Ubuntu FTW!!!

meadandale

Yeah, let me load up this old firefox version that bloats up to a gig of used ram... we'll see if it can handle that

cortana

@B1663R: Just a note... activate.exe is what activates/registers the software. You're supposed to run it after install. If you don't run it before midnight, you get a trial version of whatever is being offered. The Readme file in the zip will always have directions on how to make the software registered.

GOTD, and their sister site for games (GGOTD) have had some questionable downloads in the past (hence the Red Site Advisor rating).

MercuryPDX

I tried using it but it said I had one MB less available RAM after the scanning, so I tossed it.

Runeshai

@pecheckler: Agreed completely! All these tools do is free up ram when if you kept more paged calls actually IN ram the PC would be faster.

This tool is leftover from the old relic DOS days when things like "prefetch" and "superfetch" were not around.

axiomatic

Free Ram Optimizer is better and free. Its always free. [www.acelogix.com]
FRO is the last link at the bottom of that page. Startup Guard and Tweek N'Tune are also good free programs.

1N0X1

Like I said in the post, I wasn't able to do extensive testing with TweakRAM, and I don't have a lot of experience with RAM tweakers in general. Still, seems like a find stopgap solution for an old box you use to browse, with say, Firefox 2 when it becomes a memory-eating monster.

Also, OF COURSE RAM is cheap. That goes without saying, people! It's less about the price and more about the annoying process of cracking open the case to figure out how many slots you have, what kind you need, buying it, coming home, opening the case again to install it, etc. Not everyone feels comfortable with that.

Gina Trapani

@TheManator: I'm sorry if my motherboard doesn't support DDR2 :P

It's true most of those programs don't work, but I've found that Hare does improve a bit.

Also, the ReadyBoost thing is also great.

Victor V.

Back when I was running my PIII550 I tried out all these memory improvement dealies. Forget them. If you really have problems with needing more memory, go spend the few dollars it takes to buy a stick of RAM. Unless you're still running a PIII and Windows 95.

QrazyQat

Does anyone here have any idea whether CachemanXP is better than this? Is it effective at all?
I had a (geekier than me) friend point it out. It is a commercial program.

PReDiToR

Oh man, am I glad I read these comments. But anyways, I've used crap like this and it does nothing. You want your ram to improve? Buy some more ram. Silicon Mountain sells sticks of 1GB for like $14 EACH. PLUS, they send you a giant ass lollipop for your first THREE orders. Too much sugar though...

TheManator

From my experience, RAM tweakers don't work at all.

I'd be glad to be proven wrong on this, but only if we're not talking about numbers games with the task manager, but actually restoring something similar to the state of the computer after a reboot, i.e. lots of free RAM addressable by applications.

RabbitRun

The smoke is free, but you have to bring your own mirror.

mmbb

A few gig of ram these days worth less than your hourly pay

wellcum

Yeah, this is crap. If it was so easy to make an app that freed up all this memory it would be part of Windows already.

Black Bellamy

This program is a joke. Anyone with extensive knowledge of the Windows operating system will tell you it's bullshit.
The only worthwhile thing it may be able to do is tell you if a running program has a memory leak, and when using well-recognized popular applications, memory leaks are a very rare occurrence. They occur far more often in poorly written software, which is not extensively tested.

pecheckler

I don't think these programs really do anything. Although i have no evidence to back that claim.

math0ne

*scam alert*

do not hit the activate.exe its adware!!

just a trial for 30 days not free!!

btw it couldn't help my machine. freed(?) like almost nothing (10mb)

B1663R

"Giveaway of the Day" has had some seriously sketchy software in the past. I wouldn't trust anything that gets posted to that site.

Jon Tackabury

Reviews are really bad on the comments page. 61% thought that the program wasn't worthwhile.

#2 odds are that the 100Megs it claimed to have free up came straight from the systems dynamic disc cache area which would have been released by the operating system if any application needed it anyway, just like it did for tweakram when it told the operating system it wanted it, which tweakram then promptly released to declare it free, nullifying the data previously cached there. In operating systems Windows 98 and later free physical RAM is wasted physical RAM.

.....

allholy1

I just scanned it with My Mcafee 8.5i enterprise and came up with nothing malicious.

