Upgrading your hardware addresses the root cause of a slowdown, which is fundamentally different from software solutions offered by third-party downloads that promise to easily fix your system. There are easier ways to solve this problem than spending a lot of money buying a new computer. Identifying corrupt files or programs is important, however, slow performance usually has a far less sinister origin. If your Mac is running slow, software and programs you've added might be to blame, causing problems behind the scenes.