jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Watching Britec09 on YouTube last night6, he stressed the importance of using several disk cleaners because each one will miss some malware and catch others. A friend of his developed a freebee called "Killemall."
https://www.d7xtech.com/killemall/

He also used Malwarebytes, ADAware, Hit Man Pro, and one whose name I missed. In each case, the new program found malware after the previous ones had been run. He did all this on a virtual machine, as he always does with problems. I've run various clean-up programs, and they never find anything. I guess the bad guys don't like my computer.

I think Killemall looks for "non-essential" software, but I think it gives you a choice of deleting or keeping. Maybe you'll want to watch the video before you start cleaning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzMA3o3wZf4&t=776s

Jimmy T Loc: Virginia

Looks interesting, thanks for sharing.
JimmyT Sends

BebuLamar

Be carefull the cleaners may leave resisdue that is very hard to remove.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Yes, that is a concern. When a program is removed, bits are left behind. There are programs that supposedly remove that stuff.

BebuLamar

What I meant is that the cleaners were the ones that contaminate your disk. Many tend not to go away hoping you will pay them.

chikid68 Loc: Tennesse USA

I like the free version of CCleaner

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

If you look online, you'll find negative comments about CC. It was sold to another company that spies, etc.

Well, I have to take that back. A quick look online shows good reviews. Still, I did see several YouTubers mention negatives.

Well, maybe I have to take back my take-back.

"Spyware level extremely high" https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/ccleaner#:~:text=CCleaner%20is%20spyware%20that%20collects,information%2C%20like%20your%20physical%20location.

chikid68 Loc: Tennesse USA

True that it was bought out by Piriform and the latest version has a subscription based approach but the free version still works if you are willing to tolerate the nagging trying to get you to upgrade but it does have a decent registry cleaner

rlv567 Loc: Baguio City, Philippines

CCleaner was launched in 2004 (by Piriform). They also offer other tools - Defraggler, Recuva, Speccy, CCleaner Browser and CCleaner Cloud. Piriform was acquired in 2017 by Avast. I have experienced only minimal "nagging" from CCleaner and Malwarebytes. I just ignore it.

Loren - in Beautiful Baguio City

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

CC has been a Piriform product for at least as long as I've used it, about two decades.

bwa

BebuLamar

CCleaner was very bad for me. My PC slowed down and I called the helpdesk. The IT guy installed CCleaners to try to speed it up. After a long time trying it still doesn't speed up. I asked the IT guy to remove CCleaner and he couldn't. A lot of software lost the uninstall files so I can't uninstall them to install update. The IT guy isn't helping. I told my boss that I would report the PC as junk and take it out of the IT domain. Then I reformat the HDD. Reinstall windows and all the apps. It run a whole lot faster. I lose the ability to access their server but I don't care. I request a new PC to replace it and use it just to access files on the server and use their internet.

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

Jerry, I have listened to you bad mouth Logitech keyboards, Asus motherboards, CCleaner, and I don't remember what else right now. Asus is one of the best for motherboards, I have used Logitech components for longer than I can remember with no problems, ever, and I have used CCleaner the same amount of time and never had a problem with it. Right now I have the paid version and on some computers I have the free version. I do not use the auto parts of CCleaner though, and I clean the junk off of my computers every night, and believe me there is more junk left on your computer everyday than you would ever now. I will not let CCleaner update my drivers. When things stop working properly then I will check the actual manufacturer's to look for new drivers, and I have heard you say to never mess with the Registry. I let CCleaner clean my Registry and before anything is deleted I look to see what CCleaner wants to get rid of. I keep my computers clean and usually the only things that CCleaner wants to delete from the Registry is left over junk after Adobe automatically updates some of their software and I don't have trouble with the Registry but it does help if you know what you are doing. Now the people that bad mouth CCleaner are ones that don't know squat about it or their computers. When I buy CCleaner I always get the deal that lets you install it on at least 3 of your computers, so it really doesn't cost that much to keep computers clean. It is no wonder you have so many computer problems with all the different software you download and install, and then when you try to delete them because you found out so many of them are junk you are still leaving tons of junk on your hard drives and in your Registry. You do need to do a little more research before you give advice to others. All I use on all of my Computers is ESET Internet and online Banking Security, and CCleaner and they are all clean from virus's, trackers, bots, key loggers and anything else that people usually have trouble with.

Klickitatdave Loc: Seattle Washington

CCleaner was a good product in its day but then it was sold to another company who started including some ad/spyware in the installation of their free version. Many users immediately stopped using it and it subsequently obtained a bad reputation in the community. I for one felt that I could no longer trust the program and as a result have never gone back to using it. I was using the "Pro" version so I was not directly affected but it just didn't seem like it was worth the risk and it still doesn't. Even though it is claimed that they cleaned up their act who is to say that that they didn't just become more underhanded in hiding the adware? Don't know and I really don't care. "Fool me once shame on, we won't get fooled again" kind of thing.

Cleaning the registry, according to many sources (including Microsoft) does not really help your computer to run smoother or faster. I had never seen any difference in performance after a registry cleaning and for many who claim that it does the alleged results seemed more subjective than actual. I do have to say that CCleaner does a admirable job of cleaning up any temporary files but then again Windows 10 and 11 does this automatically as part of it's routine maintenance. If you are looking for a program that you can use to reduce your memory usage and
give you more control over deleting temporary files, Microsoft has provided us with a free option. It has recently released a utility program called PC Manager which although is currently in beta testing seems to do a good job and does not seem to be buggy. At least I have not encountered any issues since I started using it.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

Like you, I have never had a problem with CCleaner or any of the other products that Piriform sells; all work very well! Speccy runs all the time on my computer to keep track of CPU, motherboard, graphics and storage temperatures. Recuva has saved my bacon enumerable times when I've deleted something I shouldn't have. And Defraggler does an excellent job defragging my harddrives.

bwa

rlv567 Loc: Baguio City, Philippines

Exactly!!! And it's not only this where you see the same thing. It's Windows and much other software and hardware. If you know what you're doing, pay attention and exercise good practice and good sense, there VERY SELDOM is a problem. As I have said previously, Windows Defender is a recommended must for Windows users (a message just popped up here - Defender just ran a scan and found no problems! It very seldom does, but if it does, it notifies me and takes care of them). I have tried paid versions but found no need to pay for the type of software we have been discussing.

Loren - in Beautiful Baguio City