The Cleaner's Secret Identity

What's your favorite malware cleaner? I bet most of you will name some super complicated softwares or one of the top leader antiviruses. There are some other softwares that cleanse your computer with the same efficiency.

The software reviewed in the following lines is called The Cleaner Pro and the version analyzed today is 4.2, build 4319. the developer of the software is MooSoft Development LLC. The application is available for free evaluation for a period of 30 days. During the trial period, the program has absolutely no restriction, so you can test it with full features. The price of the software after the evaluation period is $49.95, so let's see if it is worth it.

The interface is not much and you can clearly see that the developer did not pay too much attention to the looks of the program. Well, only the icon and the splash screen at the beginning of the application launch seem to contradict me. But, as you may know, I am not too affected by the bad looks of a protection tool, as long as it does a good job and keeps the malware off my computer.

The green light in the lower left corner of the application window lets us understand that the software is ready for use. The options are arranged in a very non-conformist way and they are not as many as one would expect. The first option of the software is Scan System. Once you press this button a new window will open and it will display various information about the job of the software. Thus the user will see the amount of time remained from the scan, as well as the elapsed time.

The status bar will display the level of the scan and above it you will find what folder is the software currently scanning. The File stats bar displays the number of files scanned per second (at my testing the scan was between 150 and 211 files per second). In the lower part of the scan window the user will see the results of the scan. I have to tell you that the scanning takes longer than I expected and in five minutes the status bar filled up to only 8%.

The Options menu allows the user to configure the software. There are six tabs in here and each of them has a different purpose. The first one (General) makes available disabling the splash screen at startup, enabling the TC Active (monitors live processes for trojans, worms and other malware, killing them before they get to do any damage) and TCMonitor (keeps track of the registry keys, files and folders and alerts the user whenever a change is recorded).

The Scanning tab permits you to add the types of files you want the software to ignore during the scan and set the application to check inside archives and scan for hidden executables. Cleaning tab makes available the actions to be taken in case malware was detected during the scan (quarantine, delete, report or ask the user). If the quarantine keeps filling up very quickly, then you have to set a longer leash and set a larger size. When it reaches that size (default is 5MB) you will be alerted.

Logging is the fourth tab in Options menu and here you can set a limit to the log file size and a folder to be sent to. Updating is easy to do, and if you do not want to constantly check for updates then you should tick the "Check for updates at startup" box.

The software supports scheduling and you can set scans and live updates so that you won't bother yourself with these either. The process is not too difficult, as a wizard is available and you cannot do anything wrong. Suffice to make the necessary settings and set the hour of the scan/update. You can add more than one task.

The Good

The software is easy to use and the malware database is impressive, as well as the comparison to other softwares (although it is kind of old).

The Bad

The looks are a little baddie, but not a very big one.

The Truth

The price seems a little high to me, especially after the Avast Home Edition experience. But you should try it for 30 days and decide for yourselves.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: