Comments on: How to clean up CCleaner

By: Kathie

Kathie — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 06:42:37 +0000

I already had the Yahoo toolbar on Firefox when I started using CCleaner (free version). It has a nice (free) anti-spy program on it. I use it every day, along with CCleaner, and my computer runs like a top — very different from the way it was running six months ago.

By: ho

ho — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 12:02:15 +0000

I do use Firefox mostly nowdays, but it didn’t seem to find a noticable amount of stuff to clean out there (I’ve got it set to quite a small cache).

It’s a Core 2 Duo 6600, 4GB Ram, 2 * 320 GB, don’t think I’ve ever defragged anything manually on it and definitely not the last 18 months.

By: Steve Cassidy

Steve Cassidy — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:30:08 +0000

Thanks for the report: that’s what I like to see. Personally I just click “fix all issues” on the registry section – I’ve yet to be caught out by doing it. Am I right in thinking you’re not a multi-browser kind of person? It’s a lot more useful for Mozilla, Safari etc where the temp diectories can hide a bit out of reach.

I agree that the Yahoo toolbar is unwelcome: I note that the latest Java update tries to sneak it in, too.

(the only thing I’m left wondering is, what’s the hardware spec of your Vista machine, and have you ever defragged drive C?)

By: ho

ho — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:47:56 +0000

Steve: Well, on a 2.5 year old Vista install, not counting the “Temp internet files”, Cookies or “Recycle Bin”. It found just over 2GB of files it wanted to clear out, but 15% of that was the “Windows Temp Folder” which I clear out manually sometimes. So it seems useful, but not incredibly so.
The registry cleaner found lots of stuff, but the suggested fix for everything I looked at seemed to be to delete the registry key and I didn’t dare to let it delete everything it wanted to, but I could at least clear out some things I knew what they were.
So all in all, to me it feels like a useful tool to run every year or so, but probably not useful enough for me to remember to actually do that.

Alan: I’d say that the usual way for a company to get funding is by having paying customers, though I can understand that it won’t work for all companies. However, I still think it’s wrong for a product called CrapCleaner to install crap on your pc.

By: Alan

Alan — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:25:44 +0000

Ho, software doesn’t write itself and therefore companies need some form of funding, usually in the form of addons like toolbars. If you don’t like them simply remove them from the install routine.

If you simply click, yes, next, yes, next, yes, next then you could be doing anything.

By: Steve Cassidy

Steve Cassidy — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:23:16 +0000

A-HA! That makes you the *ideal* tester. Please could you get CCleaner, install it without the dumb-ass toolbar, then run both the main system cleaner job *and* the registry cleaner (second tool-dock icon down), and tell us if you think it’s fixed anything worth fixing?

By: ho

ho — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:59:31 +0000

I have to admit that that’s a fair point, and if you would add that kind of information, I’d probably end up complaining that you were dumbing down, so please ignore my previous comment.

Never tried any system cleaner, just a general dislike of the pointless toolbars, that seems to be included with so much software nowdays (especially the Yahoo toolbar).

By: Steve Cassidy

Steve Cassidy — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:46:33 +0000

OK… I guess this boils down to “what is a PC Pro reader” – someone who would leave all the defaults on, or not?

Do you have a preferred system cleaner-upper that doesn’t come with bloat or nagware? It’s probably mor helpful to identify an alternative you’re happy with, than throw eggs at one you’re not…

By: ho

ho — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:35:03 +0000

I meant the software of the year award you mentioned earlier.
I would like if any reviews in PC Pro included warnings about this kind of things being installed (I don’t think I’ve noticed anything like that before), when I get asked about some software I often use the information from your reviews to make my recommendations and it would be nice if I could then at the same time mention that they should be a bit careful during the installation.
Most of the people I recommend software too just use all the defaults during the installations and have no idea how to turn off toolbars so often end up being stuck with them until I take a look at their computer at some point later on.

By: Steve Cassidy

Steve Cassidy — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:14:57 +0000

ho (pardon the potential Ebonics faux-pas but you give no other name): Yes, I consider a visible, untickable toolbar as a minor sin. I also wasn’t putting it forward for any awards, though if their site counter is correct and it’s been downloded over 300 million times, then they deserve at least some investigation!

Roger; I’m with you, I missed the other builds completely. The flash version (which I hope runs from a file server share too, being a traditionalist) sounds very cute – it might even be insertable in login scripts and startup items…