Best way to speed up a machine without spending anything?

[Cobra]

Tried the obvious things and wanted to know what actually works.

I am not convinced every upgrade is worth what people claim.

The obvious route might be right but I wanted to check before committing to it.

I am not looking for a perfect answer, more a sense of what people here have genuinely found worthwhile.

Curious what the consensus is.

[Sega26]

Tried the obvious things and wanted to know what actually works. I am not convinced every upgrade is worth what people claim. The obvious ro

Fair point, I would not argue against it. Interested to see where this goes.

[BlueFalcon]

Solid point, that matches what I ran into. Task Manager tells you most of what you need to know if you know which columns to look at.

Start there and see if it makes a difference.

Software bloat is half the problem and it gets worse with every update.

[codeberg]

Basically my experience exactly. Worth ruling out the simple stuff before going further.

That is the sensible starting point.

[JustMartin]

Tried the obvious things and wanted to know what actually works. I am not convinced every upgrade is worth what people claim. The obv

Spot on. Could not agree more.

Ha, fair enough.

The browser is often the biggest resource hog on most machines.