Sparkle review: make Windows leaner and less bloated with this new tweaker
Windows users have plenty of options already when it comes to tweaking or debloating Windows. From WinAero Tweaker and O&O ShutUp10 to specialized apps such as O&O AppBuster or WinScript.
All of these are great tools, but there is always room for another one, right? Sparkle is a new app for Windows 10 and 11 that combines tweaks with a cleaner and several other tools. It is open source, which is always welcome, and available as a free download. Some may not like that it uses Electron, as it is the main reason why the app has a hefty size of 150 megabytes.
You can run the app right after installation. It loads its interface and displays the dashboard, which highlights mostly hardware specs. You do get the list of applied tweaks on the page as well, and a link to tweaks, but that is about it.
Tweaks is one of the core components of Sparkle. It includes 36 in total currently, from single changes, such as disabling Copilot or disabling location tracking, to running debloat scripts. Two of these are supported right now. A click on the docs button opens a wiki page that explains how these differ.
In this case, selecting Sparkle's own is an app uninstaller that will remove apps that you do not check. The second script. Raphire's Winn11Debloat script, is far-reaching and will remove bloatware and improve privacy.
You may encounter one of the main issues in Sparkle at the time of writing on the tweaks page. The title and description that Sparkle presents may not be enough in some cases to make an educated decision. It is necessary to click on the docs button, which opens a website in the default browser. There, you get more details, but may need to click again to fully understand the changes a tweak makes.
It would be better, if Sparkle would provide core information in its interface, for instance via a tooltip. However, the majority of tweaks come with a simple toggle to enable or disable them.
Cleaner is another section. It is rather basic, as it cleans temporary files, prefetch files, the recycle bin, Windows Update cache or thumbnail cache only. While these are locations that can make a difference by freeing up plenty of space, the section could be expanded to come closer to the functionality of CCleaner or Bleachbit.
Here is an overview of the remaining sections:
- Restore Points displays a useful overview of all created restore points on the system. You can create a new one or delete the snapshots here.
- Utilities serves as a hub for launching commands or tools. You can use them to reset the IP stack or Winsock, open the Device Manager, and more.
- DNS Manager displays the current DNS provider and options to set a provider. Sparkle includes six providers, which you may enable with two clicks.
- Apps displays the list of installed apps. You can uninstall apps from here, export a list, or bulk uninstall apps.
Closing Words
Sparkle is a beta program and it shows in some sections. The program was reliable during tests and it felt like using a stable software, but more testing is needed to come to a final conclusion. If the developer managers to add more features to some of the sections and improve usability, it could become a popular tweaking choice for Windows users, Electron or not.
Now You: do you use tweaking tools? If so, which is your favorite and why?
I used to be excited about rhose tools when I was using Windows. But now I’m quite sceptical about them. Because they don’t always help that much, some settings get silently reenabled and even if you disable all the bloat, Windows still feels slow and a resource hog.
Ever since my first PC with XP, I’ve discovered and used junk cleaners and other tools. While my PCs weren’t fast, it still shows that Windows was slow and bloated even back then.
I just didn’t have a room for comparison, because I didn’t use or know about Linux.
But it’s bith funny and sad that thise tools are still popular even when there are very affordable and fast PCs, but Windows still slows them down.
Not forgetting the 3rd party UI mods, because the default experience is subpar.
I’ve never seen junk cleaners or UI fixers for Linux. Windows keeps getting worse and recently I heard that Linux has been gaining market share. Some article states that in the US, over 5% of desktop users are now using it. If Microsoft were improving Windows and not making it worse, such tools wouldn’t exist and Linux wouldn’t be increasing in market share.
At this point I can only cheer at Microsoft’s incompetence and making Linux more popular. There seems to be no bope that in the future tgat Windows will be improved.