1. Ashampoo® WinOptimizer 16 - Overview

Only Ashampoo® WinOptimizer 16 completes your PC!

Over time, even modern systems slow down or become faulty and cluttered with junk files. Especially Windows 10 collects more data than its users would like. Ashampoo® WinOptimizer 16 takes care of these issues - with unparalleled speed and efficiency. It doesn't take any prior knowledge or lots of time and your computer will feel like new again! Let WinOptimizer help you make the most of your PC and protect, clean and optimize your machine for maximum performance and privacy every time.

1. Ashampoo WinOptimizer 2020 is a customizable Windows cleaner and accelerator. You decide which applications and services auto-run with Windows. This helps you free up memory and speed up startup.
2. Winoptimizer 12 free download - Ashampoo WinOptimizer 2020, Windows Media Player 12, Ashampoo WinOptimizer Free, and many more programs.

The most powerful WinOptimizer start page ever

The file that was tested for Ashampoo WinOptimizer was ashampoowinoptimizer18sm.exe. The remote web server hosting ashampoowinoptimizer18sm.exe produced a redirect which was followed to a final destination and tested for viruses and submitted for spam and malware tests.

Ashampoo® WinOptimizer 16 takes care of things right off the bat. The start page allows you to analyze and fix eight common issues. Free massive amounts of space, clean your registry, slim down on autostart entries, ramp up your security settings and create a lean, secure and error-free system. Naturally, we've optimized all features for the latest Windows updates!

Conserve energy without performance drops

Modern computer systems offer a high level of performance that goes hand in hand with a high level of energy consumption - even when it is not needed! You'll notice this not just when you're using your laptop on the go but also when you receive the latest energy bill. The new Energy-Manager tailors Windows power settings to your needs. Nifty power schemes save you money and extend the battery life of your devices significantly. Our team came up with a perfectly balanced power saving profile that won't cause noticeable performance drops while efficiently conserving energy!

No more unwanted browser extensions!

We all know those pesky toolbars that tend to infiltrate our browsers. What are less known are the numerous browser extensions that can slow down your web browsing experience and threaten your privacy. These extensions are often not even listed by the affected browsers! Browser Extension Manager puts a stop to this. It displays all installed browser extensions along with the option to delete them, if necessary. You decide which extension stays and which one goes. So clean your browser and put the fun back into web surfing!

Full control with a single bar!

While many comparable products seem like a wild mix of various features, Ashampoo® WinOptimizer 16 offers a streamlined experience. The navigation bar offers fast access to every feature without the hassle of nested submenus and each module provides clear how to instructions. Making modern technology usable - that is our goal!

Windows 10-ready

Development of Microsoft Windows is still ongoing - and so is the development of Ashampoo® WinOptimizer 16! Our developers ensure the program remains fully usable even if your PC has just received OS updates. Through continuous program updates, your WinOptimizer always stays up to date no matter what changes are made to the underlying Windows OS!

Maximum security and privacy - guaranteed!

Windows collects a lot of data and makes some foul compromises regarding system security. Win10 Privacy Control and Antispy, both included in the program, give you back control of your system! You decide which passwords, telemetry data or photos are sent out or, even better, kept private. Crack down on unsolicited tracking of your PCs, personalized ads or far too nosy programs!

Indispensable: 1-click optimization

1-click optimization is so popular because it takes care of several issues at once. Three powerful modules spring into action to clean your system in-depth. Internet Cleaner eliminates web browsing traces that not only occupy space but also compromise your privacy and security. Drive Cleaner deletes redundant files to reclaim disk space and Registry Cleaner removes invalid Registry entries for improved performance and to avoid system errors. All it takes is a single click from you!

Smart auto-features for your PC

A total of three clever modules take the bulk of the work off your shoulders. Auto-Clean not only remove junk data but prevents it before it happens! Whenever you close your browser or any other program, it makes a clean sweep and gets rid of no longer needed files. Live-Tuner performs real-time tweaking to accelerate program launches. You can also customize it manually to modify process priorities for that extra bit of oomph. Game-Booster terminates all background processes non-essential for gaming to give your games the ultimate performance boost! Once you exit the game the changes are reverted automatically so you can continue working normally.

Our cleaners: scrupulous cleanliness guaranteed!

Cleaning modules have always been at the heart of WinOptimizer. That's why we'll never stop improving them! Where do the latest browsers or setup programs store junk files? Which files pose a risk to your privacy? New threats are constantly analyzed and detection built into the new version. But that's not all. Ashampoo® WinOptimizer 16 fully supports multi-user environments. From now on, you no longer have to clean each profile separately!

