Registry Cleanup Software Comparison

How to Tell When You Need a Registry Cleaner?

If your computer is showing any of these symptoms, you need to clean the registry:

What Does a Registry Cleaner Do?

The registry is the heart of your computer.  The registry is a database that keeps track of all the different settings on your computer-configurations for each software program, each piece of hardware, and every user.

The trouble is that the registry tends to grow over time, becoming bloated.  The larger your registry grows, the slower your computer performs.  Registry entries can also become corrupted over time, leading to errors in your software programs, and even Windows itself.

A registry cleaner clears out the junk registry entries and shrinks it down to a more manageable size.  This allows your computer to run faster.  It also searches for corrupt entries and other types of errors, fixing and repair them whenever found.  This can cut down dramatically on the error messages and other problems you may be having with your computer.

What Should I Look For in a Registry Cleaner?

Price

The first rule is to not let price be the determining factor.  There are many free reg cleaners available on the internet, but-with a few rare exceptions-they are not as thorough or efficient as paid registry cleaners.  Why?  Simply because companies that sell reg cleaners, rather than give them away, have more funds with which to constantly develop newer and better software.

Registry cleaner prices run the range from $20 to over $100, but most fall into the $50 or under price range.  The paid programs generally search for more types of error in your registry, and find and more errors in each category is searches.

Backups

Whenever you modify the registry-even with a “safe” reg cleaner-there is always the possibility that you will change or delete a crucial entry.  This will cause even more problems on your computer than before.

Good registry cleaning programs will have a registry backup feature.  In other words, it will make a backup copy of the registry BEFORE it makes and changes or repairs.  That way, if the registry gets damaged in the cleaning process, you can simply restore the backup copy and be no worse off that you were before.

Schedulers

To keep your computer in top shape, you should run your registry cleaner on a regular basis.  When you have to run the program manually, however, it’s easy to forget.  Therefore, look for a reg cleaner with a scheduling feature.  That way, you can set the cleaner to automatically run itself regularly (say, every month or so) and automatically clean and repair your registry.

Updates

Registry cleaning software companies periodically release new versions of their reg cleaners to fix bugs, add new functionality, etc. Look for a company that allows you to pay for the program once, then download updates and new versions at no additionally charge.

Some programs will charge you each time you upgrade to a newer version.  This can be particularly frustrating when you pay the fee all over again, download the new version, install it, and discover there are few or no changes.

Likewise, avoid reg cleaners that charge you on a subscription basis-you have to pay the fee again every year to keep the program working.  Subscription fees make sense with anti-virus or anti-spyware programs, where new threats are discovered every day, and you need to download the daily updates to keep your computer protected.  There is no need for this with reg cleaners, however, which only release minor updates a few times a year.