Are automatic registry cleaners safe to use?
Recently, I’ve been very hard-pressed to find a client’s computer without one of the available automatic registry cleaners (registry boosters) installed. I have my own opinion about these products, so I’d like to try to clear up any confusion, relating to these digital wonder drugs.
Let me first say that I have used them before – at times, out of frustration. They do present themselves as magic bullets, and for someone not terribly familiar with how computers work, they’re like an unguarded honey pot to a soft-spoken, tight-red-t-shirt-wearing, animated Disney character.
The biggest problem I see with automatic registry cleaners is that you really have no idea what they’re fixing and, here’s the scary part, you also have no idea of what potential problems they could cause. Not to mention the possibility of one of these registry boosters being bundled with spyware of other malicious software, as is the case with a product called “Advanced System Optimizer”.
In reality, there isn’t a whole lot that registry cleaners can do to boost the performance of your computer. They may remove an error message or two, but not much else. If your computer is at the point that you feel you need to use an automatic registry cleaner to fix it, it’s probably time to call a professional.
You may also want to read this article about why this technology journalist refuses to use automatic registry cleaners.
If you’ve used one of these registry boosters, please let us know what your results were. Which product did you use? Did it fix your computer problems? Did it cause any new problems? Was there any increase in computer performance, after you “cleaned” the registry?
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