Best program to clean my PC

asvent said:
They kind of are. Think about it for just a half second. How many programs are there for Windows? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? More? How many of those will make changes to the registry? Probably virtually all of them. It's simply not plausible that any company, even Microsoft, could possibly keep track of every single possible change every single possible program might make. So that leaves using some kind of algorithmic means if one wants to "clean" the registry. Maybe I missed the memo, but I've never seen any developer of a registry cleaner come out and say here are the basic selection criteria we use. AV companies do this, providing rather detailed information on each virus their program detects and removes, showing how the company profiles the behavior of the program. Registry cleaner programs, to the best of my knowledge, use some secret sauce style method that they never elaborate on.
They kind of are??? That's like saying because Yugo is a car and because Yugos are unsafe cars, Volvos must be unsafe too because they also are cars! Not logical.

AV program makers do NOT reveal how their algorithms work.

So not only are we expected to trust some developer's word when all we have is a black box that could be doing anything.
Nah! Sorry, but you don't understand what a good Registry cleaner does. You don't need a database to figure out a setting in the registry points to an invalid location.

That would be nice but sticking your head in the sand does not make the problem go away. Registry cleaners are here, and Bing Google will find them. You cannot stick a bunch of candy in front of kids, leave the room, and tell them not to touch the candy and expect none will.

Driving a car is dangerous. Do we tell our kids to forget about driving? NO! We teach them the right way to drive. Same thing here.

Do you stop cooking because you failed to use a pot holder and got burned once? Do you NOT use a knife because it can cut you if used wrong?
Yeah right! 26,000 vs 7. No significant difference there. :rolleyes:

Wow! That is the unscrupulous behavior that gives honest techs a bad rap. :( I am glad you are no longer doing tech support.

And CCleaner has left a trail of destruction just like every other program that does similar things.
Not hardly. Exceptions don't make the rule. Are there exceptions? Sure. But when compared to the 10s, 100s of millions with no problems, they are minuscule.

CountMike said:
To be honest, it happened to already shmucked up windows but it did not do any good either.
RIGHT! So in other words, the product was used incorrectly then asvent and other pundits blame the product for not doing what it wasn't designed to do.

Registry cleaner haters are like the politicians whose party is not in power. They are totally against any solution that is not 100% perfect and will cite any and every minute exception as the perfect example why it is [supposedly] bad for every body instead of acknowledging the merits that are there or accepting that meeting somewhere in the middle is good for the majority.

I say this and then I am done because I don't like talking to walls - if you don't like CCleaner's registry cleaner, DON'T USE IT! But stop telling everybody CCleaner is bad when it is clear, for the vast majority of users, it is not.
well said ,thanks
 
Ever hear saying " To each his own "
Yes but debates are there to make your own conclusion out of them and i find them more useful than if everybody agrees to everything and they could be all wrong. Take a bit of this and a bit of that, try and see what fits you most.
 
Ever hear saying " To each his own "
Yes but debates are there to make your own conclusion out of them and i find them more useful than if everybody agrees to everything and they could be all wrong. Take a bit of this and a bit of that, try and see what fits you most.

True not against it, just thought getting little heated. Very informative. You mean best judgement. Also true i will ask someone who knows more then me if i am not sure, then i will make my own conclusion on what i will do.
 
they could be all wrong
True - but I would tend to believe those who have actually and extensively used the product instead of those who automatically bash it based on unsubstantiated rumors, 10 year old anectdotes, unrealistic comparisons, and downright falsehoods - and often without any personal experience.

If CCleaner was so bad, where's the evidence? Where are the white papers, studies, articles that shows it will break your computer? If CCleaner was so bad as some would like us to believe, why can't a real review site duplicate the problem at will? I provided a link to a recognized expert showing his results. Why can't others defend their position without lumping CCleaner in with all the others? Or without citing exceptions pretending the exceptions make the rule?

Debates are good. But when it comes to technical issues, opinions take a back seat to facts. And therefore, debaters need to have an open mind, accept that things change and what was may not be today.
 
I wouldn't say its "bad" but more like pointless on modern OS. It would be much better if MS would pool all the important maintenance parts in to one easy accessible tool.
 
I also have no problems using CCleaner. Haven't had any under '98, XP, 8, 8.1.
Cleaners come from a time where HDD space was few and OSs where fragile in stability. They could fix invalid registry entrys causing problems when programs were uninstalled, but they also could make a mess.
Nowadays they don't have the prime cause to free up desperately needed drive space than more for the main reason of cleaning usage history stuff, for privacy.
If it's all about freeing up space I'd recommend to use the built-in drive cleaning routines, especially cleaning system files can free up a few GB since unneeded update installers are removed, by the cost of the inability to uninstall Windows updates. If privacy is the issue I'd recommend using Privazer.com
 
I wouldn't say its "bad" but more like pointless on modern OS.
Pointless? You say that based on what? Clearly, you didn't bother to read Fred Langa's report. :(

If you have kept your computer basically the same as when you first bought it, then you likely will not benefit. But if you have installed and uninstalled several programs - in particular large productivity (Office type) suites, OS service patches, and deep seated security apps; and/or if you have swapped in and out various hardware devices - in particular graphics cards, sound cards and NICs, it is likely you have lots of bloat and orphaned entries in your Registry. While these likely will not affect performance once the computer has fully booted, they often and dramatically increase boot times. This can be alleviated with the regular use of a decent registry cleaner.

