If you are a Windows user and like to tweak or clean your PC’s, you’ve probably heard of Glary Utilities which is one of the best tools available to keep your PC running like a new one & to  fix, speed up, maintain and protect your PC. For those who haven’t, here is a quick review.

1-click maintenance:


This function is also the one used for the Scheduled Maintenance in the Pro version. It comprises of a Registry Cleaner, Shortcuts fixer, Startup Manager, Temporary files cleaner, Tracks eraser and a Spyware remover.

Restore Center:

In case anything untoward happens, you can restore a backup from the Restore Center. You can also access all available system restore points from the Rescue Center.

The above mentioned modules are probably for everyday use, for eg: when you are done browsing and want to clear the cookies, etc. But the best tools of Glary Utilities are listed under the Modules tab:

There are five modules, each one with a set of useful tools, Let’s take a look at them:

1. Clean Up & Repair: which features a Disk Cleaner, Registry Cleaner, Shortcuts Fixer and an Uninstall Manager.

The registry cleaner scans your computer for invalid registry entries and cleans them to make sure a clutter free registry. It is one of the best tools available in Glary Utilities.

But the scanning of registry items and shortcuts is rather slow. It’s also the same one as in the 1-click maintenance.

The disk cleaner and shortcuts fixer will help you gain some free space. The Uninstaller doesn’t remove registry entries, it’s just a basic uninstaller.

2. Optimize & Improve: Startup Manager, Memory Optimizer, Context Menu Manager, Registry Defrag.

The Startup Manager is excellent when it comes to enabling/disabling and delaying auto-start items.

In addition to that it also features a user feedback/comment system for startup-entries. Well known ones will have a reputation like Trusted or User’s Choice, whereas unknown ones will just display a ?.

Personally I don’t use the Memory Optimizer as my PC runs smoothly. Perhaps it could be useful for slower systems.

The Context Menu Manager is useful if you have too many options in your Explorer’s right-click menu.

You can just un-check it to disable/enable the context menu items or remove it completely.

The Registry Defrag is an interesting one, there is an argument among users that Defragging the registry is useless, while the others say its crucial for your computer’s performance.

I know that even Microsoft have some tool for this, but my take on this is different.

I don’t believe that defragging your registry is gonna speed up your computer. What is gonna impact is, the number of registry entries.

So my suggestion is, go for Portable software’s instead of installing too many apps. (I use the portable version of Glary Utilities, as you may have noticed from the screenshots)

3. Privacy & Security: Tracks Eraser, File Shredder, File Undelete, File Encrypter & Decrypter.

I think this section is self-explanatory. These tools are for those who are concerned about privacy.

The tracks eraser is a great tool if you are using a computer accessed by others. Again, it is the same as the one in the 1-click maintenance.

4. Files & Folders: Disk Analysis, Duplicate Files Finder, Empty files finder, File Splitter and Joiner.

Disk Analysis is pretty useful if you want to check the sizes of files and folders on your Hard Drive. You could delete the ones which occupy a lot of space. The other tools do what their name suggests of course 🙂

5. System Tools: Process Manager, Internet Explorer Assistant, System Information, Windows Standard Tools.

Process manager is pretty much like the windows task manager, but has some additional functionality, like “Google it” and “Block Process”. Pretty handy to check unknown or suspicious processes.

The Internet Explorer Assistant is obviously for IE users, yes many people still use Microsoft’s browser, especially IE8 and below.

This tool can help you to block/remove IE Toolbars/addons and check for browser hi-jack as well.

The System Information tool, is actually quite interesting. You may not use it everyday but its quite informative. It provides information about:

  1. Operating system , Current session and user details, Components version details (IE, Windows Media Player,DirectX)
  2. System devices (details about your computer’s Motherboard, BIOS, CPU, etc).
  3. Memory (RAM)
  4. Hard Drives details
  5. Video Adapter & Monitor Properties
  6. Network (Network Adapter and status)
  7. Other Devices (USB devices,Audio devices, Ports, etc)

Windows Standard tools: Basically just some shortcuts for some of the System tools available in Windows (Checkdisk, Disk Defragmenter, System Restore, System File Checker and Backup)

Scheduled maintenance: (also known as Auto-care)

It is the specialty of the Pro version.

  1. You can run the 1-click maintenance at a scheduled time of your choice.
  2. You can choose to erase privacy traces on bootup/shutdown.
  3. You can enable auto-update or schedule an update for Glary Utilities

I am not going to list Pros/Cons for this review as I believe Glary Utilities is a must have software for all users.

Giveaway

Thanks to Glarysoft, we are giving away 10 license keys of Glary Utilities Pro to readers of Avinashtech. Just follow the simple rules below to enter in this draw.

  1. Subscribe to Avinashtech by entering your email address in the subscribe box on right sidebar of the blog or by clicking this link. Do remember to verify your email address when you get the verification email from Feedburner.
  2. Like the Facebook Fan Page of Avinashtech (If you don’t have a Facebook account you can skip this).
  3. Leave a comment below telling us why you need it. (Avoid using twitter, Facebook login to comment as I wont be able to get your email address to send you a email in case you win).
  4. Share this on Twitter, Facebook. (If you have an account there).