Over time and through the normal day-to-day use of our computers, we tend to amass a bunch of stuff that, for the most part, we don’t need to keep. All these extra files, cookies, bookmarks and programs do is take up space and possibly some processing power away from your computer.
Here are a few items you should clean up and how to do it:
Internet Cache
Every place you go online is stored in your Internet browser cache so you can access it faster the next time you visit a site. This cache can get pretty big so you’ll want to empty it out from time to time. No matter the browser, there is a setting in the Tools section where you can tell the browser to empty the cache when you exit the application. Do that and your cache will stay very small and it’ll save you a lot of space.
Windows Disk Clean Up
This little application, which comes with Windows, is located in your Start Menu, Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Clean Up. This program will remove temporary files, browser cache files and other things you don’t really need on your computer saving you a good bit of space. If you’ve never run it, the first time may take a while but it’s worth it.
Third Party Applications
There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of programs on the net, which were made to help keep your computer nice and tidy. Many of these are free and all you need to do to get them is do an online search for computer clean up and you’ll find them.
One word of caution, these programs are designed not to delete anything important from your computer. Always be very careful when manually removing anything from your PC when doing a computer clean up. You may accidentally remove a file the system needs in order to function properly.