That is entirely misleading padding, wasting space.
It gives the impression you are concerned with protection.
Elsewhere your concern is simply to have an editor that gives you control.
Wrong - I only care about being able to remove worthless hosts file junk period. I just mentioned that program because CCleaner does not have a hosts cleaner, & it is much easier to launch that program, than manually browse to the etc folder for the hosts file, open it in notepad since it does not have an extension, so you have to right click-open with. No, i do NOT want to set it on always open with, as that can cause problems! I also stated that while it does have the hosts checker, I simply do not care for that, & I only want a hosts cleaner.
One of us is remembering this thread wrongly, <---- that much is apparent. How long did it take you to figure out how badly you mangled things? and it has become too long for me to re-read, <---- It wouldn't be that long, it you would stop writing books of data.
but I do not think you said anything about an installer that was a few MB until AFTER I reported that your apparent needs were met by Norman Cleaner. <--- Normal Cleaner is something I tested in time past, but after scanning over 400,000 known good files on a backup I have on an external drive, I concluded that it had much too high of a false positive rate & is therefore useless to me. I concluded the opposite of you, & that is it does not meet my apparent needs because falsely labeling good programs bad when other programs do not do that, is too much of a hassle to waste my time on.
What has System Restore Point cleaning to do with the subject in hand ? <--- Apparently nothing. You don't take examples well?
What is the relevance of my history as a designer of real-time embedded computer systems,
which using only 25% of the total 64 Kilo-Byte address space of an 8 bit microprocessor,
provided real-time protection against Fire and Intruders for Nuclear submarine bases, Military Aircraft bases, and commercial shopping malls. <--- the military is that advanced?
Yes, I am pleased that within one KB I can create useful procedures for which Microsoft would need 1 MB.
I cannot however remember opposing R.P. cleaning for an increase in a few KB of code. <--- Although, I wouldn't put it past you to.
I do not think you will find any such statement, because it is unlikely I would have known how many KB it would take.
If you search you will find I opposed this in two posts in this thread :-
http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showto...0Point&st=0
This thread started with a request to Remove Restore points,
and was needed because
"if there is a malfunction in the Windows Clock then system restore points disappear from the restore tool even though they exist.
And the default Windows Cleanup utility does NOT delete them........................"
A follow-up was
"If Windows inbuild cleanup utility can delete the restore points.....why can't CCleaner can? " <--- Makes it easier for me. Sometimes you can barely get things to load. Ever tried to do anything on a comp with nearly all the free space used? I had to work with a system that was crashing, which after CCleaning it, was 10 GB free. CCleaner is just faster. Period. Which is why I do it in the first place.
My first response was to the effect that if M.$. cannot clean their own restore points,
what hope has a third party developer of doing so,
especially since M.$ have a history of not releasing information upon how their stuff is supposed to work. <--- Really? Did you also know that files are still on the hard drive & can be recovered later? Not just system restore points? That is why they make Recuva. There are other tools that scan deeper & do other functions such as lifting passwords off password protected accounts. I wish I could learn to be as smart as you one day... Sigh... Will you teach me?
My second post described how confused M.$ are about any sort of distinction between System files to be preserved, and User Documents to be excluded.
I used an R.P. and it stalled, not knowing which version of a Firefox cache to use.
There was an old one in the R.P., and a new one on the P.C. just before I tried to revert.
It called them something like "cache" and "cache(2)", with a tediously long path.
I was very annoyed that there was no facility to save the error message to text,
nor to launch a screen snapshot. <--- print sceen key works. Just CTRL + V to paste it into windows paint. Start/run/mspaint
I was horrified that after completion none of the event logs gave any information upon this problem,
not even a clue of the "tediously long path" which I had failed to write with pencil on paper.
I concluded with rants :-
In this modern internet broadband era, if computers require pencil and paper we might as well go back to the "good old days" when we communicated with quill pens - or for speed we went to the railway station for a clerk to punch it into a telex machine !!!
This is how System Restore creates spurious (2) files, and there are no clues available to guide the user in which to keep.
This demonstrates that System Restore has admirable intentions, but less than competent execution.
If M.$. cannot fix it, what hope has anyone else. <--- I usually have no problems with restore points. I leave it disabled unless I need them for testing files & system recovery.
If CCleaner should have a go at it I think these forums will be overloaded with requests for help from people who gave it a go". <--- Some people still don't know how to click the clean button on CCleaner. What makes you think anything will change that?
I confess that the forums have survived any overload, but think some people have hit problems. <--- A lot of them have
You do not know the dangers.
If "antivirus, antimalware," are much quicker, that is because they are ignoring the dangers. <--- Not necessarily. The skip the junk removed. Running CCleaner first removes junk so they don't have to scan through it. I am well aware they could still be recovered, but why bother?
Perhaps they do not see what you do not see - that removed R.P.s are still present with every virus intact. <--- I am sure they could if they wanted them to, but there is no need to once you disable all system restore points via MS restore control.
Defragging will be faster, but every defraggler shift and shuffle may be processing unseen viruses with official M.$. "API's that conform to official M.$ standards, which means everything is either not secure now, or will have its security jeopardised by a future "out-of-cycle" security update for some other problem. <--- There is no uncompromisable machine. I have seen compromised win 95/98/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7 machines. If they patch the mem, someone else can patch in higher system mem, etc etc. Knowledge wars. As security experts grow in knowledge, so do criminals. One triumphs one day, the next time the other does. This has been going on for so many years, & I have yet to see a clear winner yet. Just when you think it is uncrackable, it is on the web & cracked in a few weeks later.
I accept that on my machine an R.P may be 58 MB and take 28 MB of "size on disk",
so if I ever accumulate 60 of them there may be 3.5 GB compressed to 1.7 GB "size on disk".
Now all of that will be removed "the windows way".
Much of (BUT NOT ALL) will be removed via CCleaner's tool.
Every virus that went into a restore point can still be there, <--- If the malware is totally removed with restore points totally disabled, you wont have this problem. I'd love to see you sys restore deleted restore points after they have been wiped.
You are so wrong. Do not trust the label on the can ! ! !
I find it just as easy to purge all but the latest R.P. by "the windows way". <--- It is easy. Maybe not for you though...
Many are not aware that CCleaner ONLY removes the registry hives. <--- I am
The deleted/modified file "backups" are preserved because they are essential for any restoration to an earlier undeleted R.P.
On a "normal" R.P. the registry hive is the largest part,
but when M.$. do a Patch Tuesday or the regular "out of cycle" update and I.E. etc is re-installed,
then the "file backups" are much larger than the registry hives. <--- For every patch MS uses, it introduces many more backdoor opportunities, slows a system up, sometimes BSOD a system, & also installs Windows Genuine Advantage. All of which are very good reasons NOT to use an update, aside from a Service Pack, & aside from AV protection, firewall, etc. Not bragging, but my XP machine is fast, stable, & hasn't crashed in years. When did yours crash last? A week ago? cool!
There is a significant security risk.
I have seen in malware fighting forums recommendations to delete R.P. because when an infected *.exe is removed, it may be automatically preserved in the R.P.
Some malware scanners will actually scan the R.P. looking for such things.
Such things ARE HISTORY when R.P.s are purged via Disc Cleanup. <--- That is why I always purge them so it is left in the clean state
Every one of those things are fully preserved when CCleaner PRUNES the registry hives from the R.P.s
It is conceivable (at least to me) that a malware scanner that is supposed to scan a R.P. may fail to look at a R.P. that "appears" to have been removed. <--- I am aware of that & have been for years. I am assuming you just found out a few months back.
I do not know if or how a virus in the "removed" R.P. can be activated,
but who knew that a WORD *.DOC or an Adobe.PDF would carry a plague.
I do believe that many "defraggers" and "disc image backups" claim to be safe because they use official M.$. APIs to interact with the system files etc. <--- Obviously
Why should we trust these APIs to be any more secure than the APIs involved in *.DOC and *.PDF ? <--- I assume future attacks will be much more sophisticated? But did you know? You can never know when your going to die either, so why not worry about that as well?
If the clowns that issued patches to stop Flash drives from running an auto.inf had to follow up with further attempts,
and those clowns created security vulnerabilities in the API's etc. which cause infection from *.DOC and *.PDF files,
should we really expect anything better from the API's etc. involved in defragging and Shadow Volme Copying etc. <--- No-one ever accused MS of being perfect.
Originally I did not see how old R.P. could be used when intervening R.P. have been removed.
I have since inspected and found they are NOT removed, but pruned
You will find a complete discussion of my findings, with screen shots, in my second post of
http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showto...l=Restore+Point <--- Wow!
Sorry - I was distracted by that straw man
I will try to resist the straw men of start-up list removers, registry cleaning, etc.
- back on topic ! ! <--- Well.... Ok.... Guess you have the power to? Who knows?
Why do you keep saying that ? Are you afraid it is dangerous ?
I do not remember warning of any such danger. <--- It is an example, after all, just meant to make you think. Not that I am really afraid. I am not afraid of anything.
I have just searched this thread for "danger" and the only warning given was by Ident
"Building a car for your self to drive on the roads is dangerous if you do not know what you are doing." <--- You had to search to know that?
Wrong again. You do not know me. <--- Perhaps... But, I do learn a lot from the way you talk.
Until 2 hours ago I never bothered to even look at the hosts file.
I can now report it commences with
# Copyright ? 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
and after various further comments has one blank line followed by only one default entry :-
127.0.0.1 localhost <--- Well, usually not on my machine, but on others that I have to clean off is when I have to scan the hosts file. Lucky you. No problems, eh? I hope they only put features you want into it, because everyone else is just hot air!
In a previous post I asked
"How would you expect CCleaner to detect a malware addition to the hosts file ?"
There was no answer. <--- Because that was a dumb question... Having the ability to remove hosts entries would be no different from disabling startup entries. You don't NEED a scanner to remove hosts file entries. In fact, it does no harm at all to remove them all & leave the windows default. I assumed you would be smart enough to realize that on your own. So since you didn't, I will tell you now. You don't need a scanner to remove hosts file entries.
Should I assume that all you NOW require is that CCleaner protect the " default windows entry",
which seems to me to be simply
127.0.0.1 localhost <--- Brilliant! (Clap! Clap!)
You know nothing about me or my garbage. <--- true. But you did mention acronis backups. There is a free util that can do backups without having to use bloatware like acronis.
Just because my hosts file is 734 bytes long, and I could edit away 700 bytes of comment,
is evidence that I have better things to do with my life, and NOT that I hoard GB of garbage. <--- How many byes are over 35,000 entries in a block list? Not everyone has a system as clean as yours. I am sure you CClean a few hundred MB away, but I have had to work on machines that had GB to remove. Do you ever think of anyone besides you?
N.B. I keep a look out for and zap x64 folders. 64 bit installation files have no business on my 32 bit machine. <--- Most of the time, that is correct. Sometimes you run into programs that are coded for X64 + 32 bit, so if you zap away anything with 64 bit support in the title, you could be zapping away an app that also is for 32 bit.
Incidentally, I do not bother with the Hosts file because I am more than satisfied with my Comodo Security System,
On top of which I can always easily restore a clean Acronis image of how things used to be,
but in practice I only use the Acronis restoration when a M.$ security update "did me wrong". <--- Gee, how many hours does that take? 30 min? 2 hours? 5? Sounds like a lot of time to me. Some of us are too busy to waste time with things like that when there are better backup options.
In 7 years this P.C. has not had one infection, and I think there have been less than 5 occasions when my protection blocked a genuine threat - there have of course been many more false positives, but that is O.K. <--- You work with more than 5 applications, right?
My security is in general quite automatic.
My only "manual" involvements are :-
Wait a few days after a security patches and search for consequent BSOD's;
Choose what patches I will allow; <--- BSOD are annoying, your right about that. Glad I don't have updates on.
Purge all junk from the system to minimise time taken for an Acronis image "just in case"
Switch "Automatic Updates" from Turned Off to "Notify but dont auto download"
Then individually choose what I want, and reject out of hand their dirty tricks,
such as dumping Silverlight on me, or polluting Firefox with Active X vulnerabilities, or .NET Framework horrors.
Once downloaded I turn of the updates, and then install and reboot as required, <--- Yes, yes, yes. Again, easily avoidable. Just turn updates off.
On normal days my special "keep safe and tidy" is to always shutdown with CCleaner in Auto shutdown mode,
and CCleaner purges the software downloads folder before the shutdown. <--- I used 3rd party when possible. MS is crap.
M.$ have surprised system administrators in the past when M.$ decided they knew best,
and that they had to install a patch to give them more authority to take over the machine for future updates,
and hey presto - some little glitch in the UN-authorised patch and whole system networks went down.
I know that M.$ can disregard my "Turned off" flag any time they choose,
but then they are likely to do the dirty (blamed upon network congestion etc.) of silently downloading,
and the actual installation comes as a surprise upon shut down. <--- This is why I never let MS "downdates" install. They also install with no uninstallers for things like WGA, so although I can remove them, what about others who cannot?
Every day when I shut down I have a cosy feeling as CCleaner first purges anything that they have downloaded ! ! <--- Best thing you said all day. CCleaner is good. Amen to that!
Regards
Don