TuneUp Utilities, developed by an eponymous company recently acquired by AVG, is a traditional program that provides tools for increasing computer performance.
To do this, the application offers mechanisms that can make various adjustments to the PC configuration, eliminate identical files that have been duplicated and, for those who use laptops, extend the battery life.
In its latest release, TuneUp Utilities has gained five new features, now totaling 35 specialized features for Windows maintenance and optimization, leaving your machine running at full steam again.
New clothes
The new edition of TuneUp Utilities has a new appearance, presenting more modern features in its look. However, this was not the only improvement implemented. The interface of this program has undergone a restructuring so that you find and solve the problems of your PC with greater ease.
The software’s initial screen now consists of a simplified dashboard with a summary of the current computer performance situation and immediate access to various tools that start with a single click. The highlight of this new page is the “Optimization Potential” bar, which guides you in a clear and objective way on what should be done to improve the performance of the operating system.
Miscellaneous Profiles
One of the great attractions of TuneUp Utilities is the function known as PC Mode. It is basically a Windows preconfiguration that varies according to your purpose of use. For example, Economy mode increases the battery life of portable devices by turning off power-hung devices and programs.
Meanwhile, in the Turbo configuration, TuneUp Utilities shuts off features in the background to give the desired program or game an instant boost in performance. If you want to stay in the middle and do not change the OS preferences, simply activate Normal mode.
It’s time to fly.
The Flight Mode feature is one of the newest features of TuneUp Utilities. This mechanism, which also aims to increase battery life, plays a very popular function among smartphones: the so-called airplane mode.
As with portable gadgets, this new feature disables Bluetooth and WiFi connections (which have a high power consumption). According to the developer, combined with Economy mode, Flight Mode increases battery life by up to 49% when watching movies on a Windows 8 tablet.
Finding duplicate files and folders
Often, over time, we accumulate duplicate and unnecessary files on the storage disk. To prevent your HD from getting full of these junk, TuneUp Utilities has some cards up its sleeve.
One of them is Duplicate Finder, a mechanism that aims to identify redundant data on the computer – including documents, images, videos, music, executables, compact files, among other types of content.
The cool thing about this feature is that before you delete anything, you can view the storage location and, depending on the item in question, until you preview it without opening other software.
Duplicate Finder has gained a simpler interface in its latest update, as well as some improvements: from now on, users will be able to set exceptions, depending on the type of file (such as xls, doc, among others). The program also detects duplicate folders so you can delete them.
Deep Cleaning
As if that were not enough, TuneUp Utilities still performs through Disk Cleaner a complete scan on the machine behind files that can be deleted among 155 applications – such as browsing cookies, obsolete crash reports, old and outdated backups, corrupted shortcuts and a lot more. At the end, you only have to press a button to free up more space on the storage disk.
The latest TuneUp Utilities update includes new programs for the list of applications that can be cleaned. They are: Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.75, Adobe Photoshop CS6, Adobe Lightroom, Nero 12 and avast! Pro Antivirus.
Managing programs and processes
Another peculiarity of TuneUp Utilities is that it also provides resources for managing the contents and processes maintained by the operating system. With regard to boot speed and lower hardware component requirements, the application allows running software or processes to be disabled and to remove programs that start with Windows (directly influencing their boot time).
For what is already being stored, TuneUp Utilities is able to uninstall software without leaving a trace, clean the OS registry entries, check storage disk errors – as well as defragment it – and even try to restore accidentally deleted files.
And there’s more …
Finally, TuneUp Utilities also has mechanisms for customizing Windows, allowing you to change the preferences of the Taskbar, the animations and effects of Windows Explorer, the folder options, the file system, the icon appearance, among other elements of the operating system.
Our opinion about TuneUp Utilities
TuneUp Utilities is surely one of the most complete options for those who want to optimize Windows performance. Only by presenting the program you have an idea of how complete and comprehensive it is, capable of doing dozens of different tasks, which puts you in a privileged position compared to your competitors.
In addition to the huge amount of resources, another positive aspect of the program is your organization. This is because this wide range of options can make exploring the software a little confusing, however, the new TuneUp Utilities graphical interface makes your interaction quite uncomplicated.
Another thing that contributes to the understanding of those who decided to adopt this application to improve the performance of the computer. With this, you should not take more than a few minutes to assimilate and know all the tools offered.
Additionally, if you do not like tabbing, you can choose to see all functions on one page. This alternative can be very interesting for those who already know all the features of the program and would like to activate some of them in a more direct way.
The performance difference depending on the degree of damage found in the system can actually be very large. Initialization is only more easily noticed in those cases where the person has a really high amount of applications that used to be loaded along with Windows.
TuneUp Utilities’ cleanup tools work fine. The program actually identifies a large amount of useless files on the PC, performing the scanning and deletion work in a very precise and dynamic way.
In that sense, what displeases is the fact that it presents some messages to the user in the form of pages loaded in the web browser. This happens, for example, when you cancel the software installation. However, this is just a detail, which certainly does not overshadow the brightness of the software.
Newer versions of its latest release show that the program is becoming increasingly comprehensive, bringing improvements across multiple fronts, such as the ability to clean up hundreds of programs or run OS defragmentation.
Pros
- Numerous features
- Well organized interface
- Fast and very efficient cleaning.
Cons
- Messages presented in the form of web pages.