In fact, IMO, the more advanced you are as a computer user, and the more you tinker with various programs and hardware, the greater the "point" to use CCleaner.
 
Based on my experience, with my own computer and many other ones. Although not computer professional I have been exposed to, worked on, put together, repaired and did all kinds of other work way before the PC as we all know and even before it got it's name. Middle '70s at least, including automatic machines and controls for them including programing for CAM/CAD. Used DOS from the word go, same with every windows there ever were. Always had keen interest in HW and SW, tried used few hundreds of programs if not in thousands. Literary terabytes of programs and data went thru this HW I have now in last year or so with this system. The same disks are on my computer for at least a year and I have just checked their state.
defrag 1.jpg
Ccleaner i just installed for this occasion:
clean1.jpgcleanreg1.jpg
I would think these pictures can speak for themselves. No need for Jack, Jill or Fred Langa's to tell me what's going on in my machine. I have read other reports and opinions of SW like that and they are a mixed bag of everything and may or may not be close to my own. I would appreciate if somebody would tell me how much of this has helped speed up this computer. Even disk fragmentation which has not been done for at least a year is nowhere close to what it used to be in XP,you can note that auto defrag has been turned off.
 
They may speak for themselves but they don't lead to any conclusion you might be suggesting.

As for defragging, that has nothing to do with this discussion - but I will say I am not a fan of automatic defragging because they don't purge the system of potentially 1000s of tiny temporary Internet files and cookies before defragging. And I think that is counterproductive to an efficient defragging process.
 
What would be the best program to clean my PC. Like fixing my registry, deleting unnecessary folders and files. It doesn't have to be free. I used Regclean Pro to fix my registry but a lot of people said its bad program to use, and I used CCleaner but that messed up my computer. Thanks

What happened to THIS PERSON ? Started this post and hasn't been seen. Is this person just reading and not commenting, i wonder.
I for one am using CCleaner to clean my history from the PC, i never said or thought it was going to speed up my PC.
Think that is part of the debate, believing it will. Now if you have little space left and never clean up the drive, then yes it will speed it up, freeing the space. Not touching the registry thoughts, not too familiar with editing it.
 
They may speak for themselves but they don't lead to any conclusion you might be suggesting.

As for defragging, that has nothing to do with this discussion - but I will say I am not a fan of automatic defragging because they don't purge the system of potentially 1000s of tiny temporary Internet files and cookies before defragging. And I think that is counterproductive to an efficient defragging process.
Since you didn't see it, the point is that Ccleaner took more space itself than it is supposed to clean up. Defragging is not even supposed to clan up anything is completely different process and also unnecessary any more but with many faithful followers. Overdo with any of these things and you are just putting unnecessary strain on system, disks and spend more time doing it than if you just left the things alone.
 
For majority of noobs in this field, this article may be a good start:

Restore Your Computer to its Glory Days | Maximum PC
I'm firm believer in prevention and most of it can be done with clean uninstallation of programs using something like "Revo Uninstaller" that cleans up registry and file system of unnecessary "tails" left over by programs own uninstallers, left there by accident or purpose. Programs like Ccleaner (there's whole bunch of of them) do not even claim to be able to clean all that up.
 
That's about same combination I use, it proved very effective. Except, never defraged drives for more than a year, worst one is 2% so no need for that. For the rest of stuff, once monthly or even rarer, Disk cleanup takes out few MBs out and somewhat more from system restore points but even that's not much because it's setup to hold just couple of last points.
 
I'm firm believer in prevention and most of it can be done with clean uninstallation of programs using something like "Revo Uninstaller" that cleans up registry and file system of unnecessary "tails" left over by programs own uninstallers, left there by accident or purpose. Programs like Ccleaner (there's whole bunch of of them) do not even claim to be able to clean all that up.

Honestly, I don't have faith in CCleaner, it had messed up with my system once - that was the last instance I had given any app so much freedom than it deserved.

I too use Revo uninstaller & I use it now too - it instantly shows up registry files/items/leftovers associated with a software. And use it if I have to completely remove the software - Advanced setting of Revo.

I exactly follow what David had posted except for the defrag thing - mine is SSD now. In addition to that, I regularly scan with mbam & kaspersky (sometimes with MS Malicious software removal tool & MS Safety scanner).
And that is all that is enough for my system.
 
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