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ccleaner posts

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Open Source, Windows x64

6 great free cleanup utilities for Windows

Windowsby Lee Mathews Jun 9th 2009


Update: Looking for more apps to help tune up, clean, and repair your computer? Check out this list of six programs that help you solve your problems for free!

Nobody likes useless junk taking up valuable hard drive space. Fortunately, there's a whole slew of good, free programs out there to help us keep things ship-shape. And yes, most of them are called [letter] + Cleaner. Here are five worth checking out.

If you use one of these apps, share your thoughts in the comments! As always, if I missed your favorite please share it with us!

Bleachbit (open source, installer) pictured - While it only handles file cleanup and is a comparatively large download (it's Linux and Windows compatible and runs about 8Mb with GTK), Bleachbit supports a much larger list of programs than most of the other cleaning apps. Apart from all major browsers, it also tidies up after Google Earth, Flash, Java, Second Life Viewer, Skype, Vuze, and more. Found 63.7Mb of crap files on my recently-cleaned drive.

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Tags: ccleaner, cleaning, cleanup, glary, temp-files, tune-up

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Office, Productivity, Freeware, Windows x64

Easily install popular programs after a reformat with Smart Installer Pack

Windowsby Lee Mathews Apr 24th 2009

At work, I usually either use a drive imaging program to load the operating system and applications onto a machine. If I'm reformatting a customer's machine, I use WPI (Windows Post Installer) to silently install programs. At home, however, I'm a little less cautious when I reformat and often forget to back up my program installers.

That's when something like the Smart Installer Pack might come in handy. It's a pre-packed set of popular applications that you'd likely want to install on your own system (or a friend's) after a fresh format.

It includes a host of apps like Firefox, Chrome, OpenOffice, Winamp, Skype, Daemon Tools, Picasa, Winamp, Thunderbird, Adobe Reader and Flash, WinRar, Rocket Dock, CCleaner, and more. Everything downloads in a single file, so you won't be cluttering up your drive with a bunch of separate installers.

SIP has two drawbacks. First, the installers are interactive, not silent, so you'll have to click through manually. Second, there are a few apps I'd normally install instead - like 7zip and Sumatra PDF. Shortcomings aside, this is still a handy way to get a system up and running quickly with a solid group of commonly-used programs.

Tags: ccleaner, chrome, firefox, flash, openoffice, picasa, reader, reformat, reinstall, SIP, skype, smart-installer-pack, thunderbird, winamp, winrar, wpi

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Windows x64

Portable Little Registry Cleaner tidies up Windows registry clutter

Windowsby Lee Mathews Feb 25th 2009


Like the dark corners of your C: drive, your Windows registry can accumulate quite a bit of clutter. Little Registry Cleaner is on the job, ready to locate registry refuse and dispose of it.

The application weighs in at just over 1mb and is fully portable - just extract the exe file's contents to a folder using an application like 7zip. Start it up, click the scan button, and LRC will locate registry entries that can be removed without harming your system.

Since CCleaner is my current cleanup app of choice, I ran it side-by-side. While CCleaner's scan was faster, LRC located 32 more items. After fixing problems, LRC automatically re-scanned and found 6 remaining issues (all missing icons) it couldn't fix. CCleaner didn't have any luck removing them either.

Little Registry Cleaner also includes a startup manager and contains a good set of options for less experienced users. By default, it automatically creates system restore points, checks for updates, and has a built-in registry restore funciton. I would like to see an option to disable the scanning results pop-up window - the important information is already presented in the main window.

It's a free download and runs on both 32 and 64-bit Windows, and is a nice registry cleanup option for more inexperienced users.

Tags: ccleaner, cleanup, portable, registry, tune-up, windows-registry

Filed under: Internet, Security, Windows, Freeware, Browsers, Windows x64

CCleaner adds another C: Chrome cleanup

Windowsby Lee Mathews Jan 22nd 2009


CCleaner has long been a favorite app of our readers, and its developers continue adding improvements to the already great program.

One big addition in the current build is support for Google Chrome, which rounds out CCleaner's ability to tidy up after the five major Windows web browsers (IE, Firefox, Crome, Opera, and Safari). CCleaner has actually been sweeping up after Chrome since December, but since it appears on the applications tab you may not have noticed it there.

If you're the forgetful type (or just don't want to be hassled by the toolbar install option), download the portable or toolbar-free version from the other builds page. It's a great tune-up and clean-up tool, and a must have for your USB flash drive.

