Useful software utilities for Windows: CCleaner

CCleaner is a software by Piriform. It is one of the easiest to use, "cleaning" tool available on Windows. The first C stands for Crap, just so you know what this program is meant to clean.

Ccleaner can be broken down into 3 main functions:
System Optimization
Cleaning
Privacy

In the following sections I'll write about each of those functions.

I consider this the most important function and I think CCleaner does it better than a lot of other software.

CCleaner's Registry Integrity tool is VERY handy and SAFE. It will scan your computer for unused or erroneous entry. Most of the time these entries are there because A LOT of windows software don't do a good enough job at uninstalling themselves. A good uninstall should take the related entries with it, but this is not a case for most software.

Now, unused or erroneous entries do nothing but slow down your computer. Some of the entries might even cause error message. Ever got a pop-up at startup saying "Cannot find _____"? That's because an erroneous entry is written for start up, and when your computer follows the entry and try to run something, it fails to find it. This type of entry will slow down your computer. It's not just start up, and sometimes it might not give a pop-up, so you don't even know there's a problem - except your computer is running slower.

Other functions that's considered as optimization tool is the Startup tool, Uninstall tool, and System Restore tool. These functions you can do with the build-in tool in Windows, but of course, CCleaner is faster at loading it. Also, you get to see everything in one place, instead of going to multiple places in Windows (not to mention finding them, if you don't use it frequently to know where they are exactly).

The Cleaning tool and Privacy protection really go hand-in-hand. Because CCleaner protects your privacy by cleaning them out.

The Cleaning tool can check multiple locations in your computer (customizable) and will analyze how much room you can save. This mainly includes the temporary internet files (which can be A LOT), temporary system files (also A LOT), and applications cache files. If you have never cleaned your temporary files, they can add up to several gigabytes of data, doing nothing but clogging the system up.

At the same time, if you have selected them, you can also clean out your browser cookies, history, recently typed URLs, download location, so other people who might go on your computer won't be able to log in using your saved passwords, or know what sites you've been visiting.

It supports many different browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Maxthon, SeaMonkey.. and many more.

I ran a clean up as I was typing, and it only took 171 seconds (My HD is 232 GB).

It can get rid of approximately 1,269.9MB, which is 1.2GB of useless stuff.

CCleaner is fast, useful and safe to use. If you're looking to clean up your HD but not sure where to start, or if you want to get rid of useless registry entries safely, or just to make your computer a little faster (don't we all?), you should definitely give CCleaner a try.