CCleaner is now owned by Norton (Avast bought Piriform. AVG merged with Avast. Norton bought AVG). That’s all you need to know when deciding whether or not to install it.
yes, this would be very helpful. In the end, when I use the Microsoft-cleaner (not the win11-newstyle-version, which looks like invented by a malevolent AI), it takes quite some time.
@@emanuelmayer I agree! I recently learned about this one. The Microsoft Disk Cleanup tool takes a long time because at the end of the delete, it then takes some time to compress the system files that it keeps backups of (for adding a feature or restoring something that broke) as much as it can. That's why it looks like it's almost done yet sometimes hangs for a long time at the end.
I've been using Glary instead of CCleaner all this time and it seems I dodged a bullet in 2018. They used to matter more back when you had HDDs since many of these types of software could defrag the disk. Having things like file shredders, accidental deletion restorers, registry&system file backup/restore systems, and simple temp file cleaning is also still quite useful, even if some use cases are niche.
I stumbled across Glary when looking for other software besides CCleaner. All I can say is that I love it. All of the features That Glary offers for free is astounding and the UI is perfect.
It was essential on XP which lacked most of modern OS's convenient tools for cleanups. And it helped remove pesky leftovers from miscoded uninstallers--something still plaguing software in 2022. But, the few times I needed to use System Restore to fix what CCleaner did finally convinced me to stop using it and never look back. Sometimes a fresh OS install is way more effective than a "cleaning", especially on a system running on only upgraded hardware and software for many, many years.
In Windows 98 and XP times, these were useful tools if you knew what you were doing. Tuneup was another of these tools and it is much older. Later it was not so useful and there are smaller tools that are better, for example cleanmgr+.
This was actually quite a useful tool back in the XP days when performance started chugging. Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole now but it did make a notable difference to performance back in the day
Even today on crap computer really... especially the registry part of it. That's what made me most difference on my end. But when I heard all the shady stuff, I uninstalled it and I am currently using the "somewhat" similar functions of Razer Cortex. (Got a razer mouse...) I'm not sure if thats even a good idea.
Very true, back when I had all mechanical hard drives and needed to shave a second or two off the boot time, CCleaner was the best. Buuuut I barely used it with Windows 7 and I've never used it Windows 10.
Back in the windows xp and vista days it had a noticeable positive impact, as well as putting a lot of tools in one place. I definitely contributed to the amount of times it has been downloaded
It was an extremely useful tool in those days. I have not cared for it so much since Avast bought them out. Not only is it less useful than in previous versions of windows it has annoying nag screens and is basically adware all by itself.
arguable also during early win 7 days. But once win7 got a few years old, people stopped using it and by the time win 10 came around it was completely unnecessary.
The Mac version of CCleaner acts like malware. If you force quit it, it opens itself again and you can't uninstall it from applications in Finder, having to find the option within the application. The kicker is that if the app bugs out and you get an error during uninstall, you have to reinstall it before the uninstall will work. Used to use it a lot on Windows until recently.
Good to know. I've used it before as a quick way to resolve issues with the hidden iTunes cache folder that I've seen get bloated and wont clear leading to storage being maxed out.
Most of the time that I've used CCleaner was mainly to clear the registry of logs from free trial software. Normally when you uninstall them they leave stuff behind so that if you try to reinstall to get another free trial it will know you've already used your free time but CCleaner removes that stuff for unlimited free trials.
I use advance uninstaller for the same purpose (it's free)it also has a feature called installation montior which will record what a software is doing while installing to completely clean during uninstallation
@@pablojp3498 While open source is always a nice bonus CCleaner is also free since all the stuff from the paid version is just unnecessary junk only added to trick people into buying it. The free version does everything CCleaner was actually created to do.
It's wild to me how many people have forgotten (or weren't using computers / alive) back when these sorts of tools were actually needed because both windows and programs you installed on it treated the registry like a latrine (To be clear, you no longer need it)
I used to use it back in the day, but I'm not quite sure it was "actually needed". I feel like I just joined the train of "everybody who knows anything about computers uses it and it shows numbers of things it cleaned, so it must be good" (that's at the XP/7 days, I skipped the 2k stuff and at 95/98 times I had no idea what I was doing anyway)
It was only needed if you were frequently installing and removing things, but back in the 9x and somewhat in the XP days it was not very difficult to get yourself into a bluescreen situation simply by getting the registry set up in ways where it tried to load things that weren't available anymore. I remember ATI drivers in particular being really bad about leaving behind harmful registry clutter when you uninstalled them.
I've used this software for many years as an IT professional for cleaning out broken installs\uninstalls from the registry. It works well in some use cases. Overall though, I agree it's not necessary anymore and given the potential compromises I don't keep it on the systems. I install it, run the tools I need, then uninstall it.
@@Fiufsciak , I was thinking the same thing, if it's compromised and you just "install, do a little, then uninstall", the fact is the damage is already done because you installed it in the first place. I mean that's exactly what hackers/exploiters want is for you to take that first step and "click to install".
@@zenithperigee7442 ironically thats what they do, a lot of programs that are maliciously already on computers often check USB inputs and corrupt the files on them, lots of them love CCleaner, offloading the same unsecure application on many computers is an unsafe practice..
I personally find 90% of these “optimization apps” to be dog water. The only ones worth while cost money and all they do is put all of the optimization you can do yourself into one place. I find it much easier to just use CMD for sfc/dism, defrag, and file explorer to clean up drives. There’s probably more higher level stuff to optimize the computer but I don’t know of it.
I find some pretty useful. For example tune up utilities lets me close and open background tasks for apps such as those that control peripherals. Granted you could always just set up your peripheral settings then uninstall the program which is what I personally do right now since I don’t want to pay for a licensed program. I could still see it being useful to some folks.
I used to use CCleaner religiously from the late 2000s up to about 2020. Then once the ownership changes started happening, so came the UI overhauls and the pay walling of features, and then when I heard about the grumblings of more harm then good, I was out. I will say though, that despite what you say about the registry cleanup being unneccesary, I swear anytime I had a significant amount to clear out, it INSTANTLY became noticeably more responsive atleast within the Windows desktop environment. And I never once encountered an issue with something becoming broken after doing so.
Honestly the responsiveness on the desktop can be pure placebo because you focus more on the mouse movement than before you cleaned it. And because you know that you just cleaned it. Would be a fun thing to test out with another person who randomly cleans it for you.
@@renegade_patriot we usually do recommend upgrades for certain people. Others we clean them up and plan to replace the whole computer within the next 6 months anyways. A lot of the time the computer is so old (3rd gen Intel) that it isn't worth the SSD and time to try and speed is up a little so just full replace
CCleaner was like the most useful tool when I did tech work at Office Depot. We were supposed to run hella scammy diagnostics and I just ran CCleaner and it improved grandma's performance and got rid of some pop ups she was experiencing. This and Adwcleaner were the kings.
malwarebytes has really started sucking recently. the only reason I keep it is so I can use it's scanner and it isn't as intrusive as another AV. I use defender. ADWcleaner is malwarebytes so yea.
haha I was offered a job at an office depot once and they told me in the interview they wanted me to run their own software to diagnosis and fix computers. I told them no, being honest and broke was better than running a scammy tool and being slightly less broke.
@@JessicaFEREM So if Malwarebytes sucks, then how about Kaspersky? Also is any 3rd party security software even needed, given that Windows already has Windows Defender on it?
Haven't used it in a few years now, but back in the day it was one of my most valued tools. Stopped using it when it was bought up and found other ways to do what I needed to get done. Informative and useful video. :)
My main problem with ccleaner is that while yes, it can clean up what you want it to, it can also "clean" up some stuff you really shouldn't mess with unless you really know what your doing. I see too many regular users who are far from computer experts download and use it and the havoc it's capable of. It's just really easy to set it up to be over eager in it's cleaning, and potentially ruin your install.
There's warnings that state possible adverse effects as you open up the choices they have disabled by default. If users don't read it or learn about each advanced cleaning, it's on them. I never had an issue using it.
@@wickedfuctup You're not the people who end up calling me for tech support either, you're not who I'm worried about. The people I'm worried about don't read warnings, but somehow figure out that this tool exists, and the proceed to nuke everything on their system with abandon. I then get called to clean up the mess.
