Finding a decent suite of apps to improve PC performance is daunting. Sure, search results will show tons of optimization software available for download — some are even free. But the truth is many of these do more harm than good for your computer: Some are designed to create problems to appear necessary.
Thankfully, the iolo System Mechanic Ultimate Defense is a genuine collection of PC optimization and protection tools. It’s a premium seven-in-one software suite you can get with an annual subscription. Rather than keeping track of different, separate apps, you have a single dashboard for better control.
But just how useful is this PC performance software? Are the benefits significant or negligible? Do its features justify the price? With suites like this, it’s not just a matter of quantity: Every product should serve an essential purpose. Otherwise, you won’t get the bang for your buck.
To assess its particular strengths and overall value, we’ve conducted this iolo System Mechanic Ultimate Defense review, which you can find below.
Pricing
A regular annual subscription to iolo System Mechanic Ultimate Defense costs $79.95. That may seem steep, but at seven programs in total, that amounts to paying just around $11.40 for each.
To compare, antivirus software from top tech companies can go from $20 to $60 — and that’s just for PC protection. Thus, the price is reasonable and can even be considered a steal if you’ll be regularly using most, if not all, programs.
Moreover, the introductory or initial price is only $63.96, which is $15.99 lower than the standard rate.
Once subscribed to iolo System Mechanic Ultimate Defense, you can opt to automatically renew your subscription. If you change your mind, it’s easy to change your subscription settings.
Get iolo System Mechanic® Ultimate Defense with 50% discount: HERE
Payment Methods
Iolo technologies accepts credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, JCB, and Discover), PayPal, and WebMoney.
Most people in the West probably have credit cards, but the same can’t be said for emerging markets in Asia and other regions, so PayPal helps make the PC performance suite more accessible for purchase.
We weren’t worried at all with using credit cards: The payment processor is none other than 2Checkout, which has a PCI Level 1 Compliance — the highest and most difficult level to pass concerning security in credit card transactions.
And apart from buying it on the official website, you can get it from Amazon, Walmart, Target, Newegg, Best Buy, Office Depot, and Staples.
Programs and Features
Privacy Guardian
As its name implies, this program is all about enhancing user security, especially over the Internet. But it doesn’t just focus on your internet browser — it also looks into which data Windows may be collecting.
Data Clearing
One defining feature here is data clearance, which is done manually or as scheduled. In particular, you can automatically have your cookies, browsing history, cookies, cache, and autocomplete data cleared.
Going back to Windows data collection, Privacy Guardian is ideal for how it identifies areas of concern that many users don’t reexamine after setting up their PC.
We thought we were secure with our Windows settings, but one of the Privacy Shield tabs revealed that we still had several data-sharing services enabled: activity history collection, personal data collection and reporting, and Windows Feedback services.
In-App Search
Search engines are convenient, but the biggest ones like Google and Bing capitalize on user activity by default.
In contrast, DuckDuckDuckGo stays away from personalized search results, opting instead to show the same results for all users along with tracker blocking and site encryption. Thankfully, Privacy Guardian includes a search function using the aforementioned privacy-focused search engine.
Dashboard
Privacy Guardian has several other tabs, but you get a quick overview by going to the Dashboard, which even has tutorial steps to ease new users.
Our PC registered a privacy grade of just 40/100, equivalent to a “poor” rating. We can individually check each privacy element, but Privacy Shield has a nifty one-click option as well.
ByePass
Like LastPass and Dashlane, ByePass is a password manager and browser extension — but with a distinct feature.
While it does the usual things like autofill, keeping payment information, and storing and creating secure passwords, ByePass can also remotely log you out of all websites using Login Guardian. You won’t always have to use it, but the feature will prove to be valuable if ever someone steals your laptop or desktop.
ByePass only has a dashboard on the iolo System Mechanic Ultimate Defense platform, but it does say in which browser you have ByPass installed and whether it’s running or not.
System Shield
System Shield is designed for malware prevention and detection, including everything from Trojan horses and adware to spyware and ransomware.
The program is both proactive and reactive. For one, the iolo AntiVirus and AntiSpyware features work to block and remove malware. Second, HyperScan serves as the immediate response to incoming attacks.
A simple but helpful feature is that System Shield checks whether you have an active antivirus program: Click enable and it will determine your antivirus status.
Efficient Scanning
If you’re not content with Microsoft Defender, System Shield is worth trying. Like the former, it often has virus and spyware definition updates.
Moreover, users can choose if they want to scan their entire PC or just a single file or folder — and they all work as intended. Even better is that System Shield works without eating up much of your PC’s RAM: It uses as few resources as possible.
Malware Killer
Like System Shield, Malware Killer doesn’t require a ton of RAm to work, and these programs function hand-in-hand to protect your PC: System Shield provides more preventative measures while Malware Killer is more equipped to eliminate current infections.
