Why is CCleaner considered crap?


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Ive been using CCleaner since 2005, used it in my computer repair business, and at our institution's help desk. Have had zero issues with it in 6 years on thousands of computers. Can't recommend it enough.

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Reading peoples comments about CCleaner makes me laugh. Ccleaner is the real deal and cleaning up the registry of broken and junk keys is critical to. I have fixed several computers that were having weird issues. After running CCleaner it resolved these issues and we have been using it ever since where I work. Spyware, malware, viruses tend to change registry keys so its always critical to run ccleaner after removing spyware/viruses. Also, try to make sure you use revo uninstaller when you remove programs as it will clean up the registry after removing the program, this is something you don't get when doing the remove programs feature in windows. People forget that the registry is a very critical part of the OS and keeping it cleaned up will help prevent future issues...not everyone likes to reformat their pc every other month. We have been using this program at the computer repair shop I work at for years.

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Reading peoples comments about CCleaner makes me laugh. Ccleaner is the real deal and cleaning up the registry of broken and junk keys is critical to. I have fixed several computers that were having weird issues. After running CCleaner it resolved these issues and we have been using it ever since where I work. Spyware, malware, viruses tend to change registry keys so its always critical to run ccleaner after removing spyware/viruses. Also, try to make sure you use revo uninstaller when you remove programs as it will clean up the registry after removing the program, this is something you don't get when doing the remove programs feature in windows. People forget that the registry is a very critical part of the OS and keeping it cleaned up will help prevent future issues...not everyone likes to reformat their pc every other month. We have been using this program at the computer repair shop I work at for years.

Couldn't of said it better myself.

Two thumbs up for CCleaner. I've had issue's in the past with some of the other Reg cleaners out there, but that was a few years back now!

I run CCLeaner on Home and Work PC's to keep them running nicely.

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What's wrong with the built-in Disk Cleanup. It's fast, can be scheduled, automated and is extensible as well. Just write a disk cleanup handler for the location you want to clean up. It can do some special things like clean up all but the last restore point/shadow copies, clean up service pack files and error dumps, which not all apps can do.

That said, CCleaner does clean more locations. Just don't use the registry cleaning part.

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Just don't use the registry cleaning part.

I still don't know why I shouldn't be using the registry cleaner. Again, if it's so risky or useless then why include it, they aren't selling anything.

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and even for the "crap" file remover. how much space do you really think you're saving with it. very little. how much performance do you think it gains ? nothing.

I have run it, and while it doesn't improve performance, it definitely does save up on disk space (especially in older computer's with lower capacity HDD's). It has cleaned up gigs upon gigs for me in just crap I don't need. I have been using ccleaner since 2003-2004, and back when <100GB HDD's were common, this program was fantastic.

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I still don't know why I shouldn't be using the registry cleaner. Again, if it's so risky or useless then why include it, they aren't selling anything

Because no registry cleaner can determine accurately which reg value or key is 100% to safe to delete without breaking something. If you still feel determined, go ahead and use it. :p

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it's great for helping with removing old drivers. i don't know why people would be bashing a free piece of software that actually does what it's supposed to do.

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What's wrong with the built-in Disk Cleanup. It's fast, can be scheduled, automated and is extensible as well. Just write a disk cleanup handler for the location you want to clean up. It can do some special things like clean up all but the last restore point/shadow copies, clean up service pack files and error dumps, which not all apps can do.

That said, CCleaner does clean more locations. Just don't use the registry cleaning part.

Disk cleanup isn't fast at all, especially compared to CCleaner

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What's wrong with the built-in Disk Cleanup. It's fast, can be scheduled, automated and is extensible as well. Just write a disk cleanup handler for the location you want to clean up. It can do some special things like clean up all but the last restore point/shadow copies, clean up service pack files and error dumps, which not all apps can do.

That said, CCleaner does clean more locations. Just don't use the registry cleaning part.

Disk cleanup maybe cleans 5% of temp files. Ccleaner with Winapp2.ini (fron Ccenhancer) cleans temp files from 450 apllications including browsers cache and compacts browsers DB.

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To the best of my knowledge the program is safe, and I have never had any issues with it. The registry cleaner really isn't, however, very useful. All that being said, I think this might have originated in a review of the top ten applications to install in which a couple of wanted to know why CCleaner was on the last. I think there were a couple of comments about only computer novices or noobs using it... I don't remember, I would have to search back (rather uninformed comments on their part).

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Reading peoples comments about CCleaner makes me laugh. Ccleaner is the real deal and cleaning up the registry of broken and junk keys is critical to. I have fixed several computers that were having weird issues. After running CCleaner it resolved these issues and we have been using it ever since where I work. Spyware, malware, viruses tend to change registry keys so its always critical to run ccleaner after removing spyware/viruses. Also, try to make sure you use revo uninstaller when you remove programs as it will clean up the registry after removing the program, this is something you don't get when doing the remove programs feature in windows. People forget that the registry is a very critical part of the OS and keeping it cleaned up will help prevent future issues...not everyone likes to reformat their pc every other month. We have been using this program at the computer repair shop I work at for years.

