Glary Utilities (v2.23.0.923) by Glarysoft

2010-10-05T17:19:00.000-07:00

Glary Utilities "1-Click Maintenance"

Glary Utilities is a fantastic little free tool for speeding up and maintaining your PC with just one click! With a compact design and a tonne of features, this really is a must-have program, especially for older PC's. - www.glarysoft.com

MY REVIEW SCORE: 8/10

Glary Utilities, produced by Glarysoft, was recently introduced to me by a friend when I mentioned I had been looking for anything to help speed my failing laptop up without sifting through the tonnes of internet malware and expensive registry repair programs on the market, and I must honestly say that it is the most efficient tool of its kind I've used so far.

For a start, the program is phenomenally tiny, sitting at just under 18MB installed, it manages to pack a surprisingly large amount of functions behind its eye-pleasing interface. It is also very user-friendly, in its default form Glary Utilities is literally a "one click maintenance" tool, as the screenshot shows. Simply fire it up, hit the one-click maintenance tab and click "Scan for issues".

The program then springs in to life, by default scanning your registry, shortcuts, startup programs, temporary files and hard drive for bad files, errors, unnecessary data and malicious code. All of this from a program <18MB? Amazing!

Glary Utilities also has the option of clearing computer history, both internet AND windows - for example on Windows media player, the File menu often has a list of your last 10 or so files played, or your "Recent Documents" on the hard drive. Simply tick the box and it remembers that whenever you run "1-Click Maintenance", you want it to clear the history. The same works in reverse - if you do not want it to clean up your shortcuts or registry, untick the box and it remembers the next time you run it!

Glary Utilities Module View

Where the program really shines, however, is under the "Modules" tab. This is where the more advanced functions and the true capabilities of this program come through. Upon selecting "Modules", another simple page with several sections appears. Each of these sections contains more functions, the full list complied below as it appears in each tab. Clear headings and brief descriptions leave no ambiguity as to the modules function and, although most of them being advanced features, many are easily usable.

Full List of Glary's Features

This review could go on forever, not touching upon its strong file encryption and spyware removal features, Glary Utilities is an excellent piece of kit containing many features and functions packed into a free tool that would otherwise be quite costly. I'm giving it an 8/10 as I am especially fond of the registry defragmenter and cleaner, both making a highly noticeable difference to laptop speed after use. The first couple of runs fetched several hundred registry errors, now I run the program bi-weekly and am lucky to get more than two at a time.

The program also has an auto-update feature that alerts you to any new versions on startup with a prompt to download and install it automatically or not. Glarysoft also produce a PRO version of the software, purportedly with even MORE functions for only $39.95.

Check them out, the basic version is completely free and worth a try - www.glaryutilities.com

- Ketsuban.

Ketsuban's Corner

Glary Utilities (v2.23.0.923) by Glarysoft