Cloud Scanning
If you go to the Malware Killer dashboard of System Mechanic Ultimate Defense, you’ll have the option to scan your PC or a specific folder.
Particularly, it utilizes cloud-based scans along with a constantly developing database to streamline the detection of old and unknown types of malware.
Fortunately, our Malware Killer scan revealed no infections whatsoever — and the whole process lasted less than a minute. If even a single one appeared, we could either exempt it or put the infected item in quarantine.
System Mechanic
System Mechanic is the PC performance optimizer of the package. We thought our computer was doing well and was speedy enough, but the results indicated otherwise.
According to System Mechanic, our system status was in critical condition with over 700 issues detected. This was alarming, but the program has a one-click “repair all” option.
Likewise, the dashboard is where you can perform quick scans and deep scans. You can also check all the recommended actions. In our case, System Mechanic suggested real-time PC optimization and a review of Windows security items, among others.
Toolbox
Toolbox includes an advanced uninstaller. This may seem unnecessary since Windows already allows you to remove programs, but this is a suitable alternative for its information display.
Apart from the program name, the advanced uninstaller also lists the publisher, installation date, app size, and app version — and you can sort the programs according to those elements. If we wanted to quickly free up space, we can arrange them by size.
Furthermore, the toolbox includes cleanup features. You can clean just the registry, Windows files, or the internet files — or use the all-in-one PC cleanup.
ActiveCare
ActiveCare features an assortment of automated tools that all improve PC performance. The on-demand boost stops background services from running for a while to allow smoother video streaming or gaming.
Similarly, ActiveCare can automatically optimize your registry and manage startup programs. If your PC isn’t opening files quickly enough, try defragmenting your drive.
And, lastly, we suggest using ActiveCare for effortlessly removing internet junk files, broken shortcuts, Microsoft Silverlight temporary files, and other items.
LiveBoost
LiveBoost is divided into real-time boost and on-demand boost, with the latter being available as well on ActiveCare.
The real-time boost includes AcceleWrite, which improves disk writing. The change wasn’t significant on our SSD, but the HDD benefited a lot.
And since we often had just one or two big programs like browsers and online games eating up most of our RAM, we enabled RAMJet.
RAMJet reallocates the RAM to ensure that active apps get most of it instead of all the idle applications and processes. But if background tasks still affect your PC performance, considering enabling OptiCore too.
Search and Recover
Accidental file removal and email deletion happen more times than people expect. Thankfully, Search and Recover helps with these issues — and this applies in recovering files from flash drives, memory cards, and cameras, among other devices.
We deleted a few .mp3 files and .jpeg photos to test the program, and the results were positive. Search and Recover doesn’t work on all email programs, but those of using the likes of Outlook and Thunderbird will benefit.
If you don’t want a thorough, long scan, choose SmartScan instead of StrongScan: The latter will ignore junk files to get faster results.
DriveScrubber
In contrast to Search and Recover, DriveScrubber is all about ensuring that deleted data stays removed. If you’re buying a new PC or selling your current computer, you need this to protect your privacy.
Drive Wipe
DriveScrubber removes everything from a chosen drive, and it can work even if the drive is infected. An old external hard drive had malware that stopped some items from being removed, but DriveScrubber managed to erase every byte.
Wipe Options
The wiping process doesn’t have to happen all at once. Users can pause or even cancel the wipe — or they can do batch wiping instead. Similarly, they may opt to keep partitions and drive boot structures.
Customer Support
Iolo technologies has free and premium customer support. This may seem strange, but we understand the need for it: Some users require more assistance with possibly complex technical issues. If you pick the latter, you can pay $14.95 monthly, $199.95 yearly, or $99.95 for a single instance.
For people who have basic questions or common problems, they can find more information at no cost. The iolo support page on the official website has a convenient search bar that quickly reveals relevant results — and the knowledge base is located below the same page.
Even though call center availability is limited due to the global pandemic, we still got excellent free call support. We had a minor issue with an anti-cheat program for video games blocking Malware Killer — and it was quickly fixed.
Plus, we were told beforehand that hold times would be relatively longer in the meantime. We applaud the company for being transparent with the difficulties they’re experiencing vis-a-vis user support.
Conclusion
The iolo System Mechanic Ultimate Defense suite doesn’t introduce entirely new ideas when it comes to PC performance optimization and security — but that’s not its main focus anyway. Instead, the package serves to streamline the many ways users can keep their computers working in their best state.
Sure, Windows already has its own reliable anti-virus program. Similarly, we can uninstall programs and adjust firewall settings without installing the suite. But never have these processes been more efficient and convenient to accomplish than with the help of this PC package from iolo technologies.
If you want your cybersecurity, password management, PC optimization, and file recovery and removal operations organized, consider the iolo System Mechanic Ultimate Defense. It’s reliable, easy to navigate, and it’s a more affordable option than acquiring different premium PC tools to perform the same things.