If you use your computer much at all, odds are you have collected some garbage along the way. CCleaner helps you easily take out that garbage. It is a program that allows you to easily do some routine cleanup that doesn't require a computer degree to do it. It will dump your browsers left over temp files, history and cookies. Depending on which browser you are using, that could be numerous areas and or clicks to manually maneuver. But, wait that is not all. It will also clean up your recycle bin, recent documents, windows temporary files and Log files. You also can check or uncheck these options to clean as much or as little as you want. Although we find that usually the default options already selected are very suitable. To make the deal even sweeter, everything we just mentioned you can do with just one click on the run cleaner button after only opening the program.
If that sounds like too much to remember you can also set it to auto run when you boot up the computer. Then it just automatically happens when you start your computer.
It also has a registry cleaner which can be very helpful as well. Think of the registry as one big file that contains just about everything you do in windows. It lists your programs and keeps track of what little files go with them, etc. and where they are stored. Think of your registry as the bookkeeper over your computer. Now we all know how important it is to keep good books right? Otherwise we mostly have no clue what is going on with our business or money. If you open your registry you will be surprised to find how cluttered it probably has become.
How does your registry get cluttered?
Generally when most programs are removed, they are simply lazy and they don't cleanup after themselves very well. They clean the basic stuff but almost always leave unneeded entries behind. Windows in general operates in the same manner - it constantly creates and logs new entries, but seldom cleans anything after it is no longer used. Bottom line, you are left with a bigger registry file than is really needed and having that in general will slow down your computing experience because now the system has to shuffle through more crap than is necessary. It will always take longer to get from point A to point B if you have to stop and search through a bunch of useless clutter first. Right? Not to mention just loading a bigger file into the pc memory is more of a strain than necessary on your system and just a waste of extra resources.
But who's comfortable cleaning their registry?
The problem is manually cleaning the registry can be a nail biting experience and can be very risky. Delete the wrong entry and you could render the computer unbootable. I would say if you are not an expert to never attempt that at home (or at work either, no matter how much you hate your boss). Well unless you back it up first for sure. ;-) But, luckily this great program also has a registry cleaner built into it that safely just deletes the clutter. It also offers a backup option before fixing the registry, just in case you over clean (if that's possible?).
So over all we love this program and give it a shout out of thumbs up - we think it should be in everyone's tool kit and/or in everyone's startup.
