Finallyfast.com has recently come under fire as being a scam and a rip-off. Let me start off by saying that if you purchased FinallyFast, my condolences go out to you, because of the nature of the scam, you’re probably not getting those $30 back. The good news is, that while FinallyFast does clean SOME of the things that could cause problems in your PC, there are perfectly good, free alternatives out there that don’t require you to reach for anything other than the download button.
CCleaner
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again – I trust my computer completely to the good people at Piriform and their excellent CCleaner program.
FinallyFast is what is known as a scammed registry cleaner. Your computer works based off a registry system, that is, it records every time you install a new program and writes down the information to a global record of sorts that can become cluttered over time with excess junk from uninstalling programs to rogue programs making their way into your system.
The best way to clean out the registry is to allow CCleaner to analyze it for you – you then have two options – either allow the program to auto-clean things for you, or look through the list and clean the items yourself.
Either way, you can be sure that no program is collecting information about you covertly to send to a server that then sells your information to spam vendors.
Just install CCleaner and give it a run – it’ll speed up your system in less than five minutes and barely even leaves a footprint in your RAM.
Spybot – Search and Destroy
Grab a notebook and write this down. When you buy a new computer, you will install CCleaner and Spybot on there before you install anything else – no single computer out there should be running around without both these programs.
Spybot works differently from CCleaner in that it destroys malware and spyware components that could be found on your PC. It can even leave the engine running (not recommended) to keep analyzing your computer.
Assuming you only run Spybot manually, it’s a marvel of a program, giving you complete access to the latest information about spyware and ad-ware in a matter of seconds. It updates instantaneously and runs in a short amount of time.
Again, installing and running Spybot is extremely simple – just make sure those databases are updated before you try to run the cleaner.
What you should take away from this…
Without exception, you shouldn’t ever have to pay to remove malware, spyware, or even clean out your registry as long as you own a computer. Making a rookie mistake is something that everyone with a computer has done before, but let it be a learning experience.
There are some that may disagree with me, but in my opinion, the only kind of security software you need to purchase is an excellent antivirus program (and even then, some of the free ones are good). Paying anything for a program after it told you it would be a FREE REGISTRY SCAN is disingenuous and assumes you know nothing about the internet and security online these days. Do yourself a favor and download the top two programs – I guarantee you’ll never need anything more than these two unless the situation is extreme.
