At 07:07 PM 7/13/03 -0400, you wrote:
>One thing I've been curious about, regarding these kinds of
>programs: Apparently, browsing the Web leaves all sorts of
>junk all over one's hard drive,
It doesn't really leave junk "all over" your hard drive - only in one or
two directories reserved for the purpose. For example: \windows\cookies
for Internet Explorer cookies, and \program files\netscape\user\cache for
Netscape temp files. In either case, you can clear out those temp files
whenever you want by using the tools or edit menu of your browser.
> would using one of these things
>to clean it up, followed by a defragmenter, help performance
>and/or stability of the system?
No. If by "those things", you mean Evidence Eliminator and co., what they
do ( or purport to do) is to completely destroy deleted files on your hard
drive. When you delete a file (I'm assuming PCs, here - no idea how Apple
does it), you don't actually delete the file. Instead, you set the first
byte of the file to a special character that tells the computer that the
file is deleted, and that the file space is available for new uses. Until
those disk sectors get used again, the file is actually still on your hard
drive. The EE type programs are supposed to overwrite those sectors with
data (usually binary zero) so that it is actually destroyed.
So no, using one of those programs (assuming you use one that actually
works, like PGP or Norton) won't really help performance. Disk Defragger,
on the other hand, actually *usually* does overwrite those deleted files as
a side-effect of defragging, and will also slightly speed up your
performance. However, you won't see much of a speed increase, unless your
hard drive is very fragmented. Running Defrag once a month will keep it in
good shape. (Actually, once a month is overkill - about once every six
months is all you need for normal use)
PCSOFT maintains many useful files for download
visit our download web page at:
http://freepctech.com/downloads.shtml
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