Question Would You Dump CCleaner?

[accesscpu_]

I'm switching to Windows 11, debating on keeping CClearner or not. I've read mixed opinions on it. Some say it's snake oil and does more harm than good, others thing it's helpful to keep things running smooth for longer periods of times. I'm NOT someone who wants to reinstall Windows once a year, so I use backup images made from the previous month's setup.

My experience has been mixed. Sometimes it seems to find and clear old registry entries that RevoUninstaller Pro claims to take care of, other times it breaks minor things (like my quick launch icons, and stuff that isn't critical, but annoying to put back).

What's everyone's thoughts? I want longevity from my Windows install, so I'm for anything keeping it running as smooth as possible. But I don't wanna waste time, or break things needlessly.

 

[USAFRet]

What do you use it for?

I have it installed, but rarely crank it up. And the "Registry cleaner"? Never.

 

[Zerk2012]

I'm switching to Windows 11, debating on keeping CClearner or not. I've read mixed opinions on it. Some say it's snake oil and does more harm than good, others thing it's helpful to keep things running smooth for longer periods of times. I'm NOT someone who wants to reinstall Windows once a year, so I use backup images made from the previous month's setup.

My experience has been mixed. Sometimes it seems to find and clear old registry entries that RevoUninstaller Pro claims to take care of, other times it breaks minor things (like my quick launch icons, and stuff that isn't critical, but annoying to put back).

What's everyone's thoughts? I want longevity from my Windows install, so I'm for anything keeping it running as smooth as possible. But I don't wanna waste time, or break things needlessly.

Never had anything like that installed on my PC. I see no use for it.

 

[USAFRet]

And looking just now, I don't have it installed on this 2 year old system.
So I was mistaken about the above 'rarely'. Change that to "never".

 

[gardenman]

I use CCleaner for many purposes.

Custom Clean - Removes a GB or so from my system before I do a backup. This saves space on my backup drives, and saves on wear/tear of the disks. You wouldn't believe the junk left behind by apps such as Malwarebytes, and obviously any web browser.

Registry cleaner - I don't use this much and it's really not necessary anyway. You don't save much disk space, or speed your PC up with this.

Tools / Uninstall - I've used it a few times to remove an entry from the installed programs list, if for example the program itself has already been removed.

Tools / Startup - I use this for a quick view of some of the startup things that I rarely look at, such as the scheduled tasks and context menu items.

Tools / Browser plugins - It's useful.

Tools / System Restore - I use to remove older restore points.

Options / Cookies - Good for manually seeing each of the cookies on your system and provides a quick way to delete them.

It's up to you. If you use it and gain something by it's use, then keep it. The registry cleaner really isn't necessary. The file cleanup is it's best feature in my opinion. Having the ability to add custom files to that list is very useful. Knowing how to use it properly is important here.

 

[stonecarver]

If it was not for when it sneaked some malicious stuff in 2018 ish " But now fixed " I might still use it now and then.

Never went back. YMMV

 

[COLGeek]

I dumped years ago. I have missed nothing it offered.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Used to use it frequently but really since the days of ssds for the most part the computers are fast enough without it imo.

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

I have been using it for years to keep my browsing safe, I whitelist the cookies for all the websites i use, so passwords and settings are all kept, and then after i have been browsing for a while i close the browser and right-click the trash bin and do a click run ccleaner, and then any unwanted cookies or malware are gone.

 

[BFG-9000]

It's been a couple years since Norton bought Avast and thus CCleaner, leading to the free version pushing ads and spam. And also a couple years since Microsoft came out with their own version, which doesn't really do all the same things.

I don't understand the longevity thing because I have a system that has been only upgrade-installed since XP64 and will ride its XP-Vista-7-8-8.1-10 upgraded install until end of Windows 10 support. It's currently quadruple-boot and can boot Windows 11 too, but that was a clean install (and sadly will go out of support only a month after the end of Windows 10 because it lacks POPCNT so won't be able to run Windows 11 24H2). Every time I've used CCleaner something has eventually broken making me reimage back to how it was before, so now I just leave the old registry entries from things I uninstalled 20 years ago since, as the video suggests, they don't seem to hurt anything.

 

[diapolical]

I used it to update my drivers .... it erased my sound card driver in the prrocess and eventough I reinstaled it outside the program I am still having problems (sometimes the sound card it not recognized at start up and so there is no sound)
I never had any problem with it cleaning the registry tough

 

[Ralston18]

Not used for years. Never used the Registry cleaner.

 

[BrickStation]

I've used CCleaner once or twice, but I never found much use for it. I haven't installed it in years. It seems like it does what's advertised, though many people don't like it.

I mostly use Speccy by CCleaner and Recuva now and then. However, Speccy sometimes has incorrect information on certain things.

 

[accesscpu_]

Full disclosure...I'm just remembering an issue I recently had with a corrupt Windows 10 user profile (that was unrecoverable). Had to setup a new one and lost a lot of system stuff (super annoying). And this was in/around the time I was running CCleaner scans.

I didn't consider it at the time, but possibly related?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

cHECK out Microsoft PC Manager
https://pcmanager.microsoft.com/en-us

 

[gamerk316]

CCleaner was useful in the XP days at cleaning up all the junk Windows left hanging around, and occasionally using the Registry Cleaner to clean up/fix unassigned registry keys. But since Norton purchased it and made it an add filled mess I haven't touched it, and in general Windows is *much* better cleaning up after itself.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I'm switching to Windows 11, debating on keeping CClearner or not. I've read mixed opinions on it. Some say it's snake oil and does more harm than good, others thing it's helpful to keep things running smooth for longer periods of times. I'm NOT someone who wants to reinstall Windows once a year, so I use backup images made from the previous month's setup.

It has the potential to do more harm than good, depending on what was selected and if you really intended for it to clean up that part or not.

Windows has a decent enough tool to do the job (Disk Cleanup), and at some point Microsoft automated this in Windows 11. It'll take care of most of what CCleaner would've done anyway.

My experience has been mixed. Sometimes it seems to find and clear old registry entries that RevoUninstaller Pro claims to take care of, other times it breaks minor things (like my quick launch icons, and stuff that isn't critical, but annoying to put back).

I don't find the registry cleaner part to be of any value. Having old or useless entries just takes up drive space, and even then those are pretty small (the registry entries just for my Windows account is <10MB). Cleaning it up doesn't really speed things up in a practical sense either, since it's typically meant for application configuration, so it should only be read a handful of times at most throughout the app's lifetime.

What's everyone's thoughts? I want longevity from my Windows install, so I'm for anything keeping it running as smooth as possible. But I don't wanna waste time, or break things needlessly.

Don't install anything extra unless it actually provides a useful benefit that the native Windows tools can't do as well or at all.

In this instance, I don't have CCleaner installed because Windows's built-in tools do the job just fine, and anything extra CCleaner provides doesn't, at least in my experience, provide any practical benefit.

But I do have an app called WinDirStat installed, because Windows doesn't provide the functionality of showing files by size in a visual diagram. I also have 7-Zip installed because I find it performs file archive functionality better than what Windows provides. I have about 11 third party apps that I always install, but in reality, I could live with fewer than that.