Glary Utilities are “made in China” – which not everyone has realized. Unlike some other software tools from the Far East, the country’s origin does not indicate a lack of quality. On the contrary: Glary Utilities is a powerful bundle of mostly good helpers that you can use to maintain your drive and Windows. You use them to clear away data garbage and create free disk space.
Even if there is no or hardly any classic garbage, for example in the form of temporary files, a certain amount of megabytes or gigabytes can be recovered at one point or another, because the program package uncovers the most voluminous files. You delete the memory hogs from the corresponding module – you decide what is dispensable, no software takes that away from you. The range of functions is multifaceted, so we will touch on it in the following. All in all, you will find a quite fully equipped PC tuning package that does not need to hide behind its namesake TuneUp Utilities (discontinued) or Ashampoo WinOptimizer (still receives updates).
Glary Utilities updated: What does the latest version offer?
Glary Utilities version 5.205.0.234 brings improvements in several aspects. According to the changelog, they concern the cleaning algorithm of the included track eraser module, furthermore the interface of the registry defrag part. It also adds further GUI (Graphical User Interface) refinements and minor bug fixes.
Glary Utilities: Guide and features presented
The Glary Utilities GUI is divided into three tab sections: “Overview”, “1-Click Maintenance” and “Glary Suite”. The overview page provides access to automatic maintenance (which is blocked in the free version of the application and requires the purchase of the Pro version) and offers an evaluation of the Windows boot time, an autostart manager, version and update information for the software, and much more.
Under “1-Click Maintenance”, you can initiate a “problem search” in various sections with just one mouse click: “Registry”, “Shortcuts”, “Check Hard Disk”, “Privacy” (the last two can be activated with a check mark), “Temporary Files” and “Windows Autostart”. An ad/spyware search used to be added at this point; the whole thing is no longer available. The part “Glary Suite” is the most extensive.
The operation of Glary Utilities
Thanks to descriptions, with 30 “Glary Suite” modules rubricated, you’ll have an easy time accessing what you need right now for your intended computer maintenance. The five sections in detail:
- Clean & Repair
- Optimize & Improve
- Privacy & Security
- Files & Folders
- System Tools
“Clean & Repair” includes “Clean Disk” (removes junk files), “Clean Registry” (acts as a registry cleaner), “Repair Shortcut” (instead of repair, deleting unnecessary is more accurate), “Duplicates” (find and sort out file twins), “Empty Folders” (removes same after finding), “Manage Context” (disable context menu items) and “Manage Programs” (an uninstaller for classic desktop programs as well as apps).
In “Optimize & Improve” you will find an autostart manager with “Manage Autostarts”. With toggle sliders you can disable unwanted co-starter programs. They can even be delayed; that is rare – such a function is also offered by G Data Antivirus, Startup Delayer and TweakPower. Furthermore, you can clean out scheduled tasks and Windows services in the Startup Manager. “Disk Defrag” acts as a defragmenter and is recommended for hard disks. “Optimize Memory” is a feature that frees up memory (RAM) and clears the clipboard. This is to be chalked up as a placebo and tends to slow things down; not for nothing did an equivalent module disappear from TuneUp Utilities, which may have been the inspiration for Glary Utilities (here). With the help of “Registry Defrag” you can shrink the Windows registry in wizard style. This makes sense for hard disks and, due to the pseudo-defrag character, also for SSDs.
What is Troubleshooting?
Troubleshooting” is a hard disk error checker that checks drives and file systems for inconsistencies and is supposed to fix them. In contrast to Abelssoft’s CheckDrive, Glary Utilities does not fetch the Windows utility file chkdsk.exe into RAM. The “driver management” backs up, uninstalls, reconstructs and updates drivers. This is only rudimentary. Updating via Windows Device Manager succeeds similarly poorly (there is a low yield of newer driver versions here as well); Driver Booster Free, also from the Chinese region, finds more updates. An alternative for backing up drivers, and a luminary here, is Double Driver. Glarysoft calls its rather weak software update manager “Software Update”. There are more productive tools for fresh checks of installed applications in this segment.
Privacy & Security
If you browse under “Privacy & Security”, you will find “Privacy” (trace remover) and “Data shredder” (permanently deletes files from hard disks; as with antivirus shredder components, it does not make sense to use it on an SSD). The latter tool overwrites not only files, but also the free space and thus conventionally, i.e. insecurely deleted files in the past (and is thus able to meticulously wipe them off HDDs/SSDs). “File Recovery” restores deleted files – if no shredder software was at work.
What is Encrypt?
Encrypt” is an icing on the cake compared to other Windows optimization suites, while the “Browser Assistant” is for viewing and removing add-ons in Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer. A poor task manager alternative since Windows 8 at the latest due to the good function-overlapping on-board tool is “Manage processes”. If you like, you can put a checkmark in front of “File > Replace Task Manager” and redirect call maneuvers like Ctrl-Shift-Escape to Glary’s task manager design in this way. Such a replacement is more worthwhile with Process Explorer or AnVir Task Manager Free.
Glary’s “Files & Folders” collection of utilities combines “Analyze Memory” (uncovers disk space hogging files), “File Splitting” (splits large files into several smaller ones and merges them back together) and “Quick Search”. The latter allows you to locate files on your PC disk by entering their names. Interesting: In addition to local searches, you can also conduct searches on the web.
Сontinuing analysis
If you click on the relevant link in Glary Utilities that corresponds to your keyboard input, your browser opens with isearch.glarysoft.com/(…) and there is a redirect to the Google search engine that presents you with the hits. Presumably, Glarysoft can track user queries due to its intermediary web service.
The portfolio of “system tools” staccato to the point: “System Info”, “Backup Registry” (to a REG file), “Restore Registry” (from a REG file), “Repair System Files” (equivalent to sfc /scannow in a Windows command line; Glary fetches sfc.exe into RAM at runtime), “System Backup” (opens Windows 7’s imager backup function (!)), “System Restore” (rstrui.exe on-board call) and “Undo Changes” are involved.
Glary Utilities in test: conclusion and alternatives
With Glary Utilities, you already get a good arsenal of helpers in the free version, which drives out speed bottlenecks from your operating system. In the article paragraphs above, we put the usefulness of some components into perspective. Where there is no criticism, there is usually nothing to complain about. For example, the tools that sweep away data garbage and clean the registry as well as defragment it seem sensible and quite powerful. What is missing is the trimming of an SSD and a tweaking tool. Apart from that, you get almost everything the Windows tuner heart desires.
New Glary version
Conveniently, you can generate a Glary version that runs without installation via “Menu > Portable Version” and with a mouse click on “Generate”. It is created on the desktop and is zipped. After unzipping it to a USB stick or to a local PC folder, Glary Utilities can be started without any setup. The EXE file name here is “Integrator_Portable”. Veterans remember that TuneUp Utilities, which disappeared into the eternal hunting grounds, also had a file that the developers called Integrator. However, not only Glary Utilities have striking parallels to TuneUp, but also TweakPower, for example – which we will consider as an alternative to Glary Utilities. TweakPower is a bit more chaotic than Glarysoft’s solution due to its immense scope and needs a bit more training. Advantages here are an economy mode for saving power (some would assume it was inspired by TuneUp), which Glarysoft does not provide, and – as with the Glary Utilites – a display of the Windows boot time on an overview page.
Windows registry
If you only want to clean up the Windows registry, the Eusing Free Registry Cleaner is an alternative to the Glary Utilities. It is an almost thoroughbred registry cleaner with a very good engine (virtually without extras, essentially just an autostart manager). The Wise Registry Cleaner scrubs a bit more thoroughly and combines tweaks as well as registry defrag. Ashampoo WinOptimizer 19 (exclusive free full version for download) is the clearest complete package for system maintenance mentioned up to this point. Alternatively, you can download many modules included in Glary Utilities as individual programs “stand alone” (Registry Repair, Quick Startup, Tracks Eraser, Disk Cleaner).
Top: Glary Utilities’ own defragmenter offers a setting to automatically defragment in PC Idle. Something like this used to be free with the freeware defrag leader “Smart Defrag” from IObit, but today it is behind the paywall. On the other hand, only Smart Defrag allows trimming SSDs.
