Recommended free software:

Browsing: Opera (lightweight, the one I’m using right now)/Firefox (lots of add-ons, views pages that Opera won’t: for example Facebook.com)
Cleaning: CCleaner (great basic cleaner)/ Revo Uninstaller (excels at a thorough uninstall procedure)
Security: AVG, Ad-Aware

It’s good to see a lot of love for CCleaner. It really is the most efficient and user friendly cleaner program out there.

But in addition to some people complaining that Windows doesn’t uninstall programs thoroughly, I can highly recommend Revo Uninstaller. It goes through the regular uninstall procedure but afterwards it asks you if you want to search for leftover files, and usually it finds a whole list of small files you might just want gone.

If you just have 5 or so programs that you want uninstalled, the Revo process doesn’t make the biggest difference, but if you’re a casual downloader and you like to try a lot of software out (if you have too much time on your hands, in other words, you lazy young slacker!) Revo can really give you a sense of difference. It just feels good to know you removed the software completely.

But the real reason I want to mention Revo is that it has an additional file cleaning tool similar to CCleaner. the thing is, it seems to find different stuff (just found 50megs on my PC) than CCleaner does, so I wouldn’t use one of them without the other. As freaky as that is!

On file organisation: I did a spring cleaning two weeks ago in which I reorganised all my files. I also deleted a LOAD of files. I can really recommend it if your filing system isn’t working for you (or if you don’t really have a system).

Step 1: Do an assessment of what you store on your computer and then decide what you want to keep (that is, what you need).
Step 2: Create a new filing system based on your assessment and what you think is important.
Step 3: Create the new folder system and then start going through all your folders an files. Put them either in the new filing system or delete them. This might take a while. I spent a whole evening, but it’s all very uncluttered now.

If you feel uneasy about deleting stuff, you could also burn a cd with all your files and think of it as a Maybe-box that you will look at in 6-12 months or so.

My biggest complaint for wasted space is duplicated software/files. How many text editors or word processors do we really need? (For example, G/Vim, Joe, X/Emacs, Kate, KWord, Nano, etc.)

How many folders do we need to store files in? I would recommend caution/understanding before using Dimitar Nikolov’s second recommendation. I think the idea he is looking for is “everything has a place, and everything in its place,” but what often happens is something like “Well, I have all my photos in this folder, but I keep a copy of the ones I use for wallpapers in a different folder, and the originals for my web work are kept in this folder over here, …” and the next thing you know, you have 15 copies of the same image (sometimes at the same resolution!).

I don’t remember the name of it for Windows, but I do remember seeing an application which would search for duplicates files on a drive. There are a number of example shell scripts online which would do the same thing for Linux.

Business machines:
Managed Anti-virus (Norton if my preferred)
Anti-spyware (Windows Defender and Spybot)
Firewall (Hardware preferred)
Backup system

Friends and Family:
Anti-virus (AVG or Clamwin)
Anti-spyware (Windows Defender)
Sync files system (Mesh, Fileshare, Drop Box, etc)
Firefox, Opera or Chrome

My own computer has no anti-virus, only has Windows Defender because it is a Windows 7 beta machine. I reinstall Windows 2-4 times a year because cleaning programs like CC Cleaner don’t get systems clean enough. I don’t do things such that i don’t get viruses or spyware.

I organize files by file type and point Windows to those folders instead of the my docs, my music, my videos, etc. These are all on an 1.5TB external hard drive. I keep everything and move old files to an archive folder i clear out when i run out of disc space.

Of course, that was in the DOS days when files did not take up vast stretches of hard drive real estate, and you could get fabulous software that fit entirely on one floppy disk.

Still, I got into the habit of never using my hard drive for dead storage, and that is something I have never un-learned. Besides, although CDs and DVDs don’t last forever, they do tend to last longer than hard drives do.

Besides running CCleaner at least once a week, I also go through my hard drive with Windows Explorer on a regular basis and just look and see what’s lurking there that I have forgotten about. If the stuff seems worth keeping I put it all in a zipfile, copy that to another location (either a backup DVD or my external hard drive) and delete it from its original spot. If the stuff does not seem worth keeping then it gets the heave-ho (and I make sure to have CCleaner empty the recycle bin next time around).

I also defrag my hard drive from time to time, especially after I’ve deleted a bunch of junk. I run SpinRite every six months to make sure the drive itself is in good shape. That takes a long time, but I have other computers to use while my main one is chugging away checking itself.

I have AVG Free antivirus and Spybot Search & Destroy running, and so far neither one of them has ever raised an alarm. I hope that will continue.

In my personal life, I’m a Mac. But I’m called on daily to look at PCs, and have found a combination of 4 things helps stop infections:

1) Use Firefox, not Internet Explorer. There are so many known holes and vulnerabilities in IE, it’s just not worth it.

2) AVG Antivirus. It’s free, works great, and doesn’t hog system resources on older computers.

3) MalwareBytes AntiMalware. Use it.

4) Be conscious. This applies to life in general, but in this case it means pay attention to what you’re doing. If that email looks suspicious, DON’T OPEN IT.

This has kept the one and only PC in my house working great with zero downtime for 3 years now…

As for clutter, I use the same rules as for decluttering a room or shelf. If you haven’t looked at or for that file in 6 months, get it off your system. Back it up to external storage, or just dump it. You can probably find it again anyway, especially if it was emailed to you and you use Gmail…it’ll be there as an attachment forever…

AVG antivirus, Malwarebytes, Spybot Search and Destroy, and AdAware are all programs I have used with success in the past. But Windows Defender is not. It might find some things but you cannot and should not rely on it as your sole protection. Please don’t.

Try the free http://windirstat.info/

This will show you a visual map of your entire computer and make it extremely easy to spot areas that need cleaning.