CCleaner / Crap Cleaner - easily remove Windows ballast

[brotherS]

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"):



For more info, check the http://www.ccleaner.com/help/tour1.asp

[m_s]

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.

[Carol Haynes]

Nice find ... I have been using DiskCleaner 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.

[brotherS]

I can only say: try it! 

I wonder if there really is a better one out there... for free!

[Darwin]

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

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."

[m_s]

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.

[rrtwister]

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.

[brotherS]

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 from it and also a few different other helpful programs.

[Hirudin]

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."