CCleaner 2.0 Beta Released - Clean the Crap off your Computer

[supertechnogeek]

More Registry Cleaners here:
Free Registry Cleaners

[PhilB66]

Is that your new Website supertechno? So now we are promotong RegCure, are we not?

[Steven Avery]

Is that your new Website supertechno? So now we are promotong RegCure, are we not?

-PhilB66 (April 09, 2008, 04:09 AM)

Good pickup, Phil.  RegCure can probably be considered borderline rogue-ware, so imo we have to ask if anyone promoting it has a financial incentive.  Integrity first.

As for CCleaner, while it is a good product for sure, even excellent, and to a large extent made the niche public, I am always looking for better.  CCleaner is fine for basically cleaning out temp files and such but even there I do not think it has a global entry, only user by user.  If that is still the case, a major limitation in terms of one-pass efficiency.  Some weakness in save or rollbacks comes up, as mentioned, and the possible incaution on registry entries and even cookies comes up, with a lack of selectivity between preview and action modes (to be fair, the fact that it has a preview mode is excellent).  Especially in registry cleanup, where in the perfect world you would visually confirm every deletion entry and not delete any that you are not sure of.  Essentially I would delete entries that are clearly connected to removed software and leave most everything else alone, unless I was very conscious of a save/restore mode, perhaps using ERUNT as the registry save program.

Cleanups in general, here is my list with the complimentary products and alternatives (not focusing on registry issues, which are imho, independent and squirrelly, potentially dangerous and can be overdone).

Not a bad idea to settle on the two or three best, since no one covers everything.  CCleaner of course has a place at the table.  I think Cleanup! has the global capability I mention above, not sure about the others. 

Freeware

Advanced Disk Cleaner v. 5 (free registration code)
http://www.innovativ...om/cleaner/index.htm
Innovative Solutions - interesting mix of software products

Advanced Window Care Personal - Iobit
http://www.iobit.com...dwindowscareper.html
Professional is $30, Personal has good rep, too.

ATF-Cleaner - Atribune (fella is very helpful on Vundo problems)
http://www.atribune....;id=25&Itemid=25
Web Forum, not real active on ATF-Cleaner
http://www.atribune....2&hl=ATF-Cleaner

CCleaner - Piriform
http://www.ccleaner.com/
WebForum
http://forum.piriform.com/

Cleanup Assistant (concern added three posts below)
http://www.cleanupassistant.com/

Cleanup! - Steven Gould
http://www.stevengou...;id=15&Itemid=69
Web Forum
http://www.stevengou...457951c5af1d86314a91
Good rep, solid, slightly dated tab interface.

System Cleanup - Franckey
http://www.xs4all.nl...re/systemcleanup.htm

Zappit - Cloudeight
http://www.zappit.net/

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

   An addition to the above list is in a company known for an excellent freeware uninstaller.

Revo Uninstaller
http://www.revounins...atures_benefits.html

  Includes a Junks Files Cleaner, a Windows cleaner, a Browsers Cleaner, and an MS Office Cleaner and some other complementary tools.

   Now if an industrious reviewer wants to compare all the freeware products .. 

Shalom,
Steven Avery

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

And now some more freeware cleanup alternatives.

Glary Utillities Free
http://www.glarysoft...u.html?tag=download#
Generally reviewed very favorably (Snapfiles, Fileforum, CNet)
Along with Advanced Windows Care, seem to be the two best free utility suites, both include cleanup functions, Glary may be more full-featured. Possibly the Pro has scheduling (no big deal) and a bit more, apparently there is a bit of nagging in the free, according to one poster, other distinctions unclear. No web-support forum. Oh, maybe Revo, is also in this mix of freeware multi-products, as a semi-suite box of chocolates.

Dustbuster
The developer mentions that legacy versions are downloadable online,
http://www.casperize.com/dustbuster/
English Google translation
http://tinyurl.com/52cvex
Unclear whether there will be English version, future version, freeware, etc.
http://www.softpedia...ing/DustBuster.shtml
Dustbuster : Kudos - good techie ok from Gizmo
http://www.techsuppo...t.com/matts-list.php
"1) DustBuster: a secure yet quick file cleaner and nice add-on to CCleaner..
Some of the program's messages are in Italian too but the user controls are in English."

Empty Temp Folders
http://www.danish-sh...are.dk/soft/emptemp/
With a recommendation from Gizmo, despite being a 2001 release
http://www.techsuppo...6_free_utilities.htm

Wise Disk Cleaner 3 Free
http://www.wisecleaner.com/
Current discussion on GiveawayoftheDay of Wise Disk Cleaner Professional Giveaway
http://www.giveawayo...aner-3-professional/
Compare Pro and Free
http://www.wiseclean....com/freeandpro.html

Note that the GAOTD page has an exclusion list recommendation from Jonathan of JonathansTool Bar And Grill .

 "... I based my exclusion list on the default list in nCleaner, and it includes these subfolders in the C:\Windows folder: \assembly, \boot, \system, \system32, \security. (If you exclude the entire \Windows folder, you won’t be able to delete old Windows update files, which are space hogs.) I also excluded C:\System Volume Information and C:\MSOCache ... "

However even that should not give a false sense of full safety, as nCleaner, the last addition for now, is considered on the agressive side anyway.

ncleaner
http://www.nkprods.com/ncleaner/
Concern about aggressiveness based on Snapfiles and Fileforum and CNet reviews
(This is also a general concern for many products)
http://www.nkprods.com/forum/
Webforum

Shalom,
Steven Avery

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

A concern or warning ..

