Fao Buenchico Re: Full-Disk Fighter

[Ann]

I was offered a free scan of full-disk fighter so I thought I would try it knowing that it would probably ask me for payment at the end which I wouldn't take up. However it has taken forever - nearly finished scanning but has already been running for over 8 hours! It has found the following:
1171 junk files taking up 7.46gb of hard disk space, 37.8gb of unorganised files slowing down PC, 842 files larger than 10mb taking up 59.8gb of hard disk space, and the final part hasn't quite finished yet.
My question is, have I done wrong trying out this scan, is it worth paying for, does it really work by freeing up all the disk space (which I really need to do!) and if I refuse to buy it, can I just delete it easily with no ill-effects? I'm still with Windows XP and use Firefox.
Any advice would be most welcome please! Thanks :)

[Ann]

I saw that scary link a couple of hours ago Methyl thanks, which prompted my question but Computer Active magazine seems to endorse it as genuine. Its in the same "family" as Spam fighter which I have been using the free version for several years and it works well, so naturally thought this one being in the same group could be trusted?

[Buenchico]

I know nothing about that program but I'd recommend uninstalling it (which probably shouldn't cause you any problems).

Most sources advise against using 'registry cleaners' and similar 'clean-up' programs but, if you want to give one a try, the only program that's frequently recommended (both here on AB and in the technical press) is the free version of CCleaner:
https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

[Old_Geezer]

Again no personal experience of it but there are many products out there that will check your PC, paint as worrying a picture of it as it dare, then tell you that you need to pay if you wish to correct what it found. My *guess* is that it is ok, especially is a trusted magazine recommends it. But having been warned of the issues you could always take steps to improve the situation by hand anyway. There are plenty of free programmes that will defragment you drive to organise it better, and others that will show you what is taking up space should you wish to uninstall large programmes you no longer use.

[Ann]

Thanks very much to you all for your advice, I have now uninstalled it using OIbit uninstaller to get rid of all the fragments too, so fingers crossed - all should be well. :)