Taking care of your computer means that it will serve you well and hopefully delay the need to upgrade your hardware for as long as possible. The festive season is now upon us which will tend to mean over-indulging in the food and drink departments and generally failing to look after ourselves. But this does not mean that our computers also need to be neglected. If you’re feeling the pinch after splashing out on Christmas presents for friends and family, our great sale prices on optimization and maintenance software means that you will still be able to keep your system in top shape. There are a number of tools to choose from, all of which are very gentle on the pocket.

TuneUp Utilities 2012 is available at the hugely discounted price of $18.95 – that’s 62% off usual price of $49.95. This versatile tool can be used to not only optimize your computer by cleaning up the registry and removing unwanted software, but also free up disk space, fix problems you may be experiencing and tweak system settings to give Windows a more personal feel. If the price sounds like a great deal, it’s about to get even better: the software can be installed on up to three PCs so you can take care of all of the computers in your household. If you run a small business, and have more computers that need attention, TuneUp Utilities 2012 Business Edition [5-PC] may be more what you have been looking for. The software can be installed on up to five computers and you can save 58% off the usual selling price of $83.95 by grabbing yourself the software for just $34.95.

AVG may be a name that is more readily associated with antivirus software, but AVG PC Tuneup 2012 is a power program for tweaking your computer. It replaces the PC Analyzer module which ships with AVG Internet Security 2012 or AVG Anti-Virus with more comprehensive options for boosting the registry and taking care of your system in other ways. A single license version of the program can be purchased for just $14.99 (a saving of 57% off usual price of $34.99), but there is also a 2-PC license version available for just $21.49 – a saving of 52% off usual price of $44.99.

IObit Advanced SystemCare PRO 5 is a tool that can be used to not only optimize, but also protect your computer. In addition to a range of tools that can be used to boost performance and improve stability, the program can also be used to check for and remove malware. You can save a massive 60% off usual price of $19.95, so for $7.95 this is great value for money. Auslogics Bootspeed 5 is also super cheap through December, with 70% off usual price of $49.95, bringing the price down to just $14.95. This is for a 3-PC license so you can boost the performance of all your machines for less than $5 each. The program includes tools to help you to optimize your hard drive, take control of browser addons, manage startup programs and much more.

Another great bargain to snap up this month is Uniblue PowerSuite 2012. Usually available for $119, you can grab this great set of maintenance tools for a mid-blowing $19.95 – saving a gigantic 83%. The suite is made up of three individual tools, DriverScanner, RegistryBooster and SpeedUpMyPC. These individual components ensure that your drivers are up to date, your registry is fully optimized and enabling you to tweak a huge number of system settings to boost performance. Everything you could possibly need can be found here from tools to control third-party apps’ use of processor time to internet connection optimization.

And as this is the season of giving, you can expect some presents to come your way courtesy of Betanews’s Downloadcrew, in addition to great savings. Later this month, we’ll be giving you some full free commercial software as part of a brand new website. More details to follow soon!