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News and Reviews => Mini-Reviews by Members => Topic started by: brotherS on November 17, 2005, 02:05 AM

Title: CCleaner / Crap Cleaner - easily remove Windows ballast
Post by: brotherS on November 17, 2005, 02:05 AM
http://www.ccleaner.com/

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/CCleaner_Crap_Cleaner/1100194579/1

Publisher's Description:
CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization tool that removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space.

It's a tiny and really helpful tool, I haven't tried it's "Issues" (RegCleaner) capabilities, but it's very handy to remove old TEMP files and stuff as it won't delete too much (as has happened with other programs).

Make sure to move the cookies you don't want it to delete (IMDB.com, forums, etc.) to the list of protected cookies ("Cookies to keep"):

(http://img467.imageshack.us/img467/4615/dcccleaner7zg.png)

For more info, check the http://www.ccleaner.com/help/tour1.asp
Title: Re: CCleaner / Crap Cleaner - easily remove Windows ballast
Post by: m_s on November 17, 2005, 04:28 AM
I've used CCleaner for a year or two, and I swear by it.  You're right, it's quite conservative, so it's always been safe in my experience.  I run the Issues module once a month or so, and I just let it delete everything it throws up - the first few times I was cautious, and did check through to make sure there was nothing that stood out as possibly problematic.  I haven't had a single problem in all that time.  It's one of the first things I install on any computer I work on.
Title: Re: CCleaner / Crap Cleaner - easily remove Windows ballast
Post by: Carol Haynes on November 17, 2005, 05:33 AM
Nice find ... I have been using DiskCleaner (http://www.robertenfemke.nl/~diskclean/) which is quick and easy to use, but this is a bit more customizable. DiskCleaner does clean some extra areas though so I shall probably keep both.

CCleaner is particularly nice because you can exclude some cookies - always a pain in DiskCleaner.
Title: Re: CCleaner / Crap Cleaner - easily remove Windows ballast
Post by: brotherS on November 17, 2005, 05:36 AM
I can only say: try it!  :Thmbsup:

I wonder if there really is a better one out there... for free!
Title: Re: CCleaner / Crap Cleaner - easily remove Windows ballast
Post by: Darwin on November 17, 2005, 09:59 AM
I have been using a similar tool - CleanCache - for years. It's highly customizable and even lets you overwrite data so that it's unrecoverable.

It's donationware and can be found here:

www.buttuglysoftware.com (http://www.buttuglysoftware.com)

The author's statement about donations:

"If you like my programs and would like to donate towards future development and the bandwidth for my site please click on the PayPal icon to the right. 

Please note that donating is strictly voluntary."

Title: Re: CCleaner / Crap Cleaner - easily remove Windows ballast
Post by: m_s on November 17, 2005, 10:17 AM
It's worth noting that you ought to run the Issues module a few times on CCleaner - on the first pass it'll throw up a whole lot of issues, on the second far fewer, on the third maybe one or two, and then it shouldn't find anything at all.
Title: Re: CCleaner / Crap Cleaner - easily remove Windows ballast
Post by: rrtwister on November 17, 2005, 10:27 PM
brotherS,
thanks for the great find. Works beautifully. Now added to my utility cd for when I have to help out my friends. Things like this make my life so much easier.
Title: Re: CCleaner / Crap Cleaner - easily remove Windows ballast
Post by: brotherS on November 18, 2005, 01:33 AM
brotherS,
thanks for the great find. Works beautifully.
You are welcome, wait for more great finds to follow :)

Now added to my utility cd for when I have to help out my friends. Things like this make my life so much easier.
Yeah, I was thinking about getting a cheap USB stick to directly run Miranda (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=1201.0) from it and also a few different other helpful programs.
Title: Re: CCleaner / Crap Cleaner - easily remove Windows ballast
Post by: Hirudin on December 08, 2005, 09:09 PM
I've been using CCleaner for about a week now, I must say I like it a lot. One of the features that brotherS mentioned, the "Cookies to keep" is awesome! I've tried several of the "cookie manager" extensions for firefox, none of them worked 100% of the time for some reason (or I'd have to live without them after a firefox update or something). With CCleaner I've sorted out the 6 cookies I actually want to keep and am content in knowing that I can easily clear the rest with 2 clicks of the mouse.

Another feature I really like (which hasn't been mentioned yet) is that it adds commands to the Recycle Bin context (right click) menu. This makes the program very easily accessible without being super annoying. Now to compulsively empty my recycle bin 25 times a day I choose "Run CCleaner" instead of "Empty Recycle Bin."