True CCleaner is great without this feature, but consider this.
CCleaner, according to its own frontpage description, has as a main feature the ability to remove your internet and viewing history. So CCleaner is a tool to do this. It specifically targets those types of files and removes or cleans them.
Eraser, and other similar programs, are designed to securely delete files and slack space. All of these stand-alone DOD compliant file erasers either erase a file you have specifically asked it to, or can spend hours cleaning the slack space, which is an all or nothing process.
All of this means if I want to completely and irrevocably delete my internet history, I have to first have CCleaner target what it knows to be the log files and delete them, and then run Eraser to wipe out all of the free space on the HD which will include the files CCleaner deleted. Now this process would work fine, but its much more effective to build that into CCleaner since CCleaner could specifically wipe only the required files as it moves along thus reducing the time to wipe from a few hours (on say an 80gig hd at 30% capacity) to a minute or less. I'd also make an assumption that "most" people who are interested in secure delete have "only" an interest in wiping out exactly what CCleaner cleans. The exception would be persons who are selling/giving away a used HD, or who have a whole bunch of something they want wiped out.
The reason we haven't seen this feature yet, I'd imagine, is that its insanely complicated and anyone who says anything different is either naive or misinformed. True, its simple enough to overwrite a file a few times, but even that is no real protection. The majority of the work goes into writing the pseudo-random data generators and having god-like knowledge of FAT or NTFS (since CCleaner is only for Win systems). For instance, if CCleaner were to only modify a file, say an index file or something, and not delete it, you?d have to record that file?s full FAT chain list prior to modification, write out your changes, and then traverse the recorded chain seeing what sectors have now been freed and securely erase those, or overwrite the original full-size file with random garbage multiple times before laying out the new smaller version. Either way it?s a pain. That?s why I recommended using the Eraser library because its mature and has the though parts already done.
Maybe MrG would consider putting this project up on SourceForge or the ilk and allowing a few other developers to add some of the functionality people request. I know I?d be willing to volunteer.
