Labs

Aladdin's Internet Cleanup puts its quarry straight in the spotlight, opening with a list of the cache, history, cookies and other traces it's found on your system, so you know what needs removing.

Internet Explorer is the only browser program that Aladdin can handle (along with its close relations, AOL and MSN Explorer). But this does have an advantage. You can block pop-ups, which does a good job of killing those irritating unrequested adverts, although sites that exist entirely as a pop-up (enabling the designers to fix the exact window size) will fail to load until you turn this off.

Aladdin also detects and removes Spyware - sneaky programs that are installed alongside other bits of software you've downloaded, then send reports on your online activities to third parties, usually Web marketeers. Ad-blocking looks for graphics of standard advertising sizes, then prevents them loading, though this often doesn't work.

Finally,

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you can block or monitor cookies. Compared with Explorer's existing controls (in Internet Options/Privacy), Internet Cleanup wins by showing details of cookies in a window pane at the foot of your browser, rather than in irritating dialogue boxes. Ads, pop-ups and numerous 'web bugs' (gizmos that track your surfing habits) are also listed here.

General cleanup operations cover browser caches, history and cookies, plus recent file lists in Windows, RealPlayer, Microsoft Paint and Paint Shop Pro 7. Each type of data can be set to be left alone, deleted or shredded. Only one basic multiple-overwrite method is supported, but it beat our recovery software.

You may be left with other applications unprotected, but a separate section does cover all the popular instant messaging services, allowing you to delete or shred message histories. You can also opt to delete e-mails from Outlook or Outlook Express according to criteria such as age and sender, but these can't be shredded as they're not discrete files. Specified files and folders can also be deleted or shredded.

Once your preferences are set up, you can initiate a clean-up either from a desktop shortcut, or by scheduling it to happen when you start or shut down your PC each time you exit any specified application, or at preset intervals.

Internet Cleanup is pretty comprehensive - as long as you browse in Internet Explorer and don't work with private details in applications that aren't covered. The only annoying missing feature is password-protected favourites.