CCleaner

[Scottish Business Owner]

A while ago someone recommended I use CCleaner on my laptop to just keep things tidy and make things run smoothly (I dont even remember who it was sorry ). It seems to do the trick as I never really have any problems.

The reason for the post is just to maybe find out a bit more about what this does if anyone knows. Is it a good thing to have on your machine and are there any alternatives? I'd hate to think it was doing something evil!

CCleaner - Home

 

[Mike Lewis]

CCleaner can certainly help you recover a bit of space on your hard drive that would otherwise be wasted. Basically, it gets rid of temporary files, cached files, recycle bin contents, and other items that you might not want to keep. But you need to be selective. For example, you could use it to delete your web browser's cache, which will save a bit of space, but that would in turn tend to slow down your access to often-visited sites.

All of the above can also be done manually, without any special tools, but CClearner gives you the convenience of doing the whole thing in one go.

It also deletes junk from the registry, which in turn could make your system a little bit faster. That's something that would be difficult to do manually.

You also mentioned that it makes things "run more smoothly". Although it can certainly help speed up the system, it does nothing to make it more reliable (as far as I know).

For anyone who is near the limit of their hard disk space, or who finds their computer is a bit sluggish, CCleaner is probably worth having (especially as it's free and easy to install). It will probably give a small improvement, but not an enormous one.

Mike

 

[Bampa]

I agree in the main with Mike. I've been using CCleaner for a while now, (last century and Windows98),and it's an excellent all rounder.

I am not so sure the impact of cleaning the internet cache is so relevant nowadays with broadband speeds and browsers tend to check for new/updated pages automatically anyway.

I've found the registry cleaner to have a very good balance between thoroughness and safety; a good thing for a non expert.

It also offers the opportunity to examine the programs which start up automatically when the computer boots up; allowing you disable, as opposed to remove or uninstall, any which are not required.

A personal thing - I really really really really don't like programs which load at startup without informing me first - before you know it significant resourses can be deployed and the first the user knows of it is when the system tray grows longer and longer and/or the computer gets slower and slower.

Using these options and regularly defragging your disk will often help your computer to run smoother and faster. On computers which have'nt been "cleaned" or defragged for a while this improvement can be visually apparent.

If you're not noticing improvements and you're using it regularly then it must be doing it's job.

Iain

 

[Mike Lewis]

Iain,

I agree with you completely about programs that are launched on start-up. I hate them too. I use MSConfig (which is part of Windows) to review and disable them. I had forgotten that CCleaner can do that.

Mike