Anyone still use CCleaner and similar applications?

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P4rD0nM3

[H]ard|Gawd
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Just wondering if anyone still uses these types of applications. Most of the time it's not for making my PC faster. It's just for cleaning house now.

Anyone else?
 
P4rD0nM3 said:
Just wondering if anyone still uses these types of applications. Most of the time it's not for making my PC faster. It's just for cleaning house now.

Anyone else?
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Don't think it was designed to make your PC faster.
 
It seems like It can make old, bloated systems snappier after the first time you run it, thats about it.
 
Been using CCleaner for years and still use it about once per week.
 
CCleaner is a must for any computer user. If you use it from day one after a clean windows install and clean your system and run the reg checker weekly, I have found it keep my machine as fast as it was on day one.
 
It is a great app that i use at home and at work. Try it out, donate if you feel it is a good tool.
 
Oh yes. I run it once a month and am always amazed at the amount of crap it finds.
 
The Cobra said:
CCleaner is a must for any computer user. If you use it from day one after a clean windows install and clean your system and run the reg checker weekly, I have found it keep my machine as fast as it was on day one.
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I don't think cleaning the registry of redundant entries affects performance. I have read that on Vista/Win7 the registry can be any size without causing any issues. Previous Windows there was a need for a free utility to clean and defragment the registry because it was an issue.
 
Even my mother uses CCleaner! She saw me get 10GB+ of space back with one click and has been using it every since.

As for how she got 10GB+ of useless and temporary files in the first place, don't ask...
 
NismoTuned said:
It seems like It can make old, bloated systems snappier after the first time you run it, thats about it.
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This happens because most of the time those systems are low on disk space and cant properly defrag themselves. Any thing that frees up a decent chunk of space would do the same thing.
 
Use it every time for PCs I'm repairing or cleaning up because of software issues. I like the registry cleaner as well as disk cleanup. It has never damaged anything for me and seems to do a much better job at getting all the temp junk Windows disk cleanup leaves behind.
Just this weekend I used disk cleanup and then CCleaner nuked another 900MB minutes later.
 
It might not make a noticeable difference in performance, but on more than one occasion running the CCleaner registry tool has fixed some odd or quirky behavior for me. That plus the ability to clean out all the miscellaneous junk Windows accumulates is like the software equivalent of blowing dust bunnies out of my PC.
 
Yes, it can do that but it is a very lightweight registry cleaner. There are a couple of other reg cleaners that will find a ton more invalid entries than CCleaner does but they are not free and can screw up your system if you are not careful with them. I used to be active on Microsoft Usenet groups and the Microsoft VPs always told people not to use reg cleaners for that reason. I ignored their advice though and used them anyway.
 
maw said:
It might not make a noticeable difference in performance, but on more than one occasion running the CCleaner registry tool has fixed some odd or quirky behavior for me. That plus the ability to clean out all the miscellaneous junk Windows accumulates is like the software equivalent of blowing dust bunnies out of my PC.
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Or the junk left over after uninstalling some software.
 
I do/did, but I've definitely had it kill off some important stuff in the past. Hell, I think it's actually the culprit for bombing my Windows 8 store.
I like having a lot of that stuff, but you have to be really careful.
 
Have it set to run on startup on all the computers in my house, and paid for the "Pro" version to support the dev.
 
Still use it here, have been for years now. It is always on my list of items on a fresh install.
 
Domingo said:
I do/did, but I've definitely had it kill off some important stuff in the past. Hell, I think it's actually the culprit for bombing my Windows 8 store.
I like having a lot of that stuff, but you have to be really careful.
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Blame the tool or the user of the tool?
 
Been using CCleaner for years. Can't complain. Best cleaner I have ever used.
 
I use CCleaner paid version on a daily basis. It's an awesome product!
 
Pleb said:
I don't think cleaning the registry of redundant entries affects performance. I have read that on Vista/Win7 the registry can be any size without causing any issues. Previous Windows there was a need for a free utility to clean and defragment the registry because it was an issue.
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Pretty sure that is the case. Aren't these basically placebo tools as far as performance goes? Pretty sure MS says it's B.S. As long as your disk is defragged you are OK.

I write these off like the Black Viper tweaks - they don't actually do anything helpful for performance even though you think they should.
 
r00k said:
I use CCleaner paid version on a daily basis. It's an awesome product!
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Just to make sure everyone is on the same page. There is no CCleaner paid version. It's a free product. The download page may trick you into thinking that you have to pay but the payment is actually for "support" which no one ever needs.

It's one thing to donate to the devs who certainly deserve it, but there's no difference between the free download and the download you pay $25 for.
 
Thuleman said:
Just to make sure everyone is on the same page. There is no CCleaner paid version. It's a free product. The download page may trick you into thinking that you have to pay but the payment is actually for "support" which no one ever needs.

It's one thing to donate to the devs who certainly deserve it, but there's no difference between the free download and the download you pay $25 for.
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Actually, to be clearer, there are a couple different versions that are "paid" for, and there are differences. The Business version allows me to clean multiple user accounts at the same time. That's important to me. And if i recall in the fine print, the free version is not for commercial use.

http://www.piriform.com/business/ccleaner-business-edition
 
r00k said:
Actually, to be clearer, there are a couple different versions that are "paid" for, and there are differences. The Business version allows me to clean multiple user accounts at the same time. That's important to me. And if i recall in the fine print, the free version is not for commercial use.
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Good point about the multiple account cleaning.
I am in *.edu so all of our use is non-commercial, easy to forget that most folks have to pay for business usage.
 
I never used such utilities. I tried on occasion when some installation messed up the registry, but never helped. I haven't run any for ages now.
 
I use the 'windows 7' cleaner DVD when necessary.

You just run that and choose 'format and install windows 7' and it works like a charm.
 
B00nie said:
I use the 'windows 7' cleaner DVD when necessary.
You just run that and choose 'format and install windows 7' and it works like a charm.
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That's great if you have 3 hours to set aside every few weeks reinstalling drivers, applications and reconfiguring your system. Personally, I've got better things to do.
 
B00nie said:
I use the 'windows 7' cleaner DVD when necessary.

You just run that and choose 'format and install windows 7' and it works like a charm.
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That is funny.

Actually, what would be a lot quicker if you really want to do a clean install frequently is to:

1. Do a clean install.
2. Install only the NIC driver.
3. Install all current Windows updates besides drivers - drivers from Windows update suck.
3. Run Sysprep and select "generalize".
4. Reboot with the bootable USB stick or other USB drive and pull the WIM image.
5. Reboot.

Then, when you want to re-image , you can just partition and format the drive, and then apply the image. With a clean image, it will take all of about 8-12 minutes max to install Windows as opposed to a few hours once you include all the updates.
 
I generally only use CCleaner to do secure wipes of drives.

Used to use it a lot, but have not done so on my personal computers lately.

At work i have my own steps to clean everything but the registry so I don't have to mess with keeping it up to date on 60+ computers.
 
cyclone3d said:
I generally only use CCleaner to do secure wipes of drives.

Used to use it a lot, but have not done so on my personal computers lately.

At work i have my own steps to clean everything but the registry so I don't have to mess with keeping it up to date on 60+ computers.
Click to expand...

We used to have a scheduled task that performed some cleanup on a monthly basis. About a year and a half ago we rolled out Windows 7 and took away user's admin rights, man - that was extremely challenging but has made a huge difference.
 
CC cleaner is great, like any app removing files or changing registry = make a back up first.
 
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