McAfee QuickClean 2005 5.0 Complete package

...on offer.

McAfee quickclean 5.0 claims to be a 'clutter removal for peak pc performance' which is emblazoned on the front of the bright red box and within the box there is a user manual and a CD ROM and I paid £19 at my local PC World, looking around the internet you will see that prices do vary according to which company you use.

After reading the manual I was made aware that using the internet, emailing people and ...
...of removing them using the McAfee shredder or through the normal option of deleting them using windows.

Throughout this whole process a window will be open on your computer which is 'Cleaning Process' and whilst the cleaning is in process you are able to see which folder is currently being cleaned by looking at 'current folder' and on the right hand side of the screen is the progress report of which stages have been completed and which ... more

There is nothing worse in a morning when you are all bleary eyed from the night before, you get into the office, turn on your computer only to find it is running at a snail's pace with one pop up after another gradually grinding your whole machine to a stop.

This happened to me gradually over time until it got to the point where it would take me well over an hour to get my machine working properly using all the junk filters, anti-spy utilities and virus checkers to get rid of any suspicious little item and in the end I spoke to my godfather who used to work for Microsoft and with the name of a program I went off to PC World to buy it, where it was currently on offer.

McAfee quickclean 5.0 claims to be a 'clutter removal for peak pc performance' which is emblazoned on the front of the bright red box and within the box there is a user manual and a CD ROM and I paid £19 at my local PC World, looking around the internet you will see that prices do vary according to which company you use.

After reading the manual I was made aware that using the internet, emailing people and generally surfing the internet generated a lot of unnecessary files which imbedded themselves upon my computer to affect it's performance and by installing this quickclean program, I would be able to return my computer to it's old fast, reliable and working self and that this program would:

A) Remove unnecessary programs, files and folders
B) Clear up valuable drive and disk space
C) Enhance my privacy by installing a digital shredder for documents
D) Automatically update to protect my computer against more threats.

Installing the programme is extremely easy and once the CD ROM is inserted into your CD ROM Drive you simply follow the instructions on the screen to install and it should take 2 or 3 minutes to install and then you are faced with 3 different cleaning options for your computer.

When you open up the quickclean program there are five options on the left hand side - Summary, Disk Cleanup, Internet cleanup, remove programs and settings.

Summary - The quickclean summary gives you an overview in MB of how much disk space has been recovered using all the cleanup options and also reports on recent activities you have performed and the date in which they were performed. If at any time you decide you need to restore some of the files you have removed the option is available and can be found under 'manage restore points' which means at any given time you can restore any deleted files but you will need to select your options using the settings tab and then by clicking on 'Quickclean Restore Points'. This section also included a help icon where you can obtain information on the entire programme.

Disk Cleanup - this utility cleans unnecessary files, folders and shortcuts from your computer, which then leaves free space on your hard drive by using the four icons under this section.

1) Quickclean my computer removes any junk files found on your computer and locates items such as contents of your Recycle Bin, Temporary files and folders, including those from the Internet, invalid shortcuts and browser history files. The first time I ran this option I had 944 files to remove and was given the option of removing them using the McAfee shredder or through the normal option of deleting them using windows.

Throughout this whole process a window will be open on your computer which is 'Cleaning Process' and whilst the cleaning is in process you are able to see which folder is currently being cleaned by looking at 'current folder' and on the right hand side of the screen is the progress report of which stages have been completed and which options are left to complete. When I first ran Quickclean this really fascinated me and because it was the first time of doing it, it did take a lot longer than it does now to perform all the tasks.

2) Securely clean my computer is the McAfee shredder and this icon will allow you to securely remove unwanted files from your computer and with this icon you can erase one or more files and folders and trails from Internet surfing. The Shredder will permanently delete your files so they cannot be recovered and every time you opt to use the shredder you will be reminded of this.

Again as this process takes place a little window opens up on your screen and asks you to wait until the shredder completes the operation and it is here you will be able to see your files being permanently erased.

3) Search for unnecessary files is a spacemaking icon which identifies the files on your computer which take up the most space so you can make a decision on whether or not they actually need to be on there and whether or not they should be removed.

You will be asked if you have installed any applications on the day you run this program and you simply click yes or no accordingly. After selecting the drive a list of components will be listed as options to check for.

4) Explore my computer will help to discover which folders take up a large amount of disk space, when a large folder has been located you are given an option to remove it using the normal Windows deletion way or by sending it to the McAfee shredder to remove it securely.

With each option you choose there is an on screen menu which tells you what is about to happen and all you simply need to do is click next, back or cancel to use this option.

Internet Cleanup also helps to free up disk space and to do this by erasing your temporary Internet trails on your computer, cleaning up cookies, old emails and downloaded programs from your computer and again there are four different options:

1) Delete my browser's temporary files - when you look at websites on the internet, your computer saves a copies temporarily and consume a lot of space on your computer so using this option you can delete all temporary files.

2) Remove Website Cookies - when you look at websites a cookie is stored on your computer to associate your browser with information located on their server and you can remove all cookies using this option. I was amazed at the amount of cookies saved on my computer and have since changed the settings so that I am asked to allow or not allow cookies to be stored.

3) Delete Internet Application used by my browser - Some websites install applications on your computer (usually without your knowledge) and they take up yet more space which can be freed up by having them securely erased.

4) Delete old email messages - This is an email cleaner which lets you sort messages by size or date for deletion and it is especially useful if you have old messages with large attachments which again are taking up a lot of valuable space. This program is compatible with Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook and other MAPI email programs such as MSN and Hotmail. Note - AOL is not compatible.

If you would rather not have to complete these tasks in stages you can change the setting to do all of this automatically by selecting to do so using the Automatic Internet Cleanup button in the settings menu.

Removing Programs if the final option with this program and you are given two simple options within this section:

1) Remove a program from my computer - does exactly what it says it will do and allows you to remove programs, which you no longer use, a demo application you may have once used but never uninstalled etc.

2) Remove Application remnants - This allows you to search for and identify files that have been left behind after you have uninstalled a program and it is extremely useful to use to check that after installation absolutely everything has been removed, with a lot of applications they do leave behind some aspect of the program which again takes up disk space and could add to your computer not performing as well as it should.

Once you have completed steps 1 and 2 again you have the option whether to permanently erase these files or send them to your restore point so you can restore them at a later stage.

The final icon on the main page is the settings screen and there are five different options for you to use to set up quickclean to do exactly what you want it to do:

1) General settings- this specifies drives, folders and file types that you want to be protected, cleaned and tracked,

2) Application Remnant Cleaner will automatically cleanup files left behind by other applications,

3) Quickclean restore points allows you to recover files that you want to restore and when they are restored Quickclean will restore them to their original location on your computer. You can also delete your restore points at any time by going to 'Manage Restore Points' and following the instructions on the screen,

4) Automatic Internet Cleanup - This has been mentioned previously,

5) Custom Rule Creator lets you decide on how to customise your spacemaker task and you are able to create rules for searching and leaning files. Mine is set-up to search for files based on their age so that I can delete the older files first should I deem it necessary and once again the instructions on the screen are extremely easy to follow to set this up.

The best thing about this program is that it is very easy to understand and it is also easy to use, I am not particularly clued up on what should or should not be present on my hard drive, disk space nor how everything works, but with this program it does make the whole process a lot easier to understand and I have now got to grips with the whole program.

I have been using this programme now since May and I run the whole thing every Friday and now ive got all my settings set up how I want them to be set up the process of cleaning, shredding, removing and erasing unnecessary files is no longer a chore, but something which takes minutes rather than hours.

If you are still not too sure there is an online technical support team which you can go to at any time to double check for updates to your program, double check for viruses which may have been missed and if at anytime you don't think you have found a solution to your query online you will be connected to an online technician who will help you either via telephone on online via email. As I have yet to encounter a problem with this program I am yet to use this facility but it can be found at www.mcafeehelp.co.uk

I would also advise you not to run any other programs whilst quickclean is working because it does slow the whole process down substantially.

So now ive told you how the whole program works and how brilliant it is you would need to know what system requirements there are and at the back of the manual it states:All components installed require:

• CD-ROM Drive
• Microsoft ® Windows ® XP Home, XP Pro, 2000, 2000 Pro, NT *4 WS, Me, 98 Pentium 100MHz or higher processor
• 32MB RAM
• 35MB Hard disk space
• Internet Explorer 4.01, SP 2 or higher
• Internet access is required for product updating.

So if you are considering buying this product then please ensure that your computer has all of these components installed for it to work efficiently and effectively.I can't speak highly enough of this product as you might well have guessed by now, not being the most technical person I know I needed something easy to use which was effective and something that wouldn't take me hours to configure and work out and this is what I have got with McAfee quickclean 5.0 there are earlier products available to this program as 5.0 is the most recent, so it will be worth looking into each one to see which program is best for your computer. 

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