CCleaner is part of my shotgun approach when I get handed a System that does "irregular, weird thingies". Together with a select few other tools, it helps me get rid of anything that MIGHT be causing an issue. I use it ONCE when I notice something odd happening, and wouldn't advice anyone to use it regularely. Back in the day people also always said never update your BIOS unless you have to, and nowadays I keep my bios on the most up-to-date version available at all times, things change, and CCleaner was definitely more useful in the days of HDDs.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. You will still occasionally get tripped up by a 'new' bios that may not work right with 'old' programs. Better to just reinstall the version of windows that it came with, after backing up the data.
I bricked my motherboard 3 years ago while resetting bios settings, not to mention updating it. It's not that resetting was at fault, it was the write operation itself which is risky. I was resetting it before with no issues.
Combination of c cleaner and file assassin has saved a few installs for me in the past. When malware can't or won't uninstall and nothing seems to stop it re installing you can sometimes kill the start up routine with c cleaner then use file assassin to nuke the actual folder or files. Particularly useful for browser hijacks.
Family IT guy/Super small IT Business owner - I've used CCleaner since the dawn of it's existence. Took a break from using it when they had that security issue. But I generally use it for family/clients, The main reason is so I know what programs are out of date and need to be updated on their PC's and whatnot like that. It's an overall okay tool for the small stuff like that. I keep the portable version on a flash drive.
I was a student worker for a college IT department from 2000-2004. We supported Windows NT machines running WordPefect and Netscape Navigator on a token ring network.... it sucked even by the standards of those days. We ran junk like ccleaner and regclean all the time just to try and keep the computers from crashing every 5 minutes without a format and reinstall.
@@JohnnyThousand605 If you accidentally unplugged the connector without first powering down the computer it would crash the entire building. The IT guys would gripe you out the whole time they were manually resetting the network
@@scittw22 Been there, done that, lol. Office manager was mad the next day. And you're probably old enough to remember some PC XT type boxes had a "Turbo" button to push OFF because some software needed extra time to run and running a PC in turbo mode would crash this software! The "good old days", they were terrible...
I remember I used CCleaner back when I had HDDs and trash registry entries would actually slow down your PC noticeably, especially for startup. I think that's the primary reason CCleaner became popular. With modern Windows registry optimizations and blasing fast SSDs, I don't think there's really any point to installing any kind of registry cleaner as the risk of it getting something wrong greatly outweighs any reward.
they are still fantastic to clean out old registry entries or duplicates that cause very odd conflicts sometimes. every single little bit helps. pc maintenance should be a more common thing
Having Andy talk about CCleaner was an instant click. I used it for a very long time but haven't really found it necessary for some of the reasons pointed out in the video. PC Manager was a new one to me though, so I'm thankful for that find as well!
I've created a few windows installers and it's notoriously difficult. Most installers don't uninstall cleanly for this reason and leave a lot of junk in the registry. Cleaning the registry once a week definitely seems to improve the performance for me even in Windows 11 with a Dell Inspiron 15 5518 but always backup the registry before you do it. Also if you're drive is nearly full like mine you can reclaim 3-4GB of space.
CCleaner is great for removing Microsoft specific bloat that Windows itself wont allow you to remove. Registry cleaning is unnecessary. You should never update drivers from any "driver updater" application. Windows updated have verified drivers and newer versions usually are for models/version/OEM computers that might get specific problems
+1 This is the only reason I use CCleaner when setting up a new Windows install: getting rid of Microsoft included garbage bloatware that you can't uninstall from Settings or Control Panel.
For sure the number one reason I have used CCleaner right there. And that sometimes will help the computer run better because you're removing bloatware.
I use this tool only for the registry cleanup because yes, invalid registry pointers can sometimes prevent programs from reinstalling, as well as helping with removing driver leftovers.
Some issues I had with cleaner softwares were how they decide to delete files that they recognize as "unknown junk". These files are usually in weird formate, but could be vital to programs and especially video games. It was a disaster back then when all my custom rhythm game maps are deleted, only left with their mp3 files lol.