I would be carefull to trust CCleaner too much. Removing registry settings might create problems for other software down the line. For testing purposes I have run CCleaner on a domain PC here at work. Sure enough the computer was complete broken afterwards. Sure CCleaner is usefull for removing temporary files and useless junk like that, but that's really all I would trust it with.

And I would not send my computer to a repair shop if I knew they used CCleaner to "fix" PC's. It basicly says they don't know the risks involved. But sure enough you can of course claim the PC for just too broken if anything happens. And just reinstall. I know this happens a lot actually.

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The problem I have with registry cleaners is they're all voodoo and magic but nothing to back it up - the idea of your computer slowing down because of the registry is a load of nonsense. It has been shown time and time again that the origin of slow downs is part real but mainly psychological.

There was a German magazine a couple of years ago wanted to put this registry myth to the test so it wrote a tonne of nonsensical stuff to the registry and benchmarked before and after; the 'slow down' was so low that that it was within the usual fluctuations rather than bloat being the cause.

When ever I look into why peoples computers have slowed down the last place I look is in the registry because you can find out a lot about a person based on what they have installed on their computer. Once purged of the crap their computer goes back to normal without even needing to touch the registry.

Me personally I don't touch it because there is a lot of stuff that you can screw up if you do something either accidentally or out of ignorance and the idea of having a third party automatically doing the job gives me a shiver up the spine given there have been ones in the past that people have raved on about (Microsoft even did their own registry cleaner as part of their powertoys) but later found stuffed up their registry.

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Actually I have to give ccleaner props on how they scored on this test

http://www.macecraft.com/registry_cleaner_comparison2010_4/

hahahaha, take a look at Registry Clean Master. Would the computer even run after it was done "fixing" all those errors?

Also, what's with all these people saying CCleaner broke their computer? I'm gonna have to take the skeptical route here,and assume that maybe something was messed up with the computer to begin with? Because I've never seen CCleaner mess up a single computer, and I use the registry cleaner on EVERY machine that comes into my workshop.

I'm not really gonna argue as to whether or not it actually improves performance. It gives me peace of mind (I'm OCD (not really)) and I've never noticed any negative effects. So at worst, you're achieving nothing.

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Registry cleaners are bad since forever and i've always said that.

Why have you said that?

For me, cleaning out the registry of old file locations or similar can only be a good thing surely? I've even manually deleted some things because the uninstaller didn't bother with that.

Using the registry cleaner within CCleaner is about as useful as running a defrag every half hour. Don't bother.

Again, I ask why. Making a statement, then not bothering to say why you believe it renders the statement almost useless :/

ccleaner is good app just avoid the reg cleaner part. the windows one is basic but it is better than nothing.

Why avoid it? Same as above really. Without the reason, the warning isn't quite as effective.

. . .I have had to fix several computers that have dies because they used the CCleaer registry cleaner. There are worse registry cleaners, but there's not good registry cleaner. Yeah sure 99.999% of the time it won't do any damage. but it's that one time...

Now THERE's a reason not to use it (Y)

It isn't installed on my system.

My computer runs alright as it is. I find no matter how much tinkering and whatnot you do, it'll never run as quick as you thought it would.

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I think it comes in handy when dealing with the typical idiot user. I run ccleaner BEFORE doing a scan for malware - depending on how much crap they have on their system - it can save a lot of time since the malware scanner doesnt have to go through 5GB of temp files ...

But the reg cleaner ... never used it.

I ran winASO once on my system and wasnt able to boot afterwards - havent used them on my systems since then - meh

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Crap because it's unecessary. the useful parts of it windows can already do. then you have the registry part, which can kill computers, and I have had to fix several computers that have dies because they used the CCleaer registry cleaner. There are worse registry cleaners, but there's not good registry cleaner. Yeah sure 99.999% of the time it won't do any damage. but it's that one time...

Can you give specifics on how CCleaner was the cause of several computers breaking down. This seems a bit ridiculous.

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Can you give specifics on how CCleaner was the cause of several computers breaking down. This seems a bit ridiculous.

I don't have any specific but whenever I run the registry cleaner on our domain PC's they stop working properly. We have quite a lot registry fixes for our domain though. So I guess CCleaner messes them up.

Even I have broken a Win7 install with CCleaner after trying to fix an error on my PC. Can happen to any of us. This was an error with C++ runtime libraries and Skype. But CCleaner did something and caused this error on almost all my software afterwards.

Its not considered crap lol. Ive used it for years and recommended it to everyone I know. Its also the only freeware company I have donated to.

And this is a problem for me. We have several users in our environment that uses CCleaner because they have heard it is good. Well sometimes they arrive with their broken PC's. Luckily most doesn't dare clean their registry.
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and even for the "crap" file remover. how much space do you really think you're saving with it. very little. how much performance do you think it gains ? nothing.

Most I've seen was about 25,000 temporary files taking up 10GB space on a 40GB hard drive.

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You're much more likely to get a speed boost from defragging the reg files, which can only be done in an offline-state (ie boot-time).

CCleaner is great for getting rid of crap files every so often, but ultimately these days it's hardly needed.

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