Clear answers. No fine-print escape.

That's the whole point. Tempered never changes anything without your explicit approval, every change is recorded, and every change has a one-click revert in the Undo Center. Before batch changes it offers to create a Windows system restore point. It does no registry "cleaning," installs no drivers, and touches nothing it can't put back. The app and its installer are code-signed — Windows shows verified publisher Ian Jackson when you install.

Tempered only claims what it can measure. Where it says something improved, it shows the number — RAM freed, boot-time delta, background apps suspended. If there's nothing worth changing, it tells you so rather than inventing "issues found." That honesty is the product.

When you run an AI scan, Tempered sends a small telemetry snapshot: your hardware specs, live metric numbers, and the names of running processes and startup entries. Never your files, documents, browsing history, or personal data. You can preview the exact payload before it leaves your PC. Full detail is in the Privacy Policy.

No. Tempered runs the AI through our own service, so there's nothing to paste. Using the app does require a free account (email/password or Google) so your plan and usage stay in sync — Tempered never sees your password, and the free tier includes a set number of scans; paid plans lift the limits.

Sometimes — and when it can't, it says so instead of showing a number. Windows gives a normal application no live CPU temperature; reading the CPU's own sensor takes a kernel driver, which Tempered will never install. So there are two honest paths to a reading.

If you already run LibreHardwareMonitor or OpenHardwareMonitor, Tempered reads the sensor those tools publish and labels the number with where it came from. Otherwise it checks whether your motherboard exposes a thermal zone — but it will not display that zone until it has watched the value actually move as your CPU load changes. Many desktops report a zone that never budges: on the machine Tempered is developed on it sat at exactly 27.9 °C through a full load sweep from 15% to 95%, and read the same value nineteen days apart. That is a fixed number from the firmware, not a sensor, and printing it as your CPU temperature would be a lie told to three significant figures.

GPU temperature is different — nvidia-smi reads a real sensor, so that one is shown as a number.

Only for the specific actions that genuinely require them — like machine-wide startup entries. Everything else works as a standard user, and Tempered clearly tells you when something needs elevation instead of demanding it up front.

Only on Torque and Torque Max, and only if you turn on "Let the advisor run commands" in Settings — off by default even then, plus a one-time warning the first time you enable it. When it's on, the Ask advisor can propose a single read-only PowerShell command to check something the usual telemetry doesn't cover, like a specific service's status. You always see the exact command text and have to approve it yourself before anything runs, the same as every other action it proposes, and Tempered refuses anything that looks like it would change your PC rather than just check it. Leave it off, or on the free plan, and the advisor simply can't run commands at all — it'll tell you so if you ask it to. A related Torque setting, "Let the advisor batch-apply fixes," lets it propose several fixes at once (instead of one at a time) for review — you still approve every one, just together.

Yes. Anti-cheat safety is non-negotiable in Tempered's design. It uses no kernel drivers, no process injection, and no game-memory access. Any game-related changes are limited to configuration files. Game Mode simply suspends safe background apps and restores them after — nothing that anti-cheat software objects to.

Windows 10 and Windows 11, 64-bit.

Like any Windows app — Settings → Apps → Tempered → Uninstall, or the Start-menu uninstaller. That removes the program and its local data. If you'd rather clear the local database by hand, delete the %APPDATA%/Tempered folder.

The free tier gives you the full app, 5 Quick scans a day — Tempered's fast, no-cost triage — 2 Safe-list reviews a day (an AI pass that proposes which of your unknown background processes could be marked safe to suspend, every mark your click), and 3 Security & malware deep scans a month. Torque ($5.99/mo billed annually, $7.99 monthly) unlocks every deep scan (startup, background, gaming, privacy, storage, security & malware) with generous limits, plus Task Manager (Tempered) — a full task-manager window with its own taskbar identity and desktop shortcut, per-process detail Windows' own Task Manager hides, its own AI assistant that sees exactly what the window shows, and its own quick and security scans — premium accent palettes, the Process Watch live monitor, a few advanced Windows tweaks — unlocking the hidden Ultimate Performance power plan, network latency tuning, GPU interrupt mode, and keeping network adapters from sleeping mid-game — the Developer Hub (a strictly read-only, local-only API that lets AI tools on your own PC read Tempered's measurements), and two opt-in Ask advisor powers, off by default: letting it run read-only diagnostic commands (with your approval every time), and letting it batch-propose several fixes at once for one-screen review. Torque Max ($12.99/mo billed annually, $17.99 monthly) raises the limits high enough that you never think about them. Every core optimization feature (dashboard, process manager, startup manager, the standard tweaks, Undo Center, junk cleaning) works on the free tier — the plans add deeper AI analysis and a few specialist tweaks.

Because the AI is a real, per-question cost — not a marketing label. Every Ask question and every scan runs on a large AI model that Tempered pays for by the query; you never bring your own API key, and your data is never sold to offset it. The free tier is genuinely free because we cover those costs up to its limits. Torque covers the cost of regular use, Torque Max covers heavy use, and both have stated caps instead of an “unlimited” promise that would quietly throttle — capped and honest is the whole brand. Everything that doesn't cost us per use (the dashboard, process manager, startup manager, standard tweaks, junk cleaning, Undo Center) stays free, forever, with no upsell nags.

The Feedback screen inside the app — pick support, feature, or bug, write what happened, and send. Bug reports can optionally include a diagnostic snapshot (you see exactly what that contains before sending). A human reads every submission; nothing is auto-answered. You can also reach us at [email protected] or the contact page.

Free tools cover basic cleaning. Tempered is for people who want AI-assisted analysis, per-change approval, and one-click undo. If a free tool does what you need, use it. Tempered is for when you want to understand what changed and why — and the free tier of Tempered is the full core app too, so the comparison costs nothing to run yourself. Full comparisons: Tempered vs CCleaner, Tempered vs Winhance, and Tempered vs Microsoft PC Manager.