Mr. Sweepy's Forums

To all ST family members: I am by no means a computer guru, but perhaps sharing my setup and experiences will help some of you. First - if you are using old (3 years old or more) equipment, you would do well to buy new. You can get a decent computer and peripherals for about $500. if you shop wisely. Buy at least 2 gigs of memory, and make sure it is a 64-bit operating system. Mine is Vista Home Premium 64-bit - I'm not upgrading to anything newer at this time, and my computer is fast enough as long as I keep it "clean". Second - keep it clean! There are all sorts of free programs to clean up your hard drives and delete temporary "tracks" and advertising cookies. My favorites are the IObit twins Advanced System Care and Security 360, and old dependable CCleaner from Piriform (once known as Crap Cleaner!). Of course, every Microsoft operating system includes the function "delete browser history" under "Tools" on the toolbar - but the above-mentioned programs do a better job in my opinion. I use these programs about every 30 minutes when sweeping, and eliminate about 50MB of "sludge" from my computer each time. I find this keeps me humming along, except for those sweeps which load slowly no matter what. I don't use tabs to enter multiple sweeps at the same time like some of our more advanced members, and it probably helps to keep my computer running well. Defragging your computer is very important to keep it operating quickly as well! The ST site doesn't contribute to these kinds of problems; but I still use two defragging programs weekly since I surf the web and download other stuff which does require periodic defragmentation.

Sorry - I was a little long-winded, and ran out of space! To continue - my favorite defragmentation programs are Piriform's Defraggler and IObit's Smart Defrag. I use them both; be aware that there are choices to make with the Smart Defrag program, beyond just basic defragging. With all these free programs, you should use all the extras you are comfortable using - they offer more than basic services. I stress that these are all free programs which I have used for months with no problems, and I get nothing for recommending them. I hope this helps someone out there, and GSTY! Chuck.

Thanks, Chuck.  Any tips are helpful.

 Yes, thanks so much for all that good info.  I use Firefox and have it set up to clean out cookies every night when shut down.  I do tab my sweeps and usually have 9 at a time in tabs and go back and forth and that speeds things up alot.  I tried this with IE and it just didn't work as quickly and for some reason getting the sweeps to tab was hard as it kept skipping over them and not downloading.  When I got Firefox all working with Robo again, tabbing is a breeze.  I will check and see if I need one of those defrag programs.  Probably do and I see there is one Power Defragmentor GUI that shows up when I click on "start" in bottom corner.  Will check and see if maybe that is automatically doing this for me??   I am pretty much computer illiterate since never had one till later years.  Thanks again!

To clean out temp files from Java (and some other flash type programs)...Open your Control Panel, scroll down to the (Java) icon, right click on it to open it, under the General tab--find Temporary Internet Files, click on settings, then click on delete files.

You can also set IE to delete Temp. Internet files (under internet options.) 

Good luck!