Perfect system monitoring

Ashampoo® WinOptimizer 16 shows you what's going on on your PC. For example, you will automatically be notified when the health of your drives deteriorates before disaster strikes. Detect performance bottlenecks and potential errors with ease. If you need extensive details on disk space usage, installed hardware components or running background processes, here is where you'll find them!

The Swiss army jackknife for your PC

Ashampoo® WinOptimizer 16 comes packed with 36 powerful modules to make your computer life incredibly easy. It doesn't matter whether you seek to customize Windows, enhance your security and privacy or analyze your system in depth. All modules are refined and updated every year for best compatibility and performance with old and new Windows versions alike. Discover the wealth of useful features in WinOptimizer 16 yourself!

Ashampoo WinOptimizer Free Review

All in all a great tool which has the benefit of being completely free to use. It also comes configured ready to run meaning the majority of users will be able to install and benefit from the software within a matter of minutes.

Ashampoo WinOptimizer Free is a great addition to any PC! Borrowing many of the great cleaning tools from its premium sibling it provides a fast and free way of keeping your PC running at top speed!

Of course, with this been the free version of possibly the most powerful system cleaner on the market it is naturally lacking some functionality in certain areas, namely automation and scheduling. This means this free version of WinOptimizer is much more suited to those looking for a more simplified cleaning tool which need to be run ad-hoc by the user of the PC!

*** Read my review on the fully featured WinOptimizer 18 byclicking here***

Features

• Well designed, powerful and easy to use PC optimisation software
• Extensive web browser cleaning and privacy features
• Powerful system analyser and benchmarking tools
• Useful file tools including encryption tools and the “undeleter”
• Built in statistics module (see the extent of the tools efforts for yourself)
• Lacking the powerful real-time cleaning modes
• Lacking the Game Boost performance module
• lacking the powerful scheduling engine
• Lacking the powerful 1 click optimisation module
• Ideal as a low cost (free) occasional cleaning tool
• Excellent free tool given the features on offer!

Usability

WinOptimizer Free is based upon the excellent WinOptimizer 17 and as such shares many of the great cleaning tools in addition to the solid and easy to navigate user interface.

Overall it provides a great feature set for a free tool and is very much a serious competitor to other popular and free cleaning tools such as the ever popular CCleaner!

It is however important to note this is a cut-down version of WinOptimizer 17 and as such some of the tools found in the premium version are missing here. Having said this the main tools missing are mainly the real-time cleaning tools, the game boost mode and the ability to schedule cleaning, this means as a manual cleaning tool WinOptimizer Free is still a very powerful tool and worthy of a review in its own right!

Cleaning

Upon opening WinOptimiser you will be met by the main cleaning home screen, it is from here that the main system analysis scan can be performed and the main system cleaning done.

To start the cleaning process simply click on “Analyze” and let the tool do its work scouting out multiple areas of your PC to help free up disk space, remove browser history, enhance privacy and free up otherwise wasted system resources.

Whilst all of the main features are available to give your system a good clean you will notice a couple of options are unavailable including the ability to clean unnecessary registry entries and the cleaning of unnecessary files. Whilst in my own opinion not cleaning the registry usually doest cause too much trouble the ability to clean temporary files (including the flash cache and temporary user files) might mean some, more heavy users should consider upgrading to the full version of the software.

Freeing up disk space is an important function of any system cleaning utility and in this regard WinOptimizer Free edition does a very decent job. Again it must be said that some of the most powerful drive and registry cleaning tools are only available in the full version so if you find you do need a more thorough clean after running the free version it might be worth also trying the premium version of the tool (check out our review here)!

Freeing up disk space is an important function of any system cleaning utility and in this regard WinOptimizer Free edition does a very decent job. Again it must be said that some of the most powerful drive and registry cleaning tools are only available in the full version so if you find you do need a more thorough clean after running the free version it might be worth also trying the premium version of the tool (check out our review here)!

One of the other things I really like about WinOptimizer is the ability to fine tune the software to clean exactly how I want it to. Many users, including myself often have specific cleaning requirements and certain items (for example, FireFox cookies) which might need to be excluded form any cleaning process. Fortunately, thank to the excellent settings menu this is easy to specify with WinOptmizer Free meaning you can get the level of cleaning you really need form this tool.

