Today, almost every Windows user should have heard at least something about CCleaner. It is recommended by a lot of people both on the Internet and just in conversation. Some users claim that CCleaner does some incredible miracles with the PC, others – it does absolutely nothing. However, let’s answer a rather popular question: is CCleaner needed on a PC at all?
CCleaner is a steroid-based Disk Cleanup
CCleaner serves two purposes. First, it scans and removes useless files, freeing up space on the user’s computer. Secondly, it erases personal data, for example, your browsing history and lists of recently opened files in various programs.
To some extent, CCleaner is a Disk Cleanup system application that can free up disk space by deleting useless files such as old temporary program files, Internet Explorer temporary files, Windows error logs, etc. You can run this utility at any time and free up some space on your disk.
CCleaner can do all of this and more. It contains the concept of a Disk Cleanup utility, but it grabs more Windows data and third-party software that Disk Cleanup cannot reach. For example, it can clear cache files for browsers like Chrome and Firefox, or remove unnecessary Nvidia graphics driver installation files that can take up several hundred megabytes of disk space.
Just select the data types to delete, click on the Analyze button and watch CCleaner select the files to delete. If you are satisfied with the result of his work, then click on the “Cleanup” button and delete all those selected by the utility. CCleaner will remember your choices for the future, so next time you can simply open the program window and immediately click on the “Clear” button.
CCleaner also removes personal files
CCleaner also has another purpose: it will delete your personal files. For example, CCleaner will delete browsing history, cookies and cache files from any browser installed on your PC (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Opera). It goes even further than that by deleting Flash Player-generated cookies. It will be able to remove potentially risky data such as the list of names of recently opened files in Microsoft Word, Adobe Reader, Windows Media Player, VLC player and other common applications running on Windows.
All of this can be customized, but CCleaner is configured to remove the above data by default. CCleaner not only quickly gets rid of useless temporary files, but also works on the principle of the “Delete my history” function, which removes all your data from the browser. Of course, CCleaner cannot know about all the programs you are using, so sometimes you cannot achieve perfect results.
Do you need CCleaner?
CCleaner can definitely be useful, but it’s not something you can’t do without. There are several reasons for this.
Deleting cache files will slow down your browsing experience and will still come back later
You can use CCleaner all the time by running it every day with default settings. However, in reality, this step will slow down your computer. The thing is that CCleaner is set to delete the browser cache by default.
Cache files are the pieces of web pages (images, scripts, page styles, HTML files, and more) that your browser clings to. For example, when you visit any site on the web, the browser will load an image from the site’s header. Then it will save this image to a cache file. When you wander through the pages of the selected site, your browser will no longer have to reload the image from the header, as it will simply load it from the local cache. Your web browser does this all the time with all web pages and this process speeds up its work, since it does not have to download the same files over and over again.
However, if you constantly clear the browser cache, it will have to reload data without stopping. This means that this step is not a good idea in terms of performance. Huge cache heaps are bad, but no better without them.
More reasonably, the cache can be a source of privacy concerns. Someone with access to your computer can view your browser cache files to see the sites you visit. Just like viewing History. It is because of this that browsers do not save cache files while working in Privacy mode. However, if someone unfamiliar to you has access to your computer, then the cache is not something worth worrying about so much, because you have more serious problems.
CCleaner is not the best solution for cleaning full discs
Once upon a time, when hard drives were small and computers were much slower, cleaning your hard drive could improve performance, and not badly enough. But nowadays, you don’t need a huge amount of disk space to keep your computer performing.
Although CCleaner may occasionally find some files that take up a huge amount of space (Nvidia driver installation files), most of these files are cache files that will be automatically deleted by the system … and then recreated, which is quite normal for the cache …
As a result, using CCleaner to free up space is not a good idea. If you are really running out of disk space so badly that you have decided to turn to software like CCleaner, then we recommend that you consider replacing the disk or deleting personal files such as music, movies or games.
CCleaner contains not the most useful tools
Besides the disk cleaning functions, CCleaner contains other tools. For example, he knows how to create a list of installed programs. However, this can also be done using system analogs. Other tools can pose a threat to the system – for example, the built-in tool for cleaning the Windows Registry in CCleaner can in some cases damage some entries, which leads to very unpleasant consequences.
CCleaner also contains an uninstaller (does the same thing as a system utility), a boot manager (presents the functions available in the classic Windows Task Manager) and an interface for System Restore (again, this functionality can already be found in the Windows operating system ).
CCleaner has several useful tools, but all of them can be found in other third-party software, which will be much more functional. You may and will need it from time to time, but this is not a reason to install CCleaner on your computer.
If you will be using CCleaner, do it wisely
We are not claiming that CCleaner is malware of any kind. It has its own purpose, which it will successfully fulfill, but only in very specific cases. But as of today, you probably won’t be using it regularly. But if you have it installed, use it, but be careful not to cause trouble.
Instead of just running the cleanup process with the default settings, take some time and choose the file types you really want to delete. In CCleaner, you will find two sections: Applications and Windows. It’s not hard to guess what is responsible for what. Especially remove your browser from the file deletion lists unless you want CCleaner to permanently delete the cache. About deleting cookies: if you want to keep all your logins and passwords remembered by the browser with you, do not forget to remove them from the deletion lists.
We also strongly recommend that you stay away from the Windows Registry cleaning tool. More often than not, he does not solve problems, but creates them. You can use the rest of the tools at your discretion, but, again, specialized software will cope much better with its tasks than appendages in CCleaner.