Over time Applications change, some for the better some for worse. Some of them even stop receiving updates and are old and vulnerable. Sometimes standards change and some file types are not used anymore. Software evolves along with technology and that is good.
Keeping old and useless applications inside your Windows is not so good. From various exploits to simply taking up space, maybe even slowing down OS it is always wise and good to clean your Windows from unwanted old applications.
In this article, we will be mentioning some relics of old and providing you with an explanation of why you should remove them from your system if by any chance you still have them on it.
Silverlight was meant to be a competitor for Adobe Flash, it is a WEB framework that enables rich media content inside your WEB browser. The issue is that it is not developed anymore and today's browsers do not support it.
The only browser that actually can support it is internet explorer which itself is not supported and how there is practically 0 content on today's modern WEB that will require Silverlight, it is safe and recommended to remove it.
Speaking of Adobe Flash, you should remove it as well. Flash has stopped receiving support as of January 2021 and browsers have dropped support for it and even blocked it due to security issues.
However, there still might be some local installation of Flash itself inside Windows along with the old Shockwave player that stopped receiving support in 2019. You should remove them both.
Now this one is tricky, by itself JAVA does not present any security issues since browsers do not support it anymore and the desktop version is not really slowing down your computer. This one has simply put just another media runtime that is not used and simply takes up space and resources.
However if you have some applications that you do use that rely on it (I can really just think of JAVA Minecraft at this point) leave it of course but in any other case, it is just purely not needed.
While we are at media runtime and stuff that just simply is not needed, Quicktime is one of them. Now this Apple Video player and codec is still pretty developed and active in Apple’s iOS environment, Windows version has not been updated since 2016 and it was discovered that it contains some critical vulnerabilities.
Uninstall it and if you need a player that could play MOV files, just use a VLC player that can play them without any separately installed codec.
This one, the same as CCleaner was once a good application, as a matter of fact, it was the best torrenting application. Sadly it has fallen from its grace very low, from getting tons of ads in its interface to findings in 2015 that code of torrent client was packed with a crypto miner that used system resources of an installed computer to mine crypto without user’s awareness.
You should uninstall this torrent client if you would like to get your PC back and not provide it for cryptocurrency mining for the company that developed it. Use qBittorrent or TIxati, open-source and free ones that have everything needed for any torrenting needs.
There are a lot of toolbars for browsers and extensions that are malicious in nature or simply not updated providing security issues. It is very advisable to remove this as soon as possible.
WinRAR has gained its large popularity solely for the reason that you could download it from the official site like shareware and use it forever. The license never expired and you could use it indefinitely. Sadly not much has been improved in the application itself and it is slowly falling out in its range of what it can do.
There are better open source and free options today like 7zip, PeaZip, ZIPvare, and more that are working the same as WinRAR if not even better.
Yes, applications that come bundled with Windows and with some laptops that include manufacturers made software for different tasks like its own specific media players, calculators, etc.
It is known that these applications are not better than their open-source rivals and there are too many of them including some that you will probably never use. It is the same as buying a new phone bundled with tons of applications that you do not need, did not ask for, and do not use. Delete all of them.
Considering Windows there are also some Store application like Candy Crush Saga demo and other are safe to remove if not needed.
That’s it, our advice for old and not needed applications so you can keep your PC safe and fast.
“There were some problems installing updates, but we’ll try again later. If you keep seeing this and want to search the web or contact support for information, this may help: (0x80244019).”In this kind of Windows Update error, you might not be able to get the download file of the requested update started to your computer and this could be due to some third-party application or the overall internal components that contribute to the functioning of the Windows Update module. Refer to each one of the following options to fix the Windows Update error 0x80244019.
So, you have finished with work, game, movie, music, email, or whatever on your PC, you look at the clock, it is late, you decide to go to sleep or outside, you click on the power button and choose shutdown. Now when a PC is shut down you feel good and go with your business but the next time you power it up you get the same error like the computer never really shut down in the first place. You wonder why and reboot it, just in case and all of the sudden error is gone.
If something similar has happened to you or you had the feeling that after shutting down your computer has not really felt like shutting it down, do not seek professional help, everything is OK with you because when you click on shut down, your computer does not really shut down!
Truth is that Microsoft has changed how to shut down works and how rebooting works in Windows with an update but has not publicly said anything about it so some users may experience this feeling of not shutdown phenomenon and might even think there is something wrong with their PC.
A few years ago shutdown button and option in Windows were really shutting down OS, but things changed when Microsoft wanted to increase boot-up speed. Now when that decision was made shutdown option was changed. So, what was changed? Well in order to increase Windows booting time, the shutdown will now turn off power to PC components and it will look like everything is indeed shutdown but the Windows kernel will actually be saved to a hard drive with all settings and just awaken once the PC is turned back ON. This will result in all errors and other stuff being just still present same as they were once the system was instructed to be turned off.
Rebooting your PC will now clear kernel and file from the hard drive and you will get a clean system startup without any issues tied with the kernel itself.
Now that we know why and what change has been made to Windows logical question is can we shut down our PC at all properly? Luckily for us, the answer is yes and we will not need any external application to do it, we can still do it inside Windows itself and it is quite quick and easy.
In order to bring the old shutdown functionality of your PC please follow the instructions but be aware that by doing this your PC will boot a little bit slower since it will have to load the kernel from scratch each time computer is turned ON.
First thing is to go to settings and go to System
Then once you are inside the system, navigate to the power and sleep and click on it to select it. Once you have it selected to all the way to the right and click on additional power settings.
When you click on advanced power settings you should be led to the control panel's power options. Inside this panel click on top left link where it says Choose what the power button does.
Inside options, you will need to untick the box next to Turn on fast startup (recommended), this option has been ticked ON by the Windows update and probably without notifying you. Option means exactly what was described, it will save kernel state on the hard drive for faster boot time but sadly it can cause some issues since it will never be reloaded from 0.
If you are unable to uncheck the box click on the text beside the shield icon that says: Change settings that are currently unavailable (you will have to be logged in as administrator).
Altho turning off fast startup and shutting down the PC completely will for sure extend your bootup time I still believe that it is the right choice since sometimes a lot of clutter and bad things accumulate over time inside the OS and can cause a vast variety of problems in a long run. So stay safe and shut down that PC as it used to be in the past.
ConvertDocsOnline is a Browser Extension for Google Chrome developed by Mindspark Inc. This extension offers users a quick and easy way to convert documents without any additional applications installed on their computer, it also has quick access links to popular websites that the average user might find interesting. While all this may look appealing and nice, this extension injects itself into your browser.
While installed, ConvertDocsOnline will monitor your browsing activity and record visited websites, clicked links, downloads, and even viewed products. All this information is later used/sold to Mindsparks Ad network to better serve user-targeted ads.
Browsing the internet with this extension installed will result in ad placement throughout your browsing sessions. These ads might appear as normal links (sponsored content), ad links, or even pop-up ads.
ConvertDocsOnline has been marked as a Browser Hijacker by several Anti-Virus scanners and is therefore recommended for optional removal from your PC.