Thing is, Windows 10 is way more complex than Windows 7, let alone XP, and while 3rd party software companies _think_ they know the OS inside out, they don't. So, many of them are flying blind.
using ccleaner is fine if you just use it once in a while.. no other tool gives you such control over what to clear from the various caches. it isn't perfect but it is, for me, essential if you're about to defrag the disk. however, afterwards, you have to remove it from memory and also startup under msconfig else the popups nag you to death.
I've heard other people say that the registry clean-up does nothing helpful but it's usually the step that gives performance back to old machines I've helped people tidy up. Having a lot of unused registers entries can in fact slow your system down since it points to nowhere yet has to be gone through every time the computer tries to do much of anything. It's probably a bit situational, but it's not black or white.
@@0mongo0 Real world observation says otherwise. When I started at my current job almost 11 years ago, the average computer in the company had 2gb of ram and an 80gb hard drive, massively out of date, and we upgraded all several thousand of them to 4gb before upgrading to windows 7, but most still had their original boot drive, 80gb or 160gb 5400rpm wd blue or seagate white label drives, and it didn't take much to slow them down, or much to speed them back up.
Here is the thing. Do the invalid entries slow things down? Why did we used to see a difference, but no longer see those differences? With CPUs and SSDs and GPUs, our computers are so much faster today that the differences are insignificant. Once upon a time, it was critical to write programs in assembler to make them fast, but in the end, hardware is cheaper to improve than software, and speed of development for software is more important that the number of machine cycles.
The best fixer upper? Backup your data, format C: and reinstall a fresh install of winblows. Magic, I swear! your computer will be just as fast as it was when you first got it! Of course, most people have no idea how to do this, and Microsoft doesn't want you to know, because then you won't buy another version of winblows! I currently have 'ancient' computers running as quick as lightning, with WinXP, Win7, and even Win98, all because they have recent formating and reinstallation of the operating systems.
I’ve loved ccleaner back in the day of windows XP it was really useful software and did make a computer of the time so much faster after its use (due to limiting hardware) I stopped using it a few years ago for unknown reason. I just stopped, but it has a core memory of seeing how much space I saved and getting excited at how much better my system ran
CCleaner, or as I call it CC Leaner, in my opinion and experience has a time and place. While yes… you can do almost everything with out of box or first party software, it is often a quick and simple solution rather than using multiple different tools (aka end user friendly). I have also found it’s uninstall utility to be especially useful when I need to uninstall something but the official .msi file simply refuses to do so. While it does try to use the msi file, if it fails it’s delete does almost always manage to delete all the files relevant (something you’ll very likely miss if you attempt manually, places like %appdata%) And as a backend web engineer, CCleaner is really nice at clearing browser history and data because I use multiple browsers… yes I could go one by one and clear them all manually but CCleaner is significantly faster, especially when IE is still needed to be tested on for legacy functionality. I also would like to point out that while you definitely shouldn’t clear your registry without any care… registry-based malware does exist and is a common route to replication. While an antimalware should remove these… “should” is the problem. You also should make a backup before deleting them off system just in case. All in all, CCleaner doesn’t make much sense for an average enthusiast or power user but for web engineers it’s simply a time save… or your grandparents, it’s better than the alternative (aka nothing). P. S. If you think the average end user is going to use 10 different tools, and not mess something up in the process or get too confused and do nothing… when was the last time you tried explaining something as simple as a meme to a boomer. It’s like that.
You can use Cleaner v2023, designed to clean only what is essential while maximizing the use of Windows' native tools. The philosophy of this software is not to delete the maximum amount of data (marketing hype) but to clean your computer with the least possible risk. This Windows cleaning software is 100% free, with no spyware, no data resale, no telemetry... It was originally designed to clean our own development and testing PCs!
The registry cleaning is mostly useful and noticeable on weak/old systems. I used to run it on a few old pcs at my old job. Very old systems that were used for the POS systems. But after a week the registry would get bogged down and the old systems would become damn near unusable. Restarts, etc would not help the issue. Crap cleaner did its job, back then. This was in the mid 2000s. I personally use an old version, pre Avira on my PC, which is an older phenom based PC. (I don't playmodern games) that last version works fine and I run it once a month.
