RAMforce and Clean Your PC

very good
key review info
application features
  • Comprehensive computer cleaning
  • (7 more, see all...)

As sad as it may sound, the moment you start using your computer it'll gather an immense amount of garbage. Deleting it always participated to improved performance and better running of the machine. This action, combined with a few others can make the difference between your computer crawling to save a file or launching an application and running as snappy as hardware specs allow it.

The tools on the market for cleaning the computer of junk files are countless. In fact, almost every day a new app is ready to take the pain of manually deleting all sorts of temporary files, logs and history on their back. However, not all of them deserve your attention and the great majority are pure crap as they either don't carry out the job properly or provide the user a too limited set of options.

Sweepi, on the other hand, comes as a great competitor in this category offering the users the possibility of keeping the computer as junk-file free as possible, and at the same time adding a drop of functionality through additional tools that take care of the general performance of the computer. It is not an all-in-one computer optimizer, but it gathers some of the most important tools to properly take care of the computer.

It runs on both Vista and XP and behaves exactly the same on both operating systems. From the very beginning, the user is given the option of accessing the wizard that guides through each step of the cleaning process or jump directly into the Classic Mode, which allows the user to configure every aspect of the software.

Application window provides almost every option on a platter leaving you just with checking boxes and starting the cleaning process. On the right, there are the areas Sweepi can deal with, covering areas like the Registry, files, specific applications and the drives to be targeted by the process.

Registry CleanUp will not eliminate invalid registry items but refers to deleting visited URLs, password autocompletion, Run history, recently browsed files, recent searches and other explorer lists. File CleanUp on the other hand is everything you wanted as the section includes all from cookies, Internet temporaries, Windows logs, temporary files and folders, helpfiles, thumbnails, memory dump and downloaded installations.

Miscellaneous area deals with emptying the Recycle Bin, removing history files and index.dat files (a restart is required for these). The last section in the list, Specific application CleanUp, though it is not as comprehensive as I wished, handles the most popular apps on a home computer.

The downside with the entire list is that you cannot add your own locations to be cleaned with Sweepi. From this point of view, the application has zero flexibility.

For a faster processing of the files, Sweepi works with profiles that store your choices for computer cleaning. It comes with a set of three default profiles (Standard, Complete and Fast) which should suffice for an average user, but you can create one of your own and select whatever sections you want to be cleaned. We created a number of 11 profiles (besides the default ones), all with different cleaning settings and there was absolutely no problem with Sweepi.

Aside from the functionality offered by the cleaning options in the main panel of the application, Sweepi brings a number of four additional tools to contribute to the good functioning of your computer. The Slicer has double functionality as it deals with both secure deleting files and folders on your computer as well as with overwriting the free space on the drives.

For secure deletion, Slicer uses DoD 5220.22 M erasing algorithm (9 passes). In both cases, the procedure is simple; secure deletion supports drag and drop in the case of files, but no multiple selection when adding folders. Overwriting free hard disk space involves selecting a drive and starting the process. Be advised that the duration of the operation depends entirely on the amount of free space to be processed.

Invalid application shortcuts are dealt with by ShortCutter. This tool will scan some default areas of the computer (Start Menu, Send To, Recent Documents and Desktop) for broken links on the computer. Users can add other locations as well as define the exception list. During our testing the instrument correctly made the difference between bad shortcuts and those that were still linked to data available on the system.

One of the last helpers in keeping your computer clean is BootManager, a very simple to use startup manager that shows all items set to start with Windows. It will automatically detect the bad links and you can see their location in the registry in an instant by simply perusing the tree menu in the left. They are grouped according to their location in the system and their properties. Thus, it is easy to view only the elements present in Start Menu configured to run only when the current user is logged in or the items that start with Windows when other users are logged in.

BootManager presents options for handling all the items in the list (edit, delete, disable, execute, refresh the list) and adding new ones. At the bottom there is a brief description (where available) that should give you a hint on the importance of the selected element in the startup list. Unfortunately, on Vista this tool was not as sharp as we expected as Vista sidebar was one element labeled by the instrument as invalid. On XP on the other hand all items were detected correctly by the application.

The last tool in the suite is RAM Optimizer. Its name is sufficient for making you understand that its purpose is to free the memory locked by some running processes. Though the chart will not record the success of the application in Vista environment as the OS will immediately start caching the RAM, its benefits will be mostly felt. On XP, the same success is recorded and the graphics will show it.

Sweepi incorporates many instruments for cleaning and maintaining your system fresh and clean and does a great job in cleaning system files from junk data and clutter. It will move fast and the fact that you can create your own cleaning profiles only makes it better. The rest of the tools work fine but I would advise eyes wide open, just to be on the safe side. However, there are some issues that need to be fixed. At the end of the cleaning process, on both Vista and XP, it informed me that zero MB had been deleted and that the files remaining in the list could not be deleted because they were in use. And yet, when checked, it turned out that it did clean and the list showed no files. Further testing did not record this message anymore.

The Good

The best part is that it works very good and it is absolutely free. Cleaning process does not take too long to complete and the interface makes the software very easy to use.

It comes with a bunch of side application that aim at a better maintenance of your computer and secure deletion of files. Sweepi can be configured to create a backup of the registry before proceeding to deleting the unnecessary files. This ensures that no matter the result, you can always return to the previous state.

The Bad

It fails when it comes to flexibility. Users have little input in what can be cleaned and have to pretty much deal with what Sweepi offers.

At the end of the cleaning process it may display that no file has been deleted, although the job is completely done (during our testing this happened on both Vista and XP).

The Truth

Sweepi makes for a very fine junk file cleaner. It is responsible in its actions and provides the necessary means for reverting the computer to the previous state by backing up the registry. Cleaning process is quite fast and can take place according to profiles defined by the user.

The application also brings additional tools for secure deleting important files, erasing drive's free space, managing startup items and a RAM optimizer. All of them come absolutely free and users can choose to install them or not during setup process.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

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user interface 4
features 4
ease of use 4
pricing / value 4


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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