If there’s one thing that’s certain in life, it’s that your PC will inevitably become slower over time. Fortunately, there are measures such as computer cleaning software you can take to keep your PC running as smoothly as possible for as long as possible. One of these measures is called CCleaner (or CrapCleaner being its full name) – a great utility for, well, cleaning out the crap from your hard drive.
Weighing in a little over 3MB, CCleaner packs a lot of useful features which have had me using it religiously on every one of my PC’s since its original release a few years ago. When you open it for the first time, you’re presented with the default “Cleaner” window, where you have the choice to either “Analyze” or “Run Cleaner”. I find this a very handy feature, as you can see what and how much will be deleted before you actually run the cleaner.
The next tab, “Registry” does just what it says on the tin, clearing out your registry and removing unused file extensions. I usually run CCleaner once a month to clean my computer and on average it finds around 1000 registry issues which needs fixing. Don’t worry about destroying your PC though, a backup is made of your registry before permanent changes are made!
In the “Tools” tab, you’ll find a replacement for the Windows Add/Remove Program aptly named “Uninstall” which allows you to view or uninstall programs. There’s also the option to remove programs from the list if they shouldn’t be there. Finally, you can also manage startup programs, which is a lot easier than going into MSConfig to add or remove startup items.
I must say, CCleaner is one of the most essential programs on my system, and it looks like remaining in that position for the foreseeable future. It’s lightweight computer cleaning software, simple to use and very effective at keeping your machine as good as new.
