EaseUS CleanGenius

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on November 25, 2012

A year is a long time in the life of the average PC. If it's been a while since your computer was brand-spanking-new, you may have noticed that it takes longer to start up, or your programs and files take longer to load. You can reclaim some of your computer's original performance with the help of EaseUS CleanGenius. This toolkit cleans and tweaks your system, deleting junk files and unneeded registry entries on demand or on schedule. It can make a big difference on older and slower systems, but even newer computers can benefit from regular maintenance with CleanGenius. EaseUS CleanGenius Free is compatible with Windows 8. Several Pro features are disabled, such as the Registry Cleaner and Defragmenter.

CleanGenius uses a colorful dashboard-style interface that takes a glance or two to sort out, though the controls are typical of such tools and won't be hard to figure out, thanks to clear labels. In addition to three main sections (Privacy Protect, Turbo Boost, and Utilities Box) CleanGenius includes a Memory Manager, Startup Manager, Disk Defragmenter, and Registry Cleaner. The large main button accesses both the Quick Scan and Deep Scan options. Since a full scan is usually the best option when using new system tools, we selected Deep Scan, which uses all the major features but the Registry Cleaner, which isn't active in the freeware. We deselected the Disk Defragmenter to avoid defragmenting our SSD-based C drive but ran the Junk Files Cleaner, Shortcut Cleaner, Privacy Sweeper, System Optimizer, and Network Optimizer.

The scan was fast and found a range of issues that we could examine in detail before opting to clean. Pressing Clean ran all the tools. Under the Startup Manager, we simply had to uncheck any listed programs to keep them from slowing down our bootups. Under the Options, we could configure which programs the Privacy Protect feature cleans, including our browsers and Windows applications. The Auto Care settings include several automatic modes as well as scheduling. Some users will really appreciate the Network Optimizer's Dial-up option.

EaseUS CleanGenius Free proved fast, easy to use, and effective at cleaning our Windows PC.