We’ve been installing CCleaner on client computers for years. In a nutshell, it keeps things running very smoothly and keeps your PC computer running efficiently. As Piriform, the developer of CCleaner, puts it:
CCleaner is the number-one tool for cleaning your Windows PC. It protects your privacy online and makes your computer faster and more secure. Easy to use and a small, fast download.
We concur.
Maintaining your computer means more than just blasting out the dust with compressed air in a can (although that’s also a great thing to do from time-to-time). It means taking care of it from a software standpoint as well. That’s where CCleaner comes in. We use it for the initial cleanup of client computers because it will hammer out many issues before we even get into the malware and virus scanning.
Cleaning Up Unnecessary Files and Caches
When you first open CCleaner, you’ll see a long checklist of items. For most people, leaving them at the default settings is sufficient. If you want to make any changes, be sure to examine the options under both the Windows and Applications tabs. Some people like to uncheck the Cookies checkbox because it retains their settings on various websites. It’s a safer bet to let CCleaner clear them out, but if you are really stuck on saving your cookies, we highly recommend that you do some serious spy/mal/adware checking after running CCleaner. Check out Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware and SpyBot Search & Destroy to handle those tasks for you. Also, if you don’t want to lose any saved passwords, you might want to uncheck the Saved Passwords checkbox for each browser you regularly use. It’s more secure to let CCleaner delete them and just remember them yourself, but not everyone is comfortable with that.
Clicking the Analyze button starts CCleaner on its way to examining your system for things that can be removed safely. After it shows you what it wants to remove, you can decide if there’s anything you want to keep. Then click the Run Cleaner button and let CCleaner do its magic.
Registry Cleaner
CCleaner has its own built-in registry cleaner. Just click the Registry icon on the left vertical menu, then click the Scan for Issues button. After it shows you all the problems it finds, click the Fix Selected Issues button. CCleaner will ask if you want to backup the changes — please do it! Tampering with the Windows Registry is not something to take lightly, so do yourself a favor and back it up when CCleaner asks. That said, we’ve never had a problem after running the Registry cleaner in CCleaner.
Startup Review
Under the Tools section, you’ll find a Startup button. Click that to see what programs are loading when you first start Windows. You may be surprised when you see how many programs are there. Disabling unnecessary programs from this list can increase your boot-up speed significantly. But be careful not to disable anything critical! A good rule of thumb is to not change anything you don’t recognize or can’t identify. However, when in doubt or if you just want to satisfy your curiosity, you can search for items in the startup list at Bleeping Computer.
Generally safe items to disable in this list usually have to do with preloading software, like Adobe updaters, Quicktime Task loaders and the like. As stated previously, however, don’t remove anything you might actually use or anything that is important.
Other Features
Check out the other sections of CCleaner to find more useful tools. We particularly like the Settings in the Options area, where you can specify how many passes to make during file deletion (the more passes, the better security), which drives to include, whether or not to wipe free space and other miscellaneous settings.
In Conclusion
No PC computer should be without CCleaner. However, in order for it to be effective, you need to update and run it occasionally. We recommend putting your computer on a weekly maintenance routine that includes CCleaner, among other things.
Click here to download CCleaner
