinum Guard is not the best tool on the market to free up disk space and it sure comes with its share of flaws, but it is free for now and makes for a good alternative for those users looking for an easy way to get rid of unnecessary data stored on the disk, or eliminate web browsing tracks. The application still needs some brushing up, such as fixing DNS cache clearing, or custom folder clearing issues.

The Good

It provides web browser collected data to be cleared depending on the web browsers you have installed on the system. Cleaning Windows temporary files only requires a click from your part, while the procedure itself is swift.

Intensive Computer Scan options permit choosing between several presets, as well as selective search for specific file formats.

The Bad

When cleaning browser data, the web browsers are terminated automatically. This could lead to losing your session and create inconveniences; that is why the cleaning should take place when the web browsers are closed.

Enabling to erase all custom directory’s content actually leads to deleting the selected folder completely.

The Truth

Platinum Guard, although keeping up with today’s new OS standards, still requires some fixing here and there. For a year long, it is free of charge and represents an easy means to gain some disk space and improving overall computer performance.

For the routine run you have to make once in a while, Platinum Guard is a good choice, although when abruptly terminating the process of the web browsers it cleans up, it sure does not come off as a comfortable solution.