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Spring Cleaning: System Resources


Believe it or not, your settings alone can affect how your PC performs as a whole whether it be startup or performance under load. Let’s start with the basics.

The Task Manager is Your Friend

I cannot stress this enough. The task manager will show you what processes running on your device are slowing it down. It is also a place where you can manage your startup Items. Other than Steam I have most startup items disabled as I don’t usually need those items at boot anyway.

Your Browser is Holding You Back

Yes it is true, the modern web browser is often a major weight on your system, especially Google Chrome. I love the look and feel of Google Chrome, but it can be such a RAM hog, with all the background processes I have seen it consume nearly 2.5 GB. Now for me that isn’t a big issue as I have 32GB of RAM, but for other users that is a huge issue.

As far as mainstream browsers go there aren’t a whole lot of options as each of them have their downsides and for users who need a lot of features you may just have to deal with it for now.

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Although the above infographic isn’t entirely true. There are other options that range from feature rich to barebones basic.

If you are looking for a fast browser that still has all the features you need then Midori is the way to go. As an added bonus Midori is also open-source, and if you have read some of my previous articles then you know this writer is all about open-source.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you have Lynx. Lynx is a text-based web browser, which means, well it is all text.

There are other options out there that you can find pretty easily with a little bit or searching, but if you just can’t give up your old browser, I might be able to help you tame the beast in a future Spring Cleaning article.

Antivirus Slows You Down

As I have expressed before, antivirus is a waste. Even the better antivirus software are still taxing on your machine, not to mention they can’t stop all threats. As a matter of fact, as long as you keep your machine up to date and practice safe browsing habits, Windows Defender does a great job of warding off threats.

Bonus: OS Options

For the past few years Windows has reigned supreme in the world of desktops for both business and home use. This has caused them to get a bit lazy in terms of system optimization. Over the years Windows has become quite bloated for a number of reasons that I won’t be going into depth at this time. There are other options out there that take up less disc space and use much less system resources. I am talking about Linux of course.

Now I am not trying to convert all of you to Linux. I myself am a gamer and a Linux user, and Linux is growing quite quickly in the gaming community.

If there is a large enough interest I will write an article about the pros and cons of using Linux when it comes to gaming.  Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Side Note: I’m considering branching Spring Cleaning into two groups. One group will be classic Spring Cleaning where I tell you guys/gals ways to clean up your existing install to run more efficiently. The other I will do monthly where I advise different upgrades for your PCs and tutorials for installations like RAID. Let me know what you think.