Ellp is a free tool for the simple, script-free automation of common PC maintenance and other tasks.
The program opens by displaying these tasks.
"When my hard disk is getting full, free up space."
"When I plug in my headphones, play some music."
"When I download the same file twice, let me know."
"When it's time, perform a privacy cleanup."
"When I turn on my PC, open my favourite website."
"When I'm tagged in Facebook photo, download a copy."
"When my email is involved in a data breach, alert me."
"When it's time for bed, mute the sound on my PC."
"When I plug in my headphones, open Skype."
"When it's time, turn off my PC."
Clicking any of these rules gives you some basic options. "When my hard disk is getting full..." allows you to set the threshold when a cleanup is launched (15% or less free space by default); "open my favourite website..." asks you which website to open; "turn off my PC" asks for the scheduled time, and so on.
These controls are generally very limited, and not always what they seem. The "Privacy Cleanup" task doesn't display any fine detail over what it's going to do, for instance; the "When I plug in my headphones, play some music" task opens a website rather than plays any local file or playlist.
The task logic also appears to be very basic. Ellp only seems to detect duplicate downloads if they're to your standard Downloads folder, for instance. If you've set your browser to download somewhere else, it won't notice any duplicates at all.
Verdict:
Ellp supports very few tasks, and gives you minimal control over what they do and how they work. But it's undeniably easy to use, and there are a few tasks that anyone might appreciate (download Facebook photos where you're tagged, get an alert when your email address is involved in a data breach). That's not bad for an early release, and if Ellp can offer 20, 30, 40 more rules it could become very interesting.
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