Shape Up Your PC with CCleaner

There is no computer aficionado that has not heard about CCleaner. Either because of its registry cleaning capabilities or its junk file elimination features, this utility has secured its place among many users’ computer maintenance tools.

Most users are accustomed to the installable edition of the application, which is actually no different in options than the portable version. What is different, though, is the fact that the portable edition requires no installation therefore does not add anything to Windows registry and can be carried around on a portable device..

Looks have not change much since our previous review, which is a great thing for longtime users since every option will be in the same place at each version of the program. However, the set of features and the way it behaves has been improved.

Junk File Cleaning

Under “Cleaner” category of the menu the application puts at your disposal tools for removing clutter files from your computer. This helps reclaim free space, but also snaps the entire system into a better shape since it does not have to parse huge piles of data dumped in special folders as a result of computer usage.

CCleaner can search the locations where Internet Explorer drops web browsing traces and eliminate temporaries, cookies, browsing history, recently typed URLs or autocomplete form history. As for traces left behind by computer usage the application can get rid of the recent documents list, clear Run menu history or thumbnail cache.

Common system data that is actually recommended to be deleted when improvement of system performance is the goal is also on CCleaner’s list. During the operation you can choose to empty the Recycle Bin, get rid of temporary files, clear the clipboard, memory dumps, broken shortcuts on the desktop or in the Start Menu, Windows log files, FTP accounts.

There is also an advanced section in this menu. Among others, this deals with cleaning old prefetch data, menu order cache, tray notifications cache, IIS log files or a set of user defined files and folders. Wiping the free space is also part of the options and enabling this will lead to significantly increased cleaning time because the application will sanitize the area, so that no file can be recovered.

As far as other applications are concerned CCleaner comes with a standard set that the most popular program. Thus, software like Microsoft Office suite, Adobe Reader or Firefox, Google Chrome or Opera web browsers are automatically on the list.

However, for more program definitions you can use CCEnhancer, a nifty add-on for CCleaner that expands the software list and the cleaning rules, The list is enriched with hundreds of programs.

The engine looking for crapware on your computer has been optimized for doing its job fast and with minimum impact on the system. On our average-specced test system carrying a Dual Core 2.0GHz CPU helped by 3GB of RAM resource usage was minimal. As far as speed is concerned, the amount of unneeded files parsed by the program plays an important role.

After CCleaner finishes the system analysis you will be able to see the approximate size of the data it gathered for deletion as well as broken down summary of the number of files belonging to each of the previously selected file categories; deletion method is also presented to you (secure deletion options can be changed from the settings panel of the program).

Registry Cleaner

Moving data out of Windows Registry is not exactly the easies job, especially when the consequences of a wrong decision can be disastrous for system stability. Fortunately, CCleaner does not pose such threat. The application comes with a safety net that allows you to revert all the changes in case something no longer works as it should. However, we never had to restore the entries it deleted.

Just like any other registry cleaner out there, this one does not do miracles. It will miss some entries that are generally picked up by other programs, but it can also pinpoint errors that other apps failed to detect.

From the categories in the right you can select only those you are particularly interested in, but for a good registry scrub I would recommend the default configuration that includes all of them. On the downside, in our case CCleaner required multiple runs to clean all the items it detected in the first pass. Also, running various other registry cleaning utilities showed that invalid files were left behind.

On the bright side, unlike in the case of the junk file cleaner, in this module you can view all detected entries and even open them in Windows Registry. Moreover, should you detect a false positive you can add it to the exclusions list, so that it will not be picked up at the next scan.

Tools

CCleaner’s capabilities have never been restricted to eliminating clutter files and weeding invalid entries out of the registry for better performance. The application also brings an uninstaller, a startup manager (tools that were available before as well) and a system restore point manager.

As the application has been developed from day one with the average user in mind, handling all these tools is no complicated thing. The uninstaller is not special in any way, and does not come with particular performances as all it does is to run the uninstaller of the application you select to remove from the system.

The startup manager included in CCleaner is a standard instrument with no particular powers. It will show you all the items that start with Windows, and thus dragging boot time. Enabling or disabling an item in the startup list as well as deleting it altogether is also possible.

The third instrument available in CCleaner’s tool box is the system restore manager. Just like the previous two, it is nothing fancy as it simply presents the available restore points and offers the option to delete them.

Options

This is the last section in the application and the place to make all CCleaner customization settings, which come in just the right amount. If you want a slower cleaning process, you can enable secure deletion which ensures that your data is unrecoverable.

In this regard the application sports simple overwrite (single pass), DoD 5220.22-M (3 passes), the 7-pass standard used by the NSA and the ultimate sanitizing algorithm, Peter Gutmann, which overwrites data 35 times (the more the passes the slower the completion of the operation).

For those that wish to save some cookies from the junk file cleaning process, you can rescue your favorites. In this section CCleaner shows the cookies from all installed web browsers and flash plugins.

You can also build file/folder exclusion and inclusion lists in this area. Adding a set of files sharing the extension is an easy task, but you can also add specific files in a particular folder. This makes it easy to expand the functionality of the program beyond its default configuration.

Although there is an advanced configuration section in the program, which is marked by the developers as being reserved for advanced users, there are no options here an average user can’t handle. Here you can instruct CCleaner to delete only the files in Windows Temp folders that are older than 24 days, or to hide warning messages, or to automatically close after cleaning is completed.

CCleaner has been built for the average user and, as such, does not come with a complicated set of options. Cleaning the system of junk files or ridding the registry of invalid entries is what it does best. And even if the latter is not as efficient as most of the users would like, it still makes for a great tool to rely on.

The Good

The Bad

The Truth