BEST FREE SOFTWARE FOR VITAL PC TASKS
We all know the kind of ‘boring but useful’ tasks we should carry out regularly on our computers: backing up, syncing, eradicating junk and so on. But there are lots of things in life we should do, but don’t. One of the reasons we put off such PC tasks is not knowing the best program to use. That’s a problem we aim to fix in this feature.
We’ve highlighted 16 tasks that you’ll probably have attempted in the past, perhaps with mixed results because the programs were too difficult to use. We start with tools that help you manage your files: removing, renaming, searching for and converting them. Once that’s done, we move on to security – or, more specifically, encryption. You’ll learn how to hide files behind passwords, and even inside other files.
Backing up and syncing comes next, followed by tools to keep your computer running smoothly: cleaning memory, analysing hard drives and uninstalling programs that launch when you boot. We then recommend Wi-Fi programs for optimising your network – including kicking off anyone stealing your signal – before finishing with clever tricks to perform with your keyboard and mouse.
MANAGE YOUR FILES LIKE AN EXPERT
1 Find and remove space-hogging files
The excellent program TreeSize Free can help you find and delete files you’ve lost track of and have outlived their usefulness. Download the ‘TreeSizeFree-Portable.zip’ file from www.snipca. com/42021, unzip it, then right-click ‘TreeSizeFree.exe’ and choose ‘Run as administrator’ so it can scan folders that would otherwise be locked.
Click ‘Select Directory’, then ‘This PC’ in the File Explorer sidebar, followed by C:. Now click Select Folder, and TreeSize Free will scan your entire drive, and order your folders by size, with the largest first.
Much of what it finds will be Windows system files, so be careful what you remove. Expand the Users folder, and your own folder inside it, then explore the directories within. As you can see from our screenshot, where we’re working our way through the ‘nik’ user folder 1 we have more than 125GB of old files sitting in the Downloads folder 2 , many of which can be removed.
This includes four versions of the Raspberry Pi operating system, occupying almost 11GB 3 , that we installed several years ago. To delete a file, right-click it, then click Delete in the context menu.
Also check the ‘Program Files and ‘Program Files (x86)’ folders for particularly large sub-folders containing software
