Like Kingsoft and Glary Utilities, the reviews have been generally very good for CCleaner, but one that caught my eye, sadly not positive states that it messed up her system.
There are so many of these around, another is Wise:
Again, good reviews overall but one or more negative, as with other products.
From what I gather, reviews can be based upon genuine observations of products, but in other cases, some posters, irrespective of the above, can have a dislike to a piece of software and give biased negative reviews. As such, it’s not always easy to tell which reviews are accurate, just as, equally, reviewers could give a positive observation for useless software.
Diverting briefly to Glary Utilities, while a small number of options currently don’t work (might do in the new update), I can certainly vouch for this one that it hasn’t messed up my registry in any way. Like probably most products, possibly Kingsoft PC Doctor also (not originally), this has a Registry Back-Up option. These options tend to be manual (as in this case) or automatic, depending on the program.
Overall, the product looks brilliant, as highlighted in many reviews including most in the link, but I was just very concerned after I read another user’s experiences of the product. She followed the instructions, but for some reason, the clean trashed her system and System Restore showed no restore points to be able to revert her computer back to how it was before the clean.
IMO CCleaner is one of the simplest safest cleaners out there.
It is a mild cleaner with good registry backup options if used.
It mostly cleans what I would otherwise do manually, but a lot quicker.
No product will ever score 10 out of 10, but CCleaner would be as close as it gets IMO.
I would imagine the users machine that had issues was corrupt in some way before CCleaner.
Even if the remove restore points function is used, the most current restore point cannot be removed with CCleaner.
I have used CCleaner for along while on XP/Vista/Win7 and had zero issues. :-TU
Edit: I have moved this topic to the General Discussion section as CCleaner is not a security product.
With any product, you are always going to have the fringe reports of: “This product deleted my children! :o Avoid it at all costs!”.
That just comes with the territory of software development.
Now I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but it’s definitely not common behavior. With software development, it’s completely impossible to write software that is 100% compatible with every single computer configuration out there. There are just far too many variables! While most users will not experience any odd behavior, chances are pretty good that there’s a guy with a setup that will cause the software to take a bite out of his calf muscle. This is why most EULA’s contain a clause that says something like, if this software causes your computer to sink through the Earth’s crust, we’re not liable.
If you’re reading product reviews that are 99% positive, (Preferably with lots of reviewers. A glowing review from a single user does not inspire confidence!) you need to throw out the outliers and just cross your fingers that you’re not one of the rare people that have an issue.
Having two positive reviews from each of you in this thread and generally positive reviews on independent sites, both review and forum sites, I will give CCleaner a go.
If there is anything I should watch out for that puts my computer at high risk, please let me know. It looks likely that what you’ve said about the user’s computer was the cause, rather than CCleaner itself. It was just rather alarming to see what had happened to her computer.
I’m very happy to use all elements of the program, provided I don’t put my computer’s registry at risk. I’ve used Glary’s registry cleaning program with no problems, but whether that’s luck, I don’t know, but CCleaner is certainly one of the most popular software programs around, like Glary, Kingsoft and Comodo.
PS: Thanks for moving this to the correct section. Sometimes I’m not always sure which section to place messages in. Same with my Kingsoft post.
There is one thing you should be aware of. There is a file you can download for use with CCleaner called Winapp2.ini. It adds more directories and things that can be cleaned with CCleaner. You should be careful with this file if you choose to try it. The first time I used it I added “Steam” and I briefly looked through the file list and figured it was probably browser cache and it mostly was. It was also a little bit of save data. It wasn’t a catastrophic loss, but something that should never be in a cleaning utility.
I would use extreme caution selecting files to delete with the Duplicate File Finder, this is a new addition to CCleaner. Do not select to delete any duplicates without being certain that the duplicates are not required.
Self created documents accidentally duplicated would be safe to delete.
Other duplicates could be required for system backups or individual programs backups.
Another example of required duplicates: If you have an installed program and the same program as a portable in a folder it will find files as duplicates.
PS: Thanks for moving this to the correct section. Sometimes I'm not always sure which section to place messages in. Same with my Kingsoft post.
