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Disk Cleaner
Comodo's abilities extend to cleaning your computer of temporary files, log files and duplicates. The Disk Cleaner section is where all these options are camped, ready to be used with the same ease and comfort as for the Registry Cleaner.
The simple menu is click-and-scan type, so there should not be any trouble with it. The areas Comodo's tool can affect include Windows Temporary Files (system, user, update and temporary Internet files), Windows Log files (recent files list, prefetch application cache, debug memory log and Run and Search log list), Recycle Bin, unused icons and Windows Media cache.
Most of these locations sure deserve a good scrubbing as they can accumulate hundreds of MB of useless files but then there is the prefetch folder which in the case of Vista does a pretty good job on the long run, improving performance of the system and providing snappier launch of some applications. Cleaning it up is just not the way to go on the long run as it also performs this action all by itself once the number of prefetch files reaches a specific limit.
Users can choose to include in the scan process any of these locations as easy as ticking the desired checkboxes. However, there is absolutely no restriction on the folders to be checked out and Comodo allows verifying the entire storage device for specific extensions that fill up the space without no advantage to the user.
It comes with a predefined set of most commonly encountered extensions and provides a way to add some custom ones if the user so deems necessary. Ignore List is present for this application as well, allowing inclusion of locations and files that should be skipped during scan.
Duplicate finder
Duplicate finding is another component of the Disk Cleaner and the learning curve in this case is in tone with the entire application, lean and soft. Its purpose is rooting out any double content of a volume. At a first glance it may seem that there is no way to access the files and folders on the listed drives (both fix and removable are available) but double-clicking on them will produce the desired effect of showing the detail.
Thus scan times can be trimmed to searching certain folders making the entire process shorter and more focused on your needs. Testing the engine and its findings showed extreme accuracy detecting all duplicates we carefully prepared.
There are no advanced options to tweak the scan sessions, simply an advanced scan mode that parses all the files and a simple scan mode that looks only for movie, music and image files. Definitely, advanced scan is more pervasive and can help with nailing dupes even if the names are different; all that matters is for the content to be identical and the scan will reveal the files.
It is a simple instrument that does a fine job, although having the option to narrow the results down to a certain period of time or size would be a great addition.
Setting up the entire module is quite similar to the Registry Cleaner. The same options are provided including the Safe Delete one, which is designed to offer the possibility of reverting the cleaning process and restoring deleted files. Scheduling functions in the same way and it has the same flaw of not allowing you to plan a scan ahead in a multi-user environment without making available a password.
Privacy Cleaner
Eliminating computer trails is yet another feature of Comodo System Cleaner determined to make more room on the disk and erasing user tracks or wiping sensitive information beyond recovery. It includes traces left in different applications installed on the system and those left in system files so that your presence on the computer goes absolutely undetected.
The applications supported by Comodo System Cleaner include popular software like the three major web browsers on the market (Internet Explorer, Opera and Mozilla Firefox), instant messenger, file downloaders and other popular programs such as Total Commander, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Thunderbird, Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, WinZip, WinRAR. A complete list of applications the Privacy Cleaner can deal with is available in the help file of the program.
Traces eliminated are specific to each application but I suggest checking the sub-sections first so you do not accidentally delete information you may need, such as instant messenger logs or saved forms in web browsers or registration information. Not that the data can't be restored, but it is better to be on the safe side.
Windows logs are also on the wipe list of Privacy Cleaner covering areas such as application log files, system backup files, driver cache, DLL cache, clipboard memory, Media Player history, memory dumps, or registry streams, last visited locations and Run history.
To give you the possibility to wipe your own data securely Comodo provides the file wiper, which should destroy any user-selected data beyond recovery. The same principle for selecting the desired files as in duplicate finder is applied here as well. The application provides a set of foe options when it comes to the wiping method.
You can use zero fill (content is overwritten with zeros), any character fill (select the characters to overwrite the content), random fill (the wiper uses random characters in the data wipe process) and US Government Standard fill (overwrite data with characters according to US Government standards). To ensure that none of the data can be recovered the application also makes available the possibility to iterate the cleaning process for as many times as you want.
It all sounds good in theory, but in practice none of the wiping algorithms worked and we were completely successful in recovering the test data after erasing it with all four wipe methods. More than this, for each method we set the iteration value to three, just to be sure. In the end it turned out that even using a freeware undeleter would recuperate the files with absolutely no problem.
The Configuration area for the module is exactly the same as in other components, containing exactly the same functions, save for the scheduling task, which is no longer present. So restoring all cleaning activity after reboot with Safe Delete option is available, thus ensuring the much needed safety net. But mind that this is not usable in the case of the wiper.