[ via Download.com ]

Tags: ccleaner, clean-up, maintenance, portable, registry, temp-files

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Clean your cache, browser history, etc with CleanAfterMe

Windowsby Brad Linder Jun 9th 2008

CleanAfterMe
NirSoft has released an updated version of CleanAfterMe, a free Windows system cleaning utility. The program lets you select from a list of locations where Windows tends to store a ton of files. Cleaning these files out can both free up some disk space and protect your privacy, since you can delete things like your browser history, cookies, and recend documents folders.

Version 1.10 adds support for Firefox and Opera web browsers, meaning you can clear your browser history, cookies, cache, download history, and other files. The latest verison also features a resizable dialog box and support for cleaning the last logged-on user name.

The program is portable, which means you can throw it on a USB flash drive and run it on any Windows system. You can also show a cleaning report before actually running the cleaner, which lets you see if you're about to delete anything you might want to hang onto.

If you're looking for a cleaner with a few more features, we'd recommend checking out CCleaner. It does pretty much everything CleanAfterMe does and then some, and also runs a bit more quickly. But unlike CleanAfterMe, CCleaner is not portable, which means you have to install the application before you can use it.

Update: As several readers have kindly reminded us, CCleaner 2.0 has been portable since last year.

Tags: ccleaner, cleanafterme, cleaner

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Productivity, Freeware, Troubleshooting

Advanced WindowsCare v2: Repair, protect, and optimize your PC

by Simon Kerbel Jan 14th 2008

Advanced WindowsCare PC running sluggishly? We know the feeling. Enter Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal, another new entry in the "one-step scan and optimization of your PC" arena. Similar to CCleaner (though lacking a few of CCleaner's extras), Advanced WindowsCare v2 will scan your machine for spyware, incorrect registry entries, browsing history, and junk files, with the ability to delete said files quickly and easily.

Our initial scan took about five minutes, and found a bevy of things to fix on our test machine. Advanced WindowsCare Personal allows you to look into the gritty details of each problem and repair them with a single click.

You can also check out Advanced WindowsCare v2 Professional, the always-on upgrade to the free Personal edition. For a limited time, you can get the Professional version for "free" (with the completion of one of 100 "free" offers; we'll let you decide whether it's worth it).

Advance WindowsCare is designed for Windows Vista, XP, and 2000.

Tags: ccleaner, cleaner, freeware, spyware, windows

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Clean your registry and junk files with WiseCleaner

Windowsby Brad Linder Nov 28th 2007

Wise Disk Cleaner
It's amazing how much junk your PC accumulates just by running for a few months, or even days. Perform a fresh install of Windows, add a few programs, remove a programs, and you'll see what we mean. Even if you only run a few applications, odds are you're storing a lot of unnecessary information in a cache file somewhere.

Wise Disk Cleaner and Wise Registry Cleaner are two easy to use freeware solutions for cleaning out the cobwebs. As the names suggest, one application helps find and fix incorrect registry settings while the other helps delete temporary files stored on your PC.

While we've long been fans of CCleaner, Wise Cleaner is highly customizable, allowing you to search for just certain temp file types. In a highly unscientific test we ran a few minutes ago, Wise Disk Cleaner found about twice as many removable files as CCleaner using the default settings on both programs.

[via jkOnTheRun]

Tags: ccleaner, wise-disk-cleaner, wise-registry-cleaner

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Windows Add/Remove programs replacements

Windowsby Brad Linder Nov 19th 2007

Uninstallers
If you spend a lot of time trying out new software, you probably also spend a lot of time uninstalling software. And the thing is, Microsoft's add/remove programs applications just don't cut it. From the earliest days of Windows, Microsoft has bundled a handy utility for removing unwanted programs. And every version right up to Windows Vista seems to have a few quirks. The add/remove programs dialog is slow to load, often leaves registry entries behind, and sometimes just misses programs altogether.

Here are a few alternate uninstallers that we've run across. They're all free, and they all claim to be better than the Windows utility in one way or another.

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Tags: absolute-uninstaller, ccleaner, myuninstaller, revo-uninstaller, safarp, uninstallers

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Keep your PC clean with nCleaner

Windowsby Brad Linder Sep 10th 2007

nCleaner
If you run Windows, your operating system, web browsers, and other applications have a tendency to tie up system resources with all sorts of "temporary" files that never seem to get deleted. nCleaner helps you remove thousands of unnecessary files in one fell swoop.

