Despite comments to the contrary, system improvements can be made by employing cleanup techniques to clean out unwanted files on your computer. Most computers can have their performance appreciably improved when their hard drives contain a relatively small number of files that must be manipulated and stored inside the hard disk. The additional space that is freed up in the cleaning process will naturally offer performance improvements due to reduced clutter. And the act of defragmenting the drive is vastly improved when there is lots of free space. Also with all unneeded private files backed up and cleaned up there is less chance that they can be misused by anybody outside your trusted circle.

Software tools for cleaning up unwanted files can be loosely categorized into just a few classes. The most common of these are the free or commercial disk cleanup tools like the free 'DCleaner' utility that can quickly help to clean out redundant files and give back usable space in the process. There are also privacy protectors that are especially suited to erasing browser tracks and clean up lists of URLs typed from the most common browsers tools such as Evidence Eliminator. Also common is the porn detector software, which detects porn images and video files or offensive adult material and can simplify the removal of the detected objects. Still another class of drive cleaning tools consists of forensic style software which overwrites deleted data from any part of the hard drive, so that nobody else can find it.