Lulu Software’s Fixio PC Cleaner promises to keep your PC running faster and more smoothly, and to protect your privacy, by fixing registry problems, cleaning your hard drive, and deleting history files. It does what it promises. But given that the program costs $40, and CCleaner performs the same tasks for free, there may not be any reason to pay for this program.
Fixio PC Cleaner is quite easy to use, with a straightforward interface. To find Registry problems, for instance, you need only click a button. But the program is not customizable and does not offer a great deal of depth. For example, it reports on the total number of Registry problems, by category, but doesn’t show you each individual entry so that you can decide which you want to clean. CCleaner lets you examine individual entries.
Similarly, CCleaner lets you customize how you want to clean your system–for example, you can tell it to clean multimedia files and browser caches, but leave various Windows files intact. Fixio PC Cleaner doesn’t let you do that. Instead, you will have to examine each individual file it says can be cleaned, and determine on your own the file’s purpose. Like CCleaner, Fixio PC Cleaner includes an uninstall program; both work similarly.
The upshot of all this? CCleaner does the same work as Fixio PC Cleaner, but does it offers you a little more control. CCleaner also does it for free, so there may not be any reason to pay the $40 for Fixio PC Cleaner.
–Preston Gralla