IObit : Java Glossary

IObit makes more utilities than you can shake a stick at. You could say they DEBE (Does Everything But Eat). They sell them in various bundles. One bundle includes their defragger and most of their other utilities for a mere . What is even more amazing is most of the utilities are free. They have a well polished UI that is easy even for a novice to use. Here are some of the components I consider useful:

1. Defragger. This is probably the prettiest defragger I have ever seen in that it looks nice. It is fast but not particularly thorough.
2. Scans Windows device drivers and updates obsolete ones.
3. Various tunings.
4. Various anti malware activities.
5. Malware fighter scans every file of every type, even images. It scans zips internally. It is very quick, about 7 minutes to scan all my drives using multiple threads. In contrast, MalwareBytes takes over almost two hours.
6. Removes junk from the registry. It found all kinds of junk my current Ace utilities missed.
7. Software updates. Detects when apps are out of date, and fetches the updates.
8. Uninstall apps that refuse to go willingly. It also cleans up files and registry entries for ordinary uninstalls.
9. Deletes obsolete shortcuts.
10. Deletes junk files. It is able to get rid of junk system files and files with strange owners.
11. Cleans out browser cookies for privacy.
12. Lock your choice of DNS (Domain Name Service) server from tampering.
13. Malicious website blocking.
14. File shredder (wipe).
15. Registry Defrag.
16. System Information.
17. Dozens more that either I do not understand or do not thing are all that valuable.

Disadvantages

• Some utilities encourage you to remove all your autostarts. A novice running those utilities could do a lot of damage.
• Just installing the Malware scanner without activating it, disables Defender.
• When it finds malware, it deletes the entire infected file. It does not attempt to remove the malware.
• There are so many menus and utilities, sometimes you simply cannot find a utility you used before. Look in the "C:\Program Files (x86)\IObit\" directory tree for executables. Then just fire them up from the command line or create shortcuts to launch them. For example, to launch the disk/ram monitor, type "C:\Program Files (x86)\IObit\Advanced SystemCare\Monitor.exe"

Questionable Ethics

When you download Advanced System Care (aka ASC) it comes with an overwhelming suite of utilities. You assume, when you upgrade to Advanced System Care PRO, you will get the PRO version of all these utilities. Not so.

• Defrag
• Uninstaller
• Driver Update
• Malware fighter
• Advanced System Care Ultime (virus checker)

You have to buy each of those four components separately. I figure they should make that clear. In their defence, everything is more than reasonably priced and the free versions are quite usable.

Further, when you upgrade to Advanced System Care Pro, it says they will throw in Defrag, Protect Folder and AMC Security Pro for free. But it turns out you don’t actually get all three goodies. You have to choose only one before you buy, Defrag by default. Granted, it is there in the small print.

There is something that baffles me about the Malware Fighter. Every day it downloads about 40 MB of new malware definitions. Yet its permanent database appears to be only about 20 MB. You would expect the download to be a small fraction of the permanent database.