CCleaner suggestion

[joeljoel]

Great program... If you have not already, I would suggest that you look at EasyCleaner http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm for some additional items to clean. Each program finds a number of items to "clean" but each leaves a large number that the other finds.

[hazelnut]

It seems a strange thing to post saying ccleaner is a great program, and then recommend another one!

[TonyKlein]

LOL!

 

Well, EasyCleaner, just like for example jv16 PowerTools is basically a registry cleaner that addtionally does a number of things on the side.

 

CCleaner, on the other hand is a MRU cleaner that does a bit of registry cleaning on the side.

 

Aside from the fact that I've never really been a great fan of registry cleaners of any kind, I do get joeljoel's point...

[TwistedMetal]

I installed EasyCleaner and I will say this...

 

I don't like it and I don't recommend it.

 

#1. It doesn't clean much at all. Mainly just default Windows stuff. IE, Recently used, and so on.

#2. Another scan hard drive for useless files. Removes backups and so on. I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THAT!

#3. I let it scan the registry, I do not like the list it came up with. A few listings seems like it could possibly cause errors and some will just remake themselves (no point in cleaning).

#4. It's update with blacklists constantly. (That only doesn't sound good)

#5. It doesn't support skins (Only Windows Default)

[Andavari]

#1. It doesn't clean much at all. Mainly just default Windows stuff. IE, Recently used, and so on.

#2. Another scan hard drive for useless files. Removes backups and so on. I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THAT!

#3. I let it scan the registry, I do not like the list it came up with. A few listings seems like it could possibly cause errors and some will just remake themselves (no point in cleaning).

#4. It's update with blacklists constantly. (That only doesn't sound good)

#5. It doesn't support skins (Only Windows Default)

I'm a long time EasyCleaner user and still use it!

 

#1 It is playing it sort of safe, no sense in ruining a system.

#2 Removes what backups, such as those with the .bak extension? You do know filenames and whole folders can be excluded from being listed in the results screen of the Unnecessary Files scanner don't you such as: autoexec.bak, bookmarks.bak, "my music\license backup"

#3 The registry has an exclusion list (something that CCleaner needs), some of the defaults that need to be excluded are: ccleaner, layout.ini, ntevt.log, wbemsnmp.log, wmdm.log

#4 The blacklist is how it knows not to mess with things like removing Help from the registry, it's just the built-in exclusion list versus people having to manually type in things to exclude, it's registry cleaner is actually pretty safe to use so long as you know not to clean something it may list as invalid when it's not such as the CCleaner settings which can easily be added to the user exclusion list.

#5 Skins it doesn't support, however it can use a background colour such as a Windows wallpaper, etc., and since it doesn't have skins it does load fast. Albeit I think the big buttons it has are rather goofy looking which actually cause a problem on smaller monitors set with a resolution like 800x600.

[joeljoel]

hazelnut, next time try reading before you reply.

 

Andavari, i too am a long-time user of easycleaner ... it's a great program!

 

anyway, to all - my point is this - both programs are good/great - however since each leaves stuff behind (see tests below) it would make sense for one or the other to improve and close the gap:

 

TEST1:

I ran ccleaner on a machine, it found and removed 500meg of junk

Immediately after running it, i ran easycleaner on the same machine - it found an additional 367meg of junk (NOT REGISTRY ITEMS - JUNK FILES)

 

TEST2:

I ran easycleaner on a machine - it found and removed 1,200meg of junk files

Immediately after running it, i ran ccleaner on the same machine - it found an additional 125meg of junk files

[hazelnut]

hazelnut, next time try reading before you reply.

 

I did joeljoel, it was meant in a light hearted manner I assure you

[TonyKlein]

TEST1:

I ran ccleaner on a machine, it found and removed 500meg of junk

Immediately after running it, i ran easycleaner on the same machine - it found an additional 367meg of junk (NOT REGISTRY ITEMS - JUNK FILES)

 

There's junk and then there's junk...

 

What exactly were the files EasyCleaner removed, and does one really want or need them removed?

A log file of what exactly it was EC did would be useful...

 

The nice thing about CCleaner is that it is user configurable. In addition to what it removes by default, you can specify additional files/folders or registry keys you want CC to remove, and therefore it is hard to see how it could ever be outdated, at least for the forseeable future...

[Andavari]

Being a long time user of both EC and CC the main differences in junk files I think is:

* EC will check each and every folder for junk files like .bak, .tmp. Not necessarily the safest approach, however if you know what to exclude it's not even remotely a problem.

* CC only checks what's listed in it's .ini files, and is thus much safer out-of-the-box so to say because it won't accidentally remove something for example like Mozilla Firefox's bookmarks backup file "bookmarks.bak" simply because it doesn't look for it.

 

However like Tony stated CC is more-or-less future-proof (for Win32 OSes that is) being that with winapp2.ini and any text editor anyone can write cleaning routines for CC to clean just about damn near anything, including recursively scanning folders for .bak and .tmp files.

 

I'm however not in favour of one over the other because I honestly believe both are needed to more-or-less safely cleanse a system of junk files and invalid registry data.

 

hazelnut, next time try reading before you reply.

 

Hazelnut isn't a mean person at all. And I can gaurantee if you can't find something she'll be the one who gives you a link to it.