Many companies want to sell you “memory optimizers,” often as part of
“PC optimization” programs. These programs are worse than useless — not
only will they not speed up your computer, they’ll slow it down.
Such programs take advantage of inexperienced users, making false
promises about boosting performance. In reality, your computer knows how
to manage RAM on its own. It will use RAM to increase your computer’s
performance — there’s no point in having RAM sit empty.
Is Your Computer’s RAM Filling Up? That’s Good!
Memory optimizers are based on a misunderstanding. You may look at
your computer’s RAM and see it filling up — for example, you may have 4
GB of RAM and see that 3 GB is full with only 1 GB to spare. That can be
surprising to some people — look how bloated modern versions of Windows
are! How are you ever going to run additional programs with so little
memory available?
In reality, modern operating systems are pretty good at managing
memory on their own. That 3 GB of used RAM doesn’t necessarily indicate
waste. Instead, your computer uses your RAM to cache data for faster
access. Whether it’s copies of web pages you had open in your browser,
applications you previously opened, or any other type of data you might
need again soon, your computer hangs onto it in its RAM. When you need
the data again, your computer doesn’t have to hit your hard drive — it
can just load the files from RAM.