Whenever I used Ccleaner, it would be great for a while. But then after a few months, I would notice something is broken in Windows's core system. Couldn't run windows update, couldn't update from windows 7 to 10 without re-formatting, even some weird issues with AMD chipset drivers saying I don't have an AMD CPU, even though I do (but that could just be an AMD thing). Plus, now that it went full malware/steal your data route, it ain't worth it anymore.
Yeah back in the day registry cleaning with it causes me so many issues on windows xp 7 and 8.1 that I just stopped using it. Plus I've used solid state drives and let windows optimize it so didn't really need it to optimize like back on mechanical drives
Y'know, I'm having trouble with an AMD Pro driver installation sticking (or at least the panel, the driver itself is fine). I'm ready to blame AMD and WUpdate, but I wonder if CCleaner via TronScript is causing this issue.
The name does stand for “crap cleaner”, after all. Is it any surprise that every now and then it “accidentally” removes some important part of Windows itself?
@@casedistorted the free version of Malwarebytes is good for removing malware on windows machines. Won’t ever pay for it again after the 3.0 update started causing hard-freezes on my machines. These days I just install it on an infected machine, get it to delete any malware, and then uninstall it.
Liked your video, but from my experience and in real use, CCleaner does really help and improve performance by cleaning cache or registry, especially on older PCs with old HDDs. Every PC I serviced CCleaner did what it should. Sometimes on PCs from regular users it would clean 5 or 10 Gigs or garbage, and that definitely improved boot time and overall perfomance. Never had even One issue with it, and Im talking about 10+ years of usage, and tons of serviced PCs and laptops.
1:20 registry shrink did help a lot on HDD's. if you had broken software like MS office 13, it made a lot of entries each upgrade, which made registry weight like 400MB (usually its like 60MB) one time removal and shrink was also getting it defragmented, which could make a lot of difference in general sluginess of windows. I used similar soft called glary utilities, which also had random other tools that could give you ~20 sec off your boot on hdd's and was IMHO more powerful. those things like to run on boot and periodically, which is pointless, IMHO all you need is portable version and just run it once per 2-3 years if your windows survives that long.
No windows should last 2-3 years, anything above 6 months line is already too much time and crap push on a OS, everybody should learn to do a quick format BEFORE the windows start to lose performance.
@@CPUGaming But it has everything to do with windows. A windows user shouldn’t need to reformat every 6months. My sister and gf uses a Mac and they don’t know anything about simple troubleshooting and maintenance but I don’t see their devices slowing down.
I used ccleaner for many years. The only reason I stopped using it, was me switching to Linux. But I don't think it is an inherently bad tool. I think every point against the current version of ccleaner in this video is true, but in the end it comes down to convenience. It is way easier to tell my parents to use this program, than to tell them a bunch of different crap they need to do, so I stick to my recommendation.
Ccleaner will wipe your browser history, Windows explorer history, all of browser caches by default. Do you really need to wipe all of that every time using ccleaner???
@@kittysplode Mine doesn't start when I launch Windows...and it is the latest version. Of course, I have it set to not start in my startup programs. You are part right- There is no button to toggle to say don't start up, but in ccleaner, under "Tools"-"Startup", you can literally tell it not to start. Weird that it does that to you. I have not had that issue, once I removed it from the startup list.
I stopped using it many years ago, but I returned to using it just for custom cleaning of browser cache, compacting databases, temp folders, etc (stuff that's safe to delete) a couple years ago, as it still saves me time when ai do it about once a month.
I stopped using it a while ago and in 2017 after I heard the website hack and malware download thing I stayed clear of it for a while. But I find myself resorting back to it for a consolidated and lightweight center for cleaning my browsers, drives and startup. It's true that you can do all that more easily now just the "normal" way but ccleaner still makes it faster and easier, which means you're more likely to do it regularly than skip it. By Anthony's logic, you could say any GUI windows app that can be replaced by a series of command lines is therefore useless. If some software speeds up your chore, it has value, end of story. The criticism that "some people pirate the pro version and get malware instead" is a hilariously bad take. You can say that about ANY paid software, it's totally unfair and in bad faith. I'm honestly surprised that Anthony could say that with a straight face. It seems that a lot of the recent content on LTT channels have been heavily editorialized in bad ways. I really hope there isn't some kind of sinister financial reason for it.
If you do alot of sound mixing nd rerecording conversions to .m4a CCleaