Anything you see advertised on tv is not only JUNK, it could very likely leave you worse off than before. If the "free stuff" has been working well enough, then you should continue with it. If not, then you should address your concerns with a paid professional to solve whatever problems you have. If you're determined to spend money, much wiser to pay a professional than to give it to a snake-oil tv pitchman.

Thanks, that may be why I don't recall seeing the heavily advertised on from the past. Suppose Norton-like sources are no better. My XP machine will see replacement with a touch-screen W8 before I spend hundreds on it. My W7 and W8 machines are okay, but I disable "flash" on my Firefox because it slows the browser down (in varying degrees relative to the last clean sweep on the OS with free malware and adware cleaners).

Agree with A here. All I have read is bad reports about the TV advertised applications.

Personally the traditional free applications do just fine for me whether it was my old W98, the Vista, or the now W8/8.1.

I have 4 PC's online and have had PC's for yrs. I use only the best Free software I can find and or research on other tech forums and have no problems, I get rid of all trial software that comes in a new PC and never pay for anything I can get as good or better online. Most of the upgrades or pay for or pro versions are for business, offices with networks etc. The Free basic are for home use and very good in most cases.

Thanks, and good to see familiar names/handles. My first impression was the new "houzz" environment may have lost some of the volunteer help.

Some here in the past told me to get a Mac. Not sure that prevents the slow death I see for windows os - subject to manual cleanup ops.

jerry-
One of the biggest problems I see is people who are continually looking for the best software -- free and paid --that will clean/tweak/fix their computers. Why is this a problem? Because when you fix things that aren't broken, you sometimes make things worse. That's not to say that there aren't some good pieces of freeware out there to deal with specific problems, and I, myself, use free anti-virus and anti-malware. But in 25 years of using and working on computers, I have learned the hard way that doing basic, occasional maintenance using standard tools, like the defrag utility already on your computer, emptying the recycle bin, setting my browser to clear cookies and history each time I shut it down, running regular scans, etc., is typically is enough to keep my computers working just fine. I have worked on the machines of quite a few friends who have overused certain programs and caused problems where none needed to exist. I agree with everyone above who questions the paid-for software one sees on tv, which has messed up many computers. The best investment you can make is to learn and utilize the utilities you already have on your computer, and to use free, reliable, online tools from Microsoft.

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