It is actually the downloadoftheday url that is returning that error. They have had some questionable applications on there at one point or another.

I am going to give it a go... In a Virtual machine that is!

AskTheAdmin

yeah, but the mirror site doesn't even register on mcafee.

I'll scan it with Norton and I'll see

B1663R

When I click on the link for TweakRAM 6.2, my McAfee SiteAdvisor turns red and gives me this message: "In our tests, we found downloads on this site that some people consider adware, spyware or other potentially unwanted programs."

Just thought you should know.

Ssscorpion

Is this just an advertisement?

Scalvo2

These programs are rubbish. What's the use of unused RAM anyway?

Joshiii-Kun

Yes rubbish. These programs have been around forever and its always best to stay clear of such crapware. If you have a slow system then get to the bottom of the issue. No ram optimizer will save your system. There are many worthy tweaking sites out there to shut off unnecessary junk and prevent crap from loading that doesn't need to. My two fav programs to assist in the endeavor are Startup Control Panel 2.8 and startupmonitor. The former is a brilliant, tiny program for controlling where, when, and whether something starts, and the latter is a tiny program that catches any program that tries to set something to automatically start. They are both totally amazing. I know there are lots of other startup controllers, but these two are simply the best. [www.mlin.net] . They're both by the same author Mike Lin.

philosopher_dog

These things do nothing. Any bump that you *think* you get is purely imaginary. If you can do some benchmarks to show before/after, lets see them.

"Silicon Mountain sells sticks of 1GB for like $14 EACH."

Uh huh...for my machine, a Dell Dimension, 1 gig was listed for $384.00.

Agular

This is probably some bait and switch tactic (upgrades aren't free). But free is free :-)

deedrit

That Giveaway of the Day site locked up my Firefox 3 times. Ugh... forget it, no program is worth that much hassle.

ViperBorg

@MercuryPDX: that's what i did. installed clicked activate and then it went to a really weird site and my spidey sense went off.

It asked to add something to my toolbar , i panicked and uninstalled (and checked everything)after testing. i think it's all gone now...

B1663R

Well it's free so I DL'd it and to be honest I did get a bit of bump in speed. Granted I can see buying more ram as the better option but this PC is getting buried in the next 9 months or so anyways.

Milstar

This is pure garbage. Ram is very inexpensive these days.

Spend a few bucks and skip this waste of time and resources.

framitz

I haven't found one of these programs (ram tweakers) that's done anything measurable with my computer. Much worse, I've usually had a rough time uninstalling them. I don't put alot of trust in system optimizing software.

oldredhat

These programs are a total scam. I'm amazed LifeHacker fell for it.

Sean Robertson

SNAKE

OIL

sleze69

As others have said, this program is a placebo and (at best) will do no harm. I expect better from lifehacker.

Rodalpho

@blankhorizons:

Welcome to Totally Missing the Point, staring *you*.

Jaysyn

Maxmem from AnalogX has always been free.

[www.analogx.com]

@Joshiii-Kun:

They will allow your other programs to utilize RAM that has been "lost" thru memory leaks during normal computing.

Jaysyn

This is totally unnecessary. RAM is meant to be filled, there is absolutely no benefit to having free RAM whatsoever. If RAM is wired, but not active, and an active program needs the space it flushes what's not needed anyway. There is 0 benefit whatsoever for having empty RAM.

If you go to a bar, do you ask the bartender to leave your mug 1/3 empty?

blankhorizons

Have you guys ever heard of McAfee's SiteAdvisor? You really should check out a site before sending crap like this out to the masses, of course this isn't the first time I've been sent to nefarious sites from Lifehacker.

Hell, Download Squad and all the other copycats pass the same shit on too, so don't feel like you're the only site doing it...

BillyGnSC

I agree with "progoth". lets delete this post.

lhcomment

@B1663R: After it installs, it asks you if you want to add the site URL to your bookmarks/toolbar. :) You can check them all or check none of them. It will still go through.

wickedcupofjoe

Yeah, snake oil, delete this post for the good of people who don't know any better. Programs like this do more harm than good, if they do anything besides install adware.

progoth

I have found a very useful application that improves RAM utilization like crazy, and is free, and isn't crapware.

