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Desktop Maestro is designed to optimise your PC’s performance with a range of tools.

Registry Cleaner is the first component of Maestro and one of the most useful. Windows Registry is the database that stores settings and options for the OS. Applications, drivers, user interface and third party applications all use the registry, and broken or missing links can have a bad effect on Windows – causing error messages, system crashes and all manner of frustrations.

The cleaner will start a scan of the registry for invalid links and list the entries, and you can then decide to repair all or some errors.

Remove all traces of activity with the Destop Maestro

Privacy Guardian removes all traces of online activities, cleaning out cookies, temporary files and the system registry. Many users might be surprised just how much hard drive space this can free up.

The final feature is System Optimisation allows you to monitor your computer performance.

The interface is nice and simple to use with seven options on the left hand tab, and bold icons for each of the functions; it should suit the most novice of users.

There’s very little to fault here, for those looking to squeeze more performance from their PC Desktop Maestro is a great piece of software.

Internet Security is PC Tools’ all-in-one security suite, combining most of the top products from their range into a comprehensive protection package.

At the heart of internet security is Spyware Doctor, and it operates in much the same way. Downloads take a while, and then it scans the PC before identifying threats.

Browser defender installs automatically for Internet Explorer, though Firefox users must install this. It marks results in Google and Yahoo with yellow, green and red icons.

The phishing protection does catches a lot of phishing URLs, but for it is recommended that you still use your web browsers anti phishing filter. In terms of protecting your privacy online that’s it. There’s no parental controls and no private data protection, and while the former can be done through Windows, the latter seems like bit of an omission.

It includes a strong firewall which will hide all your PC’s ports.

Spam filter is thorough, although downloading a high volume of email is slow because the filter evaluates across several different criteria including a list of known spam servers, internal lists, message content etc. As most users however won’t be receiving more than a dozen emails an hour this slowdown might not be noticeable.

Internet Security is another capable and cost effective product from PC Tools that will safeguard your PC.

Once installed Spyware Doctor downloads signature updates and then runs a quick scan. It will then repeat this process until satisfied, in order to actually remove the threats you then enter your registration code.

Targeting threats with Spyware Doctor

ThreatFire targets threats so new that they don’t have signatures, catching active files through behavioural profiling based on existing threats. They then disable and quarantine the file in question. It’s pretty zealous and you’ll have to tell it to allow programs when you’re installing them.

Spyware doctor doesn’t just offer clean up services, it obviously believes that prevention is better than cure so installs a host of components to protect your computer.  SiteGuard simply blocks sites hosting malware, while Browser Guard analyses web pages and Download Guard quarantines files it thinks are malicious.

Despite all these features the Doctor is relatively unobtrusive; the IntelliGuard^™ technology only alerts users on a true spyware or virus detection so avoiding the dozens of pop-ups.

The only grumble is that it doesn’t include a firewall, but it’s not alone in the antivirus market in that respect.

PC Tools has produced a great product that is well worth the money, it will safeguard you on multiple levels and from most threats.