14 DAY TRIAL // The way installed applications are removed from the computer can, in time, make or break the system. Developers don’t always put in the necessary effort to ensure that removing their program is carried out thoroughly.
Hence, a proper uninstall utility can prove quite a handy asset. Your Uninstaller! is not new on the market, and it has been highly regarded with every release that emerged from its maker.
Its purpose is easily deduced from the name itself: completely remove all remnants of an application so that the operating system does not become affected in time and conflicts do not arise when adding other apps.
The program is available for $35.69 / €33.31, and before shelling out the money it can be tested, with all features active, for a period of 21 days.
Getting Your Uninstaller! on the system is not too much of an effort, but unless you want to end up with third-party software you’d better pay attention to the process. During our evaluation it offered to add a search bar to our web browser along with changing the homepage and, more importantly, the search engine.
You can skip the offer but the next screen proposes getting the uninstall utility free of charge in exchange for including the third-party search bar into your web browsing experience.
The interface of the application is nothing fancy, and after a brief moment of scanning it shows a list with all the regular programs available on the system.
When an entry is clicked, some details are displayed in the top left-hand part of the interface, informing of the installation date, name, and version of the product as well as an estimated size on the disk.
Your Uninstaller! provides no less than four uninstall methods (built-in mode, safe mode, normal mode, and super mode), one more thorough than the previous one.
Obviously, the more extensive the search for leftovers, the more time it takes for the removal procedure to complete. However, on an average-powered computer even the Super Mode, which runs a full scan on Windows to remove all the traces, has an acceptable duration.
Another knob for adjusting the accuracy of the findings is present under the configuration panel, spread across three levels: safe, average, and aggressive. These allow for depth management of the search and ensure that most or all of the data related to the uninstalled piece is deleted.
Before proceeding to dumping out the necessary data, Your Uninstaller! creates a restore point of the current state of the system, just to be on the safe side, and then deploys the uninstall file of the target program. The final stage of the operation consists of checking for leftover files in the registry or on the disk.
Our recommendation goes for verifying the entries it encounters just to prevent the occurrence of potential problems later on. During our testing, though, all the data it detected was related to the uninstalled utility.
Removing a program from the system uses its default uninstall file and then the operation continues with seeking related files that have been left behind. However, the product makes available a quick uninstall option that carries out the entire routine unattended, without any other intervention from the user.
Apart from booting out programs that are no longer necessary, Your Uninstaller! also includes extra utilities that can contribute to bringing the operating system into a better shape.
It integrates a startup manager that lists the processes that load up with Windows and impact on its boot time, a disk cleaning tool that checks for temporary files, a trace eraser (supports IE), and a file shredder.
Another instrument is designed to help clear up the start menu in order to prevent stumbling onto unwanted entries and view only the important ones.
None of these tools is complex in settings or actions, but they add to the overall maintenance of the system.
The startup manager has simple functions that can disable a program from starting with Windows or delete it from the list altogether.
By default, the disk cleaner focuses only on temporary folders but it can also search and delete empty folders and files. Furthermore, it can verify for new clutter once per week, automatically.
The product is also equipped with a tool that removes the traces of web browsing. Unfortunately, there is no support for other browsers except for Internet Explorer. The options available include getting rid of cookies, eliminating the search, browser, and address bar history as well as clearing passwords and resetting the home page.
We tested the tool’s capabilities with Internet Explorer 10 and the results met our expectations, as the data was removed from the browser.
A file shredding utility helps delete files or folders beyond recovery. There are no special algorithms to choose from, as Your Uninstaller! relies on a single shredding method that wipes the items three times and fills all content with zero bytes.
Our content recovery attempts proved to be inefficient during the evaluation, as the files were corrupted and only the file name was visible.
The Good
The tools accompanying the application help cleaning the system from temporary files, managing the startup items, or deleting files and folders beyond recovery.
The Bad
The Traces Eraser utility can handle only the data amassed by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
The Truth
Also, monitoring for system changes when installing a new application is not on its list of features.