You can get it for free from crucial.com. It's called Scan My System. It analyzes your current memory situation (and open slots) and recommends that you buy more memory from them. (Note that it ALWAYS recommends that you buy more RAM, but you wouldn't be doing this if you didn't know that you were RAM-constrained).

It recommends the exact model number of the RAM module that you need. Sometimes you get choices, allowing for budget considerations.

In effect: you run the application, and it says, send us $45. No cracking open the case (until the RAM arrives in the mail). The RAM that they sell you is guaranteed to work right in your system.

It's cheap, fast, and minimally annoying. I've done this for several Windows machines, and it worked smashingly each time.

Hawkins

I really think that before posting "recommendations" for software, web sites, ect. on this site, the poster should actually test out what they are recommending. It is well known that these ram booster programs do pretty much nothing, and the shareware world is just awash with them. Half of them just do nothing for your $20, and the other half install malware of one flavor or another, and then do nothing.

Lifehacker is a site that folks have come to trust, and care should be taken to ensure that what is posted here is reasonably well checked out.

jsmorley

Comment on TweakRAM Memory Optimizer Free Today Only This is a terrible Life Hack post... I can't believe this rubbish is posted here. "Hey, everyone, try out this malware! We could not confirm it worked, but just get it! We are not going to bother checking it for you, just download and install it blindly!" Screw that! There should be at least some measure of quality control before any old rubbish is posted here and called an 'article' Me.

UshaBehemoth

SiteAdvisor rated giveawayoftheday a bad website. Most users however have suggested that the site is good. So just a reminder to scan everything you download from this site.

januno

I would LOVE to see how this program detected a memory leak.

That is entertainment enough for me tonight.

bearslikejam

@Jaysyn:

Can you explain what point I missed? The program give you 0 benefit and in some instances will actually hinder performance.

What point did I miss?

blankhorizons

RAM is so cheap nowadays that these programs are virtually useless unless you're running on 512mb RAM and living on bread and water

unrealfighter

Memory optimizer programs are worthless. Of particular disgust are ones that automatically run their "optimization" process when available memory falls below a certain threshold. This almost invariably occurs during some CPU intensive process and bogs the system down horribly when the program decides to try running concurrently.

If you're having memory problems, there is absolutely no reasonable solution aside from buying and installing more RAM.

WraithSama

Why is something like this up on Lifehacker? Scams and crapware don't belong here.

Aanidaani

This program seems to have eaten my autohotkey Alt-Tab replacement. It also is keeping me from opening multiple Firefox windows using the quick launch (Ctrl-N still works).

Off to go uninstall.

Biologyfool

Like every download we feature here, I downloaded and installed TweakRAM on my own computer and had no reason to believe it contains malware. If someone can point me to specific evidence that this is indeed malware, I will update the post. Thanks.

Gina Trapani

@humphrmi: Crap, I just read through the comments.

Do I really need to do that before I download software that Lifehacker recommends?

For crying out loud. Fine. Off to de-install. Turds.

humphrmi

I tried it on a (protected) XP Media edition build (that I had not tried to tweak myself) and got some substantial savings. Then I tried it on a (protected) Vista build that I had tweaked myself just based on googling how to make Vista run more efficiently, and it came up with bubkis. So it's probably about the same as googling and tweaking yourself.

humphrmi

@Gina Trapani:

Gina, TweakRAM doesn't install anything that it shouldn't. I think that what most of us are saying is just that these RAM "boosting" programs (and there are HUNDREDS of them) are at best a placebo, and at worst... Well, I advise some caution with many of them.

Put "RAM optimizing programs" into Google and spend a few minutes scanning through the many technical forums where this subject has been discussed for a long time. The net of it (not to make a pun) is that you are at least just as well and probably better off without these little programs. I'm afraid that they are for the most part just a quick way to make a buck for some folks.

jsmorley

@Gina Trapani: It's not really that it's malware, it's that it doesn't actually do anything, and can actually harm performance. Windows has system and disk caches for a reason.

"Uh huh...for my machine, a Dell Dimension, 1 gig was listed for $384.00."

Agular...

Ugh, you know you don't have to buy Dell RAM, right? Crucial.com, please. They supply the RAM to Dell.@Agular:

tcp100

Did we learn nothing from Syncronys in 1995???

[en.wikipedia.org]

Ponderous folks, really ponderous.

1GB of DDR2 is $25 nowadays.

But if you guys really want to pretend, I say just tape a post-it on your screen that says "I have more RAM than I did yesterday."

It'll be just as effective.

tcp100

hhahaha oh man. This is real old skool. It's such a fine line between coming here and RSSing my own stories, my only reason for visiting is to use your staff as a filter. I think you need to assess whether you want to cope for the hopelessly ignorant or not. I'm not sure you can have it both ways.

zarathustra

This might be useful for my old P3/PentiumM laptops with 256-512MB PC133 RAM. But there's no reason why any modern laptop (or even any laptop from 2 years ago) should need this.

It's hard to find a laptop coming with anything less than 1GB these days, and they all run at DDR2 533/667. It's not desktop speed, but fast enough to not require defragging.

And if you're the kind who ever needs to use more than 2GB of RAM, I don't see how this program is going to help you since you do want that memory filled up, don't you? No point leaving a GB or two unused all the time.

If you're running low on RAM, Ctrl-Alt-Del and find the program taking up the most memory, close it. There you go, free RAM. If it's a program you're using at the moment, maybe it's time to submit a bug report for memory leak. If you still don't have enough RAM, it's time to buy a new stick.

kureshii

Seems to me there are a couple of key points to the comments here...

* Does this software do what it purports?
* Is there malware?
* Does the GAOTD site offer dodgy software

Here's my two cent worth...

I imagine Gina must find her material somewhere and probaably gets daily updates from GAOTD and other sites, it cant be easy to keep coming up with new stuff and if a program looks promising then it's no harm to include it here but let the buyer (pun) beware. I still go to the site everyday for a look at what's on offer and have downloaded/installed many progs to test. Usually they are not worth the time and effort though there have been a few gems - I got evernote through Lifehacker's post on a previous GAOTD and it's great. Recently I've started reading the comments on the download page and the simple ratio of thumbs up or down decides it for me, if it doesn't score a 2:1 positive ratio I generally leave it alone.

I've never had any problem with malware from the site, just a couple of orange lights from my eTrust AV

I agree with everyone here that says this one is not up to much, it's throttling memory from idle progs at best and really the argument that a physical upgrade being better wins.

I know it's been covered in LH before about tweaking memory manually by killing unnecessary processes but my own memory needs tweaking to recall when.

Oh, I love being so concise but I'll summate nonetheless...

*Use common sense
*Read the comments and voting ratios
*Use AV Firewall and the rest
*For any post in LH that u find interesting search the site for similar content and make your mind up then whats best for you

togeboge

The stuff on Giveaway of the Day is worth a look once a day, as there are some gems mixed in with the second-rate stuff that is the usual fare there. One thing to remember though: You are really in effect getting a "trial" version of the software, since the next time you want to (or have to) re-install Windows the software can NOT be installed again. Nothing wrong with this at all as long as you understand that it is a trial version with the trial length the amount of time until it needs to be re-installed for any reason.

jsmorley

This piece of software looks like crap-ware.
Not everything on the Giveaway is junk.
Some is pretty good stuff.
I've gotten like 2 programs that I really like and are not Crap-ware.

dapezboy

I have 512mb and I transcode video on this PC which pretty much wipes out any free ram. This did actually find about 40megs extra which allows me to at least bearably surf the inter webs while transcoding.

Bottom line is that this does not create more RAM only better uses what you have. It probably only really benefits individuals like me who have a little bit of ram and run it tight. If this PC wasn't on it's end I'd spring for more ram vs paying for this program.

So Gina, Tip of the Hat to you. Most of the rest of you, big wag of the finger. I found no malware, spy, virus, adware etc & it was free.

Milstar

Free RAM before freeing: 1181 MB (58% )
Free RAM now after freeing: 1182 MB (58% )

Amazing. It actually used up more RAM.

/me uninstalls.

skeksis

@Gina Trapani: I feel bad that so many here are being unnecessarily harsh. Sorry.

A note about Crucial's RAM Scanner [crucial.com] is in order, though. It looks like you mentioned it last year. [lifehacker.com]

Bob Brown

WTF? Why even mention this freebie for garbage software? Has Gawker sold out?

AtomicPlayboy

At the very least, the "defragments your memory" "feature" gave me a chuckle.
:D

GlennA

Yes, rams are now much cheaper than it used to be.

But, why does this software look like an imitation of FreeRAM XP Pro?

[FreeRAM XP Pro]

googeling

All these mem-free tools are a useles. What you basically do is fight the Windows memory management subsystem by forcing it to release the disk cache and swap everything out while the mem-free tool is aquiring memory like a junkie on cold turkey. What you CAN get running this software is a temporary increase in free memory and overall system slowdown due to caching and swapping issues.

If you really feel like you need to tweak your memory management, take a look at the ars technica arcitle for win2k - it should apply to xp and vista too:

[arstechnica.com]

Cheers!
Paul.

_pulsar_

Because it is, now, also, I use FreeRAM XP Pro on my laptop. The lappie is constrained to 512 MB of RAM. There is no upgrading. When Firefox or other program starts misbehaving (I've watched my physical RAM amounts drop down to 4 MB sometimes - without getting released for several hours even after apps have all been closed), then I right-click and free up some RAM. I kind of have to unless I want OoM errors or BSODs. This happens if I run Win98, Win2k or WinXP on it.

Let us just say, the memory management under Windows has been abysmal from day one, and hasn't changed. I never have this issue when I am running under Slackware, Ubuntu, etc.

And yes, it is still horrible under Vista, no matter what tricks they use (turning a USB stick into extra prefetch and swap space, so they can give it a marketing name like Readyboost and charge you more, is laughable).

thejynxed

Yeah, it's Windows Only because a Mac doesn't need it.

DeanOfAllTrades

@tcp100:

I didn't go to Dell, I went to Silicon Mountain as was suggested, as well as a number of other places. They were all in the same range.

Agular

Giveaway site actually has a useful program called Premium Booster today.

arstal

@tcp100: my laptop (Panasonic) uses microDIMM- $125 for 1GB. Yeah, don't think I'll be buying another stick just like that.

jamar0303

What's the deal lifehacker? You see 'hacker' is a higher level of computing, tools like this belong on a PCWorld blog aka bullshit software, I'll pay for this in the same swoop I will renew my Volcano insurance!

If you are the kind of user that installs this kind of crap then you deserve to be running out of ram.

Pick up the pace Lifehacker and start posting something legit and useful not this gui crap.

teatime

This is an imitation software!

FreeRAM XP Pro (freeware) is the original piece of software: [www.yourwaresolutions.com]

Rated 5/5 on CNet and I used it about 6-7 years ago. Obviously with the current amount of RAM, I no longer use it. However, it was a great tool for my old Windows 98.

Dooga

@Gina Trapani: "Still, seems like a find stopgap solution for an old box you use to browse, with say, Firefox 2 when it becomes a memory-eating monster."

I would say no here, because I don't believe that RAM optimizers can reduce the amount of memory used for active applications, so when you're running FF2, it's still going to hog memory until you kill it.

Chef

If RAM is tight, the best solution is to get more, but that's not always an option. I get the pleasure of using Windows 2K systems with a mix of Win32 and Win 3.1 (!) software. It's all behind a flaky HTML-based interface which slowly consumes all available RAM, until the main application becomes unusable due to run-time errors. Upgrading or replacing is not an option, and restarting the affected PCs too often is a royal, work-stopping pain.

A good memory manager (FreeRAM XP Pro in this case) actually allows us to keep the machines running 2 or 3 times longer between reboots.

Yeah, the PCs will have to reload previously cached items, but in this case it is more important that the PCs just keep running.

While most folks prolly don't need a third-party memory manager, they do have a (small) place in the world.

taodude

Best solution:

go to start menu --> Run --> and enter "%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks" without the quotes. Wait a couple of seconds (sometimes it could take a minute) till the hdd activity led goes off, and there you have it.

Lman

void main()
{
calloc(1024mb);
}

Does the same trick.

graham.reeds

I was going to see what this was all about so I installed it. The program installed Virtumonde, a pretty nasty adware program, on my machine.

Last time I ever download from that site. Please don't link to them, they obviously don't care enough to check the software they give away.

Spydie