5 OSS/Freeware Tools for System Protection

Information Week has an interesting piece up about open source disaster recovery tools. It covers a lot of the good applications that can come to the rescue when you need to recover data or revive a computer. They include SystemRescueCD, BackTrack, Partedmagic, TestDisk and more. In addition to these open source tools, there are also a number of great freeware products in this general category, especially for preventative maintenance. Here are five of them, with a couple of open source gems thrown in, that can help you avoid disaster.

1. Glary Utilities

For Windows users, Glary Utilities isn't an open source product, but it is an outstanding piece of freeware. It provides a whole suite of tools for protecting and optimizing a computer. For example, on Windows systems, it's very important to regularly clean your registry. Glary Utilities has an automated and very respected registry cleaner.

2. Version Tracker