Once you have configured the tool to clean how you need it to one of the biggest drawbacks of the free edition is the lack of automation, scheduling and real-time cleaning tools. For many users this wont be too much of an issue and the ability to manually run a scan every now and then will be enough, for others however the lack of power offered by theses tools will be an issue resulting in a certain amount of lost cleaning.

The scheduling and “one-click” cleaning tool in particular are two excellent features found only in the premium version and help make keeping you PC cleaned to your specific requirements a fully automated process!

PC Tuning

Several very powerful PC optimisation tools are included with WinOptimizer Free including modules for optimising the number of running processes, removing unwanted programs and also mitigating the impact of programs which run automatically during the booting of your PC.

Unfortunately the excellent automation tools found in the premium version including “Auto-Clean “Live-Tuner” and “Game-Booster” are not present in WinOptimizer Free. Whilst this might not be an issue for some people I have found having my PC automatically cleaned and optimised does make a reasonable difference and the PC runs smoother as a result. Not for everyone but definitely worth considering if you have an older PC or wish to maximise PC resources forrunning games or other demanding applications.

*** If you want ot learn more about the missing real-time optimisation tools please see my review of WinOptimiser 17 by clicking here ***

Privacy

Privacy is something Ashampoo have taken very seriously whilst developing WinOptimizer Free and just like its sibling the tool does not disappoint in this department.

Whilst for obvious reasons some of the other, more specialist cleaning tools have been included only in the premium version the tools for removing browsing history as well as encrypting and shredding of files remain. This means for most casual users not only is a good clean and performance boost possible but also the ability to main a good level of privacy on what might be a shared or office based PC still exists.

It is also nice to see the Windows 10 Privacy tool remains which, harping back to my full review of WinOptimizer 17 is a very powerful tool providing convenient access to securely configure all sensitive areas of a Windows install all in one place.

As can be see from the screen shot below the tool looks at several key areas of a Windows 10 configuration and for each area allows for easy configuration of the settings which might compromise security. For example, we can specify which applications can access Windows telemetry and location data, which apps can have access to the internet and to other networks such as Bluetooth as well as disabling specific hardware such as use of the webcam!

What’s important to note here is that whilst these settings can be changed without this tool the convenience in bringing them all together in one place and giving an explanation of each is of great value in my opinion. Bringing all of this together in one easy to use tool helps users easily understand what their current privacy levels are and adjust them accordingly making for a more secure PC!

AntiSpy Anti-Spyware Tool:

The AntiSpy tool further enhances the privacy configuration of your system by allowing control over key services which could allow user privacy to be compromised. This includes often overlooked areas such as automatically submitting error reports, script execution settings and media player meta-data services.

Other Useful Tools within WinOptimizer Free

Aside from the core cleaning, performance tuning and privacy tools WinOptimizer Free offers many other built in tools to help manage and monitor you system, some of the notable ones include:

System Information:

Useful for quickly gaining insight into your PC hardware specifications and the specifications of any attached peripherals.

System Benchmark:

The system benchmark tool shows a brief overview of the PCs hardware and allows a full system benchmark to be established.

Context Menu Manager:

A useful tool for slimming down you context menus by removing unnecessary entries.

WinOptimizer Free Security

As well as helping to remove junk, increase disk space and improving performance of your PC WinOptimizer Free also helps boost the security of your PC. This is in the form of specialist tools providing file encryption / decryption, secure deletion and ADS (alternate data streams) tools.

The ADS tool in particular is an interesting and useful addition to the Free edition which checks for hidden information attached to files potentially helping to prevent malware.

Ashampoo Support

Ashampoo have a great website and provide a comprehensive Q&A section which handles most problems you might encounter. Should you still need to get in touch with a support representative you can submit support tickets online.

WinOptimizer Free Pricing

Ashampoo WinOptimizer Free is, suprisingly, free!

The fully functional WinOptimiser 18 is priced at $39.99 per PC however you can obtain a special discount should you wish to upgrade by using this link!

Summary

WinOptimizer Free is a great system optimisation tool with plenty of cleaning and configuration options, it also comes configured ready to run meaning the majority of users will be able to install and benefit from the software within a matter of minutes.

Whilst an excellent tool in its own right I need to be clear the scheduling and real-time performance tools are found only in the premium version so the upgrade will still definitely be worth considering for most users!

Ashampoo® WinOptimizer 16 - Overview

All in all a great tool, thoroughly recommended for users seeking an easy to use, free and still very powerful tool for keeping PCs clean!