There’s Ccleaner Enhancer that is similar (I assume - or is it the same thing?). Trouble is, it causes Ccleaner to need 12 - 15 seconds before “Analyze” becomes live.
One trick that I use is to tick the obvious, mainly IE-related, boxes and run Analyze. If those results are OK I run the cleaner.
After this, I tick one box at once, run Analyze and see what I get, then untick that box and tick another. Takes some time, but eventually I learn what can be left ticked and what might be inconvenient/dangerous.
That’s the thing with reviews, people vary on their observations, and even with many good reviews for a product, seeing one or more negative ones, especially when Registry related, can thwart trust in a program.
However, saying that, a few of you are very happy CCleaner users, so I will definitely install it shortly.
When I first installed Glary, it found around 500 files to optionally delete. I am much more well up now than at that time on which files are safe to delete, and on reflection, most, if not all of them could have been deleted, but to play safe, I just deleted ones I knew to be safe. The others must have remained, as since then, the number of found files to optionally delete has come nowhere near 500, but I didn’t want to put my computer at risk. Glary also has a Back-Up facility, but luckily, nothing has gone wrong with my computer through using it.
It sounds more likely that the woman whose computer corrupted while using CCleaner had some sort of unknown incompatibility issue. Thankfully, she managed to salvage her computer, but a very pleasant thing to experience at the time.
I’ve read high praise reviews for CCleaner from several sites. The majority are very positive reviews.
When I install CCleaner, I’ll either delete all it recommends or just manually delete files that I know for sure are safe to delete, like I did originally when using Glary in the early days. It’s very reassuring that CCleaner also has a back-up facility.
CCleaner sounds really good from what you and others have said.
Besides comparing reviews over different sites including this one, I’ve also seen some screenshots. It’s very neat, and looking at the sections the Registry covers, they are on a similar par to those of Glary, which has never caused me any problems.
However, I did encounter a situation earlier with Glary where I used their File Shredder facility for the first time (I believe CCleaner also has this) to permanently delete files originally sent to the Recycle Bin, for the purpose of freeing up more space.
I was shocked to find that, upon refreshing “Computer”, which would normally increase the level of gigabytes upon clearing out junk after scans, that it was continuously Decreasing the GB upon each refresh. It got to a little over 6 GB (33% of the way through the scan) with a red text warning, so I quickly cancelled the Shredding. It’s not done any damage to my computer whatsoever, but I was concerned that, if it had reached 0 GB that my computer would become damaged or would temporarily not work, possibly no access to it or even the System Restore facility, which would revert it back safely.
Thanks for your warning about Winapp2.ini. This rings a bell. The concept of the software sounds very good, but I agree it’s best to exercise caution. I’m not sure what “Steam” is, but I’ll play safe and just stick with the main CCleaner program. Hopefully, in time, Winapp2.ini will be perfected so CCleaner users can use it without high risk.
“Desktop.ini” has appeared on my Desktop for some reason, which seems to be some kind of system file, as puzzled that it’s there, I tried to delete it and a prompt came up saying “Are you sure you want to delete this system file?”, so I left it where it is.
I’ll see if CCleaner has a forum. If it does, all going well, one or more of the members will have also found what you spotted and advise Piriform of the dangers.
CCleaner Enhancer also sounds very good. I’ll keep that one in mind and your tips.
Providing our registries are backed up, our computers should be fine.
Once the registry is backed up prior to each scan through CCleaner, how is the back-up then deleted?
I believe it’s safe to delete the complete Back-Ups of the registry if the original is intact, to avoid the computer having a duplicate that hogs up the memory, but if you or any others know, I’ll delete the back-up upon instructions.
CCleaner’s Analyze feature is a very good precaution. In this way, junk found is not automatically deleted but left to the discretion of the user for users’ peace of mind.
It sounds like Winapp2 and CCEnhancer are very good products, but that extra care is needed to use them, due to how deep they clean out junk. Probably the same for Kingsoft PC Doctor, as they, also have a very extensive level of cleaning.
Privazer and Shellbag Analyzer also sound very good products, but, again, I imagine they’d also be best used very carefully so as to not accidentally damage user’s computers.
