CCleaner options

[flashrtp]

Does CCleaner acutally remove forever all items clean so that they never can be traced?

[anonymous_user]

Not by default. You have to set it yourself:

 

[Keithuk]

Welcome to Piriform flashrtp.

 

Well this is something I haven't bothered to try out. Open CCleaner and click on Options - Settings. You see Secure Deletion at the bottom with two checkboxes saying Normal file deletion (Faster) and Secure file deletion (Slow), select which method you want to use. Put some old waste files in Documents and Settings\yourusername\Local Settings\Temp folder. Do a clean if you don't already use Recuva download it and install it.

 

Run a scan to see what files have been deleted. Have your files you put in the Temp folder been seen? If so then put some more files in there and select Secure file deletion (Slow) in Options, do another cleaner and check Recuva to see if these files are still recoverable again.

 

You just beat me to it anonymous_user.

[Augeas]

Does CCleaner acutally remove forever all items clean so that they never can be traced?

Any file overwritten by CC using the secure delete option will remain on the disk but the contents will be zeroes (1 overwrite) or random data. The original content of the file cannot be recovered. The name will be changed to some variant of ZZZZZZ.ZZZZ.

 

CC will delete the items you specify to be deleted, but this does not necessarily mean that all items will be cleaned. Some index.dat files are deleted and not overwritten due to the nature of the O/S, and I'm sure that there are many nooks and crannies where Windows keeps a trace of your activity. But, with the correct options, CC will clean your items so that they cannot be readily traced by the average pc user.