Like other system cleaners, nCleaner lets you clear disk cache, user history files, and also invalid Windows registry settings. But unlike our favorite system cleaner, CCleaner, we're not sure we'd recommend nCleaner for computer novices. Some of the options selected by default could erase user data that you might actually find useful.

For example, if you use the password manager in your web browser, there' s a good chance you'll accidentally delete all of your web site logins the first time you run nCleaner if you don't pay close attention to all of the options. And there are a lot of options, so it's easy to miss a few.

All told, we were able to save a few gigs of space on our test rig with nCleaner, and when we ran CCleaner afterward, it only found a handful of files missed by nCleaner.

[via TechnoBuzz]

Tags: ccleaner, clean, cleanup, nccleaner, registry, system cleaner, SystemCleaner

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Beta

CCleaner 2.0 beta goes portable

Windowsby Brad Linder Aug 16th 2007

CCleaner 2.0 beta
We've been using CCleaner to clear off temporary files, cookies, and unused registry settings for years. The program is updated so often that almost every time we load it we're prompted with a message asking if we'd like to download the latest version. The updates are usually incremental.

But now it looks like the folks behind CCleaner have pushed out a beta of version 2.0, with some exciting new features:
  • CCleaner can be run from a USB thumb drive
  • With you when visiting your parents for the holidays.
  • Faster analyzing and cleaning
  • Select files, folders, and registry keys to ignore
  • Rebuilt in C++ to support 64-bit compatibility and Windows Vista compatibility
  • Redesigned GUI
The fact that you can now carry CCleaner with you on a USB drive is huge. Or rather, tiny. The file takes up almost no space at all, making CCleaner a great addition to your portable toolkit.

This is beta software, so not everything works as well as it could. For example, CCleaner includes an application for uninstalling programs from your PC. Generally it loads up a lot faster than the Windows Add/Remove programs menu or Revo Uninstaller. But on our test rig, CCleaner 2.0 was only able to find one program installed on our Windows Vista PC.
[via CyberNet]

Tags: ccleaner, ccleaner 2.0, Ccleaner2.0, uninstall

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Remove unwanted programs with Revo Uninstaller

Windowsby Brad Linder Jul 24th 2007

Revo Uninstaller
You know how when you uninstall Windows software you always wind up with a few leftover files and entries in the windows registry? You could skip the Control Panel and use a program like CCleaner to remove programs and then perform periodic registry scans. Or you could try Revo Uninstaller, a free program that cleans up after itself when it uninstalls software.

Revo Uninstaller works with PCs running Windows 2000/XP/Vista. At its most basic level, the application lets you find and remove programs. But once its done running the uninstaller, it will ask if you want it to search for leftover files and unused registry entries, which you can delete with just a click or two.

You can also run Revo Uninstaller in "Hunter Mode," which lets you drag an icon over various programs to uninstall them, or just to find more information or kill running processes. Another feature lets you manage what programs auto-start with Windows, while another useful tool cleans up your web browser cache.

[via CyberNet]

Tags: ccleaner, revo, revo uninstaller, RevoUninstaller, uninstall

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Recuva files you accidentally deleted

Windowsby Brad Linder Jan 20th 2007


Recuva

I've never really had much use for programs that let you recover deleted files. I remember back in my DOS days, struggling with undelete programs and always being disappointed when a Word document I recovered was filled with errors. Well, times have changed, and when I heard that the makers of CCleaner, a system optimization program I use all the time, had released Recuva, I decided to take it for a spin.

I have to say, I like Recuva a lot. It's super-fast to install and to run. You just select a drive, and Recuva will scan for deleted files that have been deleted, including files that you've emptied from your recycle bin. If the file's recoverable, Recuva will tell you. If it's not, it will tell you that as well.

Recuva's not the only free undelete program around, but if you have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to the recycle bin, it's worth checking out.

Tags: ccleaner, recuva, undelete

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Free tools for optimizing the Windows registry

Windowsby Jordan Running Jan 31st 2006

RegistryAh, the registry--can't live with it, can't delete it. There are ways, though, to slim it down, give it a little polish, and give your system a little boost. Most of those ways are distressingly un-free, but Email Battles has a nice post about a trio of free tools that, in concert, will get the job done. First you use CCleaner to scrape out all the accumulated cruft. Then you use RegSeeker to nuke the really hard-to-find junk. Finally, you use RegDefrag to physically defrag your registry to make it work faster. All three tools are free and together they'll make your registry feel like new.

Tags: ccleaner, optimize, regdefrag, registry, regseeker, windows

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