It's Monday Cleaning Time!

Cleaning your system is a job that can get really boring, especially when you're not using a specialized program to do it. Of course that I am not going to tell you how easy it is to get a software to help you with a certain task and so on, because this has become obvious during the last fifteen years or so. My only goal is to show you a nice program that can help you with your system cleaning tasks.

The name of my subject is UltraSentry, an application that recently reached its third final version, tagged 3.00 and can be downloaded as a fully functional shareware version. The archive containing the setup package has 2.4MB in size and installing the program should be as easy as one-two-three. Now, let's dig in!

First of all, I must say the program's interface is very good, but despite its clean and well organized look, there's something that keeps me from labeling it as "excellent". Anyway, this is my personal opinion, so don't worry, I am sure you won't have any problem finding your way inside this application. When you start the program for the first time, you are sent straight to the Run Wizard, and this will also be my starting point in exploring the program's features.

The first step of the wizard is choosing the browsers you want to clean and select individual items for each one of them. The supported browsers are Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Netscape Navigator and AOL Explorer. For each of these, you can clean autocomplete data, browser cookies, history and cache, while in the case of Internet Explorer, you can also get rid of URL error logs.

Before moving on, I have to tell you more about the way this program removes your data. "Removal" is an action that can be reverted in most cases, while "purge" is a completely different story. UltraSentry uses military data destruction methods, and there are three of them available here - DoD Level C, D and Shell Level. If you want to find out more about them, just check the excellent Help content that comes with the program.

Getting back to the wizard now, we have to check its second step, entitled Temporary Files. The name says it all, and the items that can be checked include system, user and scan disk temporary files, Recycle Bin and custom directories. For each of these items you can choose the purge method.

The next four areas are built in the same way and can take care of user files, history, and of any file or folder (in fact it's about custom files and folders). Once you finish setting up these two, you get to the Finish step...but wait! What's that "Check to show advanced cleaning options" radio button? Checked!

Another four areas popped up, so I have to explore those too...

The first two advanced options are about cleaning the Registry and INI files, and you won't get full registry and INI processing, but you'll have to manually add the ones you want to clean.

Other operations is an area that has options which allow you to wipe unused disk space, clipboard data, hibernation and swap files from the partitions you choose.

The Notifications area is a bit more than that, allowing you to choose which programs to run before and after executing the current profile, as well as notification sounds and confirmation dialog.

Now, the wizard's steps are over and your settings will be saved into a profile, but you can also run this profile's tasks at once or schedule it. This is it. Of course you can also use the program to browse your disks and manually purge files or folders, but that's something everybody can do without any guidance - all you have to do is right click the unwanted data and you'll figure out what to do...

The Good

UltraSentry can really help you sleep well, because your old data won't be retrieved by unwanted people once you purged it. This is a small program, fast, easy to use and, above everything, useful. The documentation is comprehensive, exactly the way it should be with such applications.

The Bad

The feature I always miss with programs like this is the creation of a bootable purge CD/DVD, and unfortunately I wasn't able to find such a tool here either. The last and worse part here is the program's price, which - in my opinion - is way too high.

The Truth

Since shareware is free to get and enjoy, I advise you to put your hands on this program. Unfortunately, I don't think this is the best deal that I can get if I plan to buy such a software, but as far as shareware goes...well done! Just drag that "price" slider lower and we may have a deal!

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: