Over the years, a lot of junk builds up on many Windows PCs. Tech YouTuber Linus Tech Tips has looked at what the most common tools from the vastness of the Internet are good for when it comes to cleaning up your PC – one aspect really disgusts him.
Who is Linus Tech Tips? With more than 15 million subscribers, Linus Tech Tips (named after its creator, Linux) is one of the largest tech channels on YouTube. There is now a company behind it with dozens of employees. Linus recently found himself facing accusations, you can read more about that here on MeinMMO:
Which programs were tested?
What did Linus test and how? Linus Tech Tips filled a test PC with countless freeware programs, which slowed down the boot process and regular operation. Even on the powerful gaming PC used (Intel Core i7-13700k, SSD, 32GB RAM, RTX 470), the boot time doubled.
They then ran various tuning programs to clean up the system and uninstall software. This cleaned Windows 11 was then compared in various scenarios with the fresh install and the system overloaded with software. Tested:
And there are two more tool suits that should be looked at:
But according to Linus, the former is virtually identical (same provider) to Avast, but requires a credit card for the free trial period. Ashampoo gave the team so much headaches even before installation that they ruled out the software: There are a large number of different versions that are difficult to distinguish from one another.
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The result: useless or useful?
The results can be summarized as follows:
Does it help with gaming? Anyone who owns a modern CPU, sufficient RAM and an SSD will probably not notice much even if dozens of unnecessary programs are running. Most games hardly use more than six cores at most anyway and the excess computing brains take on the burden. The RAM is also unlikely to overflow and even if it did, the SSD would absorb it relatively well via a swap file.
The exception: Only if you have a really old PC with little RAM, an HDD and a CPU with four or fewer cores, will clearing out the Windows system really play a role in gaming.
Do I even need the programs? Is it possible to do without them? Yes, if you know how and where, you can simply use the tools built into Windows to achieve the same effect. MeinMMO editor Benedikt has written a few things for you about this, because some programs are better deleted straight away.
For example, you don’t need CCleaner – although Linus recommends it together with Avast Cleanup and CCleaner Pro, at least under certain circumstances.
But aren’t there some users for whom it might make sense? Yes, there is certainly a significant proportion of the billions of PC users who benefit from the programs tested. This is because they combine a number of functions, such as uninstalling, deleting temporary files or some Windows functions, in stylish and easy-to-use user interfaces.
So if you don’t know your way around Windows, don’t know how to use the search function in the input field, or generally don’t have much to do with PCs other than a bit of gaming, surfing, streaming, and text editing, then this tool could be useful. Linus and his team have come to the same conclusion.
But one thing disgusts Linus
What’s so bad about the tools? No matter how good they may look or work, the predatory marketing practices and the experience in the providers’ shops are offensive to the Youtuber and his employees, for example:
If you now want to delve deeper into the world of tech YouTubers, you will find interesting information in the articles linked above. Or you can read how JayzTwoCents, who is also active on YouTube, got a bargain PC on the used market and accelerated it amazingly using two simple settings. Perhaps the options used here are also buried untouched in your UEFI.