Cleanup Assistant
http://www.cleanupassistant.com/

Has one very negative review at CNet claiming the default settings were destructive. And little is positive on the net, although it was included in the normally reliable PC Utilities mag from UK. And while Softonic does not indicate anything terrible, Cleanup Assistant is found lacking.
http://cleanup-assis...ant.en.softonic.com/

An addition is:
http://iisoftware.ne...index.php?clean.html
System Wiper

Which gets generally solid reviews, but the last version is 2004, showing Mozilla and not Firefox.  Unless that changes, probably of no real interest, despite also being in the new PC Utilities Mag. Design looked okay, though.

Shalom,
Steven

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

One more freeware cleaner, in Spanish, from April 2008.
Actually looks pretty nice.

http://argentesoftware.blogspot.com/
Argente - System Cleaner 1.0.1.4

Pics look ok, here.
http://www.softpedia...creenshot-97869.html

There isn't much on the net about this company.  I generally prefer to see some presence on Snapfiles.  Secondly, FileForum, MajorGeeks, NoNags.  Or of course DC.  However with the language issue on the website that can be slower.

CNET has two products.
http://www.download....60-20_4-6299749.html

Softpedia has six.
http://www.softpedia...ente%20Software.html

And Automatize might be good for a simple scheduler.  I am looking for one that is stronger and nicer-to-use than the XP scheduler.  I realize the script language approach, like AutoHotKey, might be the solution par excellence.

Shalom,
Steven

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Since we are discussing clean-up in preparation for partition, this is a good time to add to this thread.
(Later perhaps the information can be condensed in one new "Freeware Cleaners Roundup".)

Surprisingly, the next group of added cleaners are actually quite interesting and strong. 

======

NEW CLEANUP ADDS

ClearProg (2004-2009, plugins began 2008) - Sven Hoffmann - Germany
http://www.clearprog...ndex_new.php?lang=en
Forum
http://www.clearprog...de/forum.php?lang=en

Disk Cleaner (2008) - open source
http://www.diskcleaner.nl/
Forums
http://www.diskclean...r.nl/forum/index.php

Sweepi  - Switzerland
http://www.yooapps.c...B66832787C57B5893A45

G-Lock Temp Cleaner (2003, forum active 2009)
http://www.glocksoft.com/temp_cleaner/
Forum
http://www.justlan.c...3985954fa9bd9adb9956

CleanCache 3.5 - (2006)
http://majorgeeks.com/download4122.html

=========================================

FIVE SPECIALTY CLEANUPS

PureRa -  Paul McLain & Fred de Vries (careful on desktop.ini - Wilders note 10/2008)
http://raproducts.org/purera.html

JavaRa -  Paul McLain & Fred de Vries
http://raproducts.org/javara.html

MRU Blaster - JavaCool
http://www.javacools....com/mrublaster.html

CleanAfterMe - Nirsoft
http://www.nirsoft.n.../clean_after_me.html
CleanAfterMe - a new Nirsoft tool
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=13448.0

Index.dat Suite -  Ur I.T. Mate Group   
http://support.it-ma...amp;p=index.datsuite

And I wonder if there will be a .NET cleanup someday like the Java cleanup.  It may have to give
you an option to keep multiple NETs, but it would be quite kewl.

========

Wilder's threads (directly and indirectly the source for most of the new info)

KCleaner : easy and automatic System Cleaner
http://www.wildersse...wthread.php?t=217284
Notice that KCleaner was considered a good product until the bundled spyware issue
was not addressed properly.
http://www.kcsoftwar...m/index.php?kcleaner
KCleaner

The Best Disk Cleaner (mostly Sweepi discussion)
http://www.wildersse...?t=195425&page=3

This is a difficult category -- if you looked for a "Top 5" (excluding the 3 specialties) you would have to include CCleaner and ATF-Cleaner  (even though there may be no releases for a couple of years on ATF).  Trying to get the next three .. hard to say, there are a lot of nuances.  I hope we can get some reports on ClearProg.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

[PhilB66]

Dotnet cleanup tool

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Thanks Phil.  From the description I would be a bit uneasy about using it except when the Nets aren't functioning well, since it emphasizes the shared file problem.  Aaron Stebner recommends running the official uninstall first, hopefully that does not get into version clashes.

I see though that there are folders that seem to be version specific. 2.0 etc.  2.0 put one under the root C:\72ffefeea2bd5eb4d8cd95\ that I find a rather poor way of installing.   Anyway, a good tool to have handy, and maybe check into a bit more. 

Here are two more freeware cleaners.

Comodo System Cleaner
http://system-cleane...omodo.com/index.html

This next is a demo project, you can see some interesting discussion between coders.

A Cleanup API for Windows By Marcel Lambert - (Open Source)
http://www.codeproje...tem/Cleanup_API.aspx

The download link isn't working so take the one from this mirror-style page.

A Cleanup API for Windows - "Download demo project - 177 Kb"
http://www.cscoding.com/article/19009/

================

And Index.dat suite, which I added to the specialty section above.

Shalom,
Steven Avery