This free thingy (MyDefrag) to supposedly was recommended by someone in town who I'm sure knows a lot more than I do about such things, and it seems to be working okay. But about a year ago my Computer Engineering grad niece in Cebu was looking over our computer's inner workings and said something about how the computer/memory I guess it was, "was putting/storing everything in one place". And that was making the computer slow.. So is the type of thing okay to use or not?
Your machine gets slow because the files are stored all over your HD which makes your HD "jump around" to get the whole file/software together. A defragmenter basically tries to put this parts together in one place what speeds up the access on your HD and therefore your computer. Windows has it's own defragment software (usually in the accessories--> system tools) Don't use the free one, it just puts more waste on your machine and does not much more than the windows version other than scheduling the task clean your HD, trash-bin and useless files with "Disc cleanup" uninstall all unused software first and than run the "disc defragmenter" after that. depending how full your HD is, it can take a few hours. turn off your screensaver or whatever "resting" mode you have.
An old timer freeware I use already for many, many years is: CCleaner (CCleaner - PC Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download). No malware or adware.
Defragmenting your HD say every month is a very good way to keep your PC running smooth, I tryed some of the free tools but as Rhoody mentioned already they just add their stuff to your system and you don't need that at all. It's important that you empty your "Recycle Bin" first and don't use the PC while it's defragmenting the HD...
Just make sure theres not going to be a brownout during the defrag process or most likely you'll be paying for a full reformatting of your OS. A good UPS might be a good investment before the defraggging.
With a desk top it might occur when you encounter a brown out, a laptop or notebook will switch to battery power. But defrag of the hard disk doesn't have to be that problem. Depending which OS, as from Windows Vista and higher (not sure about WIN XP) you can set a planning for scheduled defragmentation.
I'd forgotten about CCleaner. I'd used it on other computers, and after downloading it to this and running it, this computer seems faster. Glad I posted about the defrag and got reminded. Thanks to all