Growing up, I heard a lot about PC cleaning apps, and used many of them myself. Everyone always wishes they could get a little more performance out of their PC, so seeing all these apps claiming to speed up your computer is bound to grab the attention of more than a few people.

But the truth is, many of these apps are basically scams, and at best, they don't do any good for your computer. If you want to optimize your Windows 11 PC's performance and storage usage, you don't need third-party apps, and you're likely better off without them. Here are a few reasons why.

5 Windows can clean temporary files, too

And it doesn't do much for performance anyway

One of the big features of these third-party cleaner apps is that they'll delete temporary files and cached files as some kind of way to get extra performance out of your PC. This one isn't malicious, but it is redundant considering Windows already offers ways to clean temporary files on your PC, and most likely already does so by default on a set schedule thanks to Storage Sense. Windows comes with the Disk Cleanup tool, which can delete all kinds of temporary cached files on your PC, such as icons, thumbnails, previously downloaded updates, and so on.

What Disk Cleanup doesn't do is clear browser cache for most browsers, but get this: that feature is also built into those browsers, so you still don't need another app to do it. Just go into your browser settings and clear cached files if you need the extra storage space.

But here's the kicker — none of this even matters for performance. There's a reason Disk Cleanup isn't touted as some performance-enhancing solution, and third-party apps shouldn't be, either. All this does is save some space on your drive, but in some cases, it can actually hurt performance (albeit very slightly). The reason these cached files exist is to speed up loading for files you access repeatedly, so clearing them will save space temporarily, but many of those cached files will be generated again. Plus, it means that loading those files next time will be slightly slower since there's no cache for them anymore. Clear cache files if you need a little bit more storage, but don't stress over it, and don't use third-party apps.

4 Registry cleaning is utterly pointless

It could even be problematic

Another feature many of these cleaning apps tout is the ability to "clean" the Windows registry, essentially deleting unused keys that may not have much of a purpose anymore. Deleting anything you don't need may sound like a plus, but in reality, unused registry keys have no impact on your PC's performance. These are extremely small bits of data, and if they're unused, they generally cause no issues with your PC.

Deleting registry keys has no performance benefit for your PC, and in some cases, it could even be dangerous. What these third-party apps flag as "unused" or unnecessary registry keys is always up in the air, and you could end up deleting something that does affect your PC's functionality, and some things could break because of it. You're better off not touching anything like this.

3 Driver updaters are a bad idea

Get drivers from the source

Another tool that's common in these optimization and cleaning tools is a driver updater, and let's be completely clear here, you just shouldn't use these. Drivers can be fickle, and while updates are generally important, it's important to get them from a reliable source, and most of these apps aren't that. When I used a program like this in the past, it insisted on installing the wrong drivers for a device that was missing them, and it never did any good for me.

If you want to update the drivers on your PC, the first place you should look is your manufacturer's website. These drivers are approved by the manufacturer to be used on your specific device, and they'll usually work the best. You can go to the manufacturer of the specific component you want to upgrade, but it's not usually worth it, as these drivers are generally less optimized for specific hardware configurations.

The one notable exception is GPU drivers, which get released by AMD, Intel, or Nvidia fairly frequently with optimizations for new games and other new features. In those cases, you can go to the manufacturer of the GPU itself for drivers, and usually, the drivers themselves include the control panel used to get newer drivers in the future, so things should be fairly seamless.

Regardless, the important part here is that you don't use these unofficial driver update tools. No good can come from it.

2 Many of them are just scams

These apps instill a sense of fear in users

Aside from the fact that these apps don't do anything useful that Windows can't do by itself, it's worth mentioning how inherently dishonest some of them are. Many of these cleaner apps will scan your PC and come back with messages saying thousands of errors were found. This instills a sense of fear in users, and in some cases, you may be asked to pay up to fix all of these errors.

The problem is, in many cases, each of these issues is a single file or a single tiny entry in the registry. The impact of these "errors" appears far more significant than it is, causing users to believe they depend on the app to have a smooth computer, and that they might even need to pay up. As you can see from the example above, the app MyCleanPC detected 395 errors on my laptop, and that's only scanning one category of "errors" because I didn't pay for the full version.

1 There are better ways to improve performance

Uninstall programs and manage your startup entries

For all they claim to do, most of these cleaning apps can't do the things that can actually impact the performance of your PC. The best solution for this is to simply uninstall programs you don't need, and disable startup entries for programs you only run occasionally. These are things that can actually use resources on your PC and affect its performance, so you should start there.

It's also worth checking your PC for malware, but again, Windows has a solid solution for that built right in, and aside from that, there are third-party antivirus programs that actually work and do their jobs right. These cleaning programs aren't cleaning any real threats to your PC.

Don't install PC cleaning apps

At the end of the day, installing these cleaning apps does nothing good for your PC, and it might even be counterproductive. You're just adding another program to the list when Windows can already clean itself up just fine, and the scare tactics used by some of these programs just make it harder to trust them.

Everything you need to keep your computer running smoothly is already built into Windows, so don't waste time (and money) on these apps, and you'll be fine.