What's so good about CCleaner???

Question

I had it on my system about a year ago but I soon got rid of it because it screwed up my system. But (I lately saw so many recommendations from people who otherwise seem to know what they're talking about that I decided to download and install it again. Sure, it removed hundreds of megabytes. And yep! Internet connection gone and bluetooth screwed up, System shutdown and startup takes ages and gives all kind of funny error mesages, among which "System tray not present!?" After two more reboots things seem more or less ok again. But still, though I thought I carefully selected which cookies to keep, some web sites no longer behave as they should. And such a program should be recommended to computer newbies? I'm not getting it!

AdAware, Spybot S&D, AVG Antispy and F-secure say: No malware on my system.

Answer 1

Well, I am one of those that storngly recommends it, so here are my reasons why:

I have run it on dozens of systems from Win98 up through XP Pro, and have yet to encoutner a problem. When working with clients, I run the registry cleaner myself and never bother to back up the registry - I am that confident. Also, after doing a system cleanup, I will run the Advanced options and then leave it as basic for them. Again, no problems.

Here is where I have seen folks run into issues and from the errors you describe above, it sounds like some of this applies to you.

1) Unless you are absolutely sure of what you are doing, never use the Startup cleaner. This controls what programs and/or services fire up at boot. Getting rid of systray.exe is the only way that I know of to get the error message you mentioned. and ccleaner DOES NOT get rid of this automatically in any possible configuration of the software. It MUST be manually done by the user.

2) Unfortunately, the ccleaner website is ad suppoted and when you first click on the Downlod link, there is an add on the right which looks a lot like a link to download ccleaner. This program is NOT ccleaner, but some lousy garbage. That is why I always send folks to the main page on filehippo.

3) Many other problems can result from spyware or adware that ccleaner is not aware of (its not designed to be). When I install it I always do a sweep for spyware/adware first, then unistall programs, then clean the registry, then run the cleaner. I also recommend folks do the same.

4) Admittedly, there is one featurre that I would like to see added to the product. I would love to have a prompt come up to suggest running multiple registry scans until zero issues are found. A lot of times, the initial pass will find 100's or registry issues and most people think that once you clean, it is all set. However, there are usually subsequent keys that are then invalid. 3-4 times is what you really need to do the first time around. I have seen minor issues as a result of this.

As to the other problems you encountered, I can only speak to one - the Internet connection. If you have lost your internet connection for any reason as a result of doind a sweep, then you are definitely dealing with third party software that is interfering with your browsing in general - spyware or adware. 99% of those programs hide and rename themselves in temp file space so that active monitors do not pick up on them. Having to reset your connection because of a ccleaner (or other program) sweep is generally a good sign that you do not have enough spyware or adware protection. The system shutdown and startup delays as well as some of those messages are also signs that your machine is otherwise corrupted.

As to the bluetooh, I am not sure. It is possible, that since bluetooth is a network protocol, that the same spyware interfering with Internet is messing that up as well.

In your case, I would run Ad-aware, Spybot, padanasoft, and kaspersky to really check out your system. You may be surprised.

Answer 2

Well, I have used Ccleaner for sometime and I have to say it is pretty good. The cleaner itself it is just like doing disk cleanup. The only diffrences is I use 7 Passes to erase my hard drive, that is the only reason for me using Ccleaner.

For the problems you are experiencing I am thinking you are talking about the registry part of the cleaner? Registry cleaners are not perfect, infact sometimes it might delete a valid registry. When a valid registry is deleted then when the computer starts up it tries to look for the specific file and the specific registry without it, you get errors. I should know. ccleaner has deleted some valid registries from me. They are minor registries that can be replaced easily but, I guess yours is more serious.

The registry that Ccleaner deletes from me that are valid are foriegn fonts. It says unreconsiable character ?????(TrueType Front ) I guess it doesn't like foreign characters.

Answer 3

Don't blame it all on CCleaner. It's fairly good, small, fast and handy for quick cleaning. I don't know why your computer's acting weirdly with CCleaner, but anyway it's the defect of the system and not of the software. There are other good cleaning tools too, like Advanced Windows Care Personal, Disk Cleaner, ASWM Eraser etc., you may try them out.

Answer 4

Try it for a week, then you'll know.

Hint: cCleaner didn't cause the problems you described, malware did.

Answer 5

I have it and it is pretty cool...I guess it just goes beyond just the disk cleanup...