Greenknight

There was a big batch of updates released this month, that's why you got so many. They were all new. Automatic Update works, but its one weakness, as Andavari pointed out, is that it doesn't let you know when it fails. I had a problem last month, caused by removing some old Norton antivirus garbage. I only found out about it when I happened to see an Update icon appear in the system tray, and then just disappear, with nothing downloaded. When I checked on it, I found that an update had been trying to download every day for over a week, and failing. I guess the moral is that if you use Auto Update, you still need to pay attention to it.

On MajorGeeks (where they offer downloads of many registry cleaners, including Registry Mechanic) support forum, I have seen several threads discussing which is the best registry cleaner. No one there thought Registry Mechanic was the best. I would say that it's the most overpriced, however. If you want to pay for one, RegSupreme Pro was highly recommended (and quite a bit cheaper). I go with freeware myself, I use EasyCleaner. I don't guarantee that it's the best, but in combination with CCleaner I think it does a pretty good job. JV 16 Power Tools RegCleaner is claimed to be really good, but I didn't find it that easy to use when I tried it.

When you delete a file, the unused reference to that file extension is removed by CCleaner. It has no effect on other files with that extension. When a file with a given extension is installed, a file association will be created.

It would help if you'd supply a lot more information, like what operating sytem, e-mail, and browser you use. There was a known bug if you have Firefox and run CCleaner with the browser open. This would mess up the browser cache and cause symptoms like you describe. It could be corrected by clearing the Firefox cache. This problem is fixed in the latest version of CCleaner, however. What version are you running?

Read the Beginner's Guide in the CCleaner Discussion forum, it has an explanation of what the various options do. The EasyCleaner registry cleaner seems to be very safe, I wouldn't hesitate to run it. I've used it for a long time without any problems.

I use it, too. It's a good program, and quite easy to use (the name doesn't lie). Stay away from its "Duplicates" scan, though. The program itself gives a warning that only advanced users should run that, and with good reason. You can mess things up pretty badly with that if you don't know what you're doing.

That's why you need to clean the registry. If you don't, you can accumulate hundreds of obsolete entries. That adds up to a major slowdown. CCleaner will get most of them, though no cleaner can be relied on to get them all. A few stray entries aren't going to be a problem, anyway.

You're welcome. I might add that some others don't bother with the backups at all, but I think it's best to err on the side of caution.

It's up to you, keep them however long you think is necessary to be sure that deleting them from the registry did no harm. One experienced user here said he keeps them for a week. I keep them for a month, mostly for convenience; I label them with the date, and a quick glance at the numbers tells me which ones are a month old. I must say, though , that I've never needed to restore any of those backups.

Got the new version, sucessfully cleaned cache and history in Firefox 1.5 Beta 2 and Deer Park Alpha 2. Great job, MrG.

Try pressing F5 while viewing those pages in Firefox. This will reload the page from the net instead of viewing it from the cache.

Sounds like you've outdone yourself again, and then you say there may be more? Awesome.

You're welome. DeeBeeS. Boekanier, the basic Firefox browser uses tabs without any add-ons, extensions just add more options for using tabs. I don't use any tabbed browsing extensions myself, they seem to be somewhat problematic. I'm content with the normal tab options in the browser, anyway.

Will it clean the cache in Firefox 1.5?

Try uninstalling and re-installing CCleaner. It sounds like that crash damaged the program.

Uninstalling those programs does not delete everything, they are designed so they can be uninstalled and re-installed and retain user settings, extensions, themes and plug-ins. To remove them completely, you have to delete the installation folders in C:\Program Files. Also delete the Profile folders, location varies according to the program and your OS, see this page for help: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder I suggest you try out Firefox again after the upcoming release of the 1.5 version. I'm testing 1.5 Beta now, and it's a much improved version, though it still has some bugs to be worked out before it's ready for general release.

Not a bad idea, but it's not really what CCleaner is about. You should check out RegSeeker: http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm It has a keyword search function thats pretty close to what you were describing

Hardly seems worth worrying about, it's such a small download as it is. SpywareBlaster, your example, is 2.44 MB. It's a different kettle of fish anyway, a spyware program has to frequently update its definitions in order to stay ahead of the spyware writers. When they make changes to the basic program, though, you have to download a whole new version, just like you do with CCleaner.

I'm trying out the new Firefox version 1.5 Beta 1. It still has a few minor issues to be resolved, but it is fast! I wouldn't mess with Preloader, it's not worth the trouble it can cause.

Surprising that that bug took 4 years to fix, especially since cache location could be modified by the end user quite easily.

For that matter, have you checked out Tarun's new site? http://www.lunarsoft.net/

When I run CCleaner, I see 3 index.dat files marked for deletion (they are deleted at reboot). So it appears the answer is yes, all three are deleted. I've never had any problems from running CCleaner, so I'd say it's safe. Index.dat files don't do anything but pile up, so why would it hurt to delete them?

Locking that thread was, if anything, overdue. It had long since degenerated into pointless argument and name-calling.

Yes, the stuff under both the "Applications" and "Windows" tabs is all run when you click "Run Cleaner". CCleaner is a very safe program. With the default settings, I wouldn't worry about it deleting anything important. It is important to understand that any "Custom Folders" you select for cleaning will be completely emptied, I know that at least one user lost a lot of data because of not understanding that. Don't run CCleaner with Firefox open, though, this can result in corrupted cache entries. You'll see web pages without formatting if this happens. You have to clear the cache to fix it.

The Mozilla Firefox folks are on these guy's case now, too. See this page: Bug 306885 - Getfoxie.com contains "look and feel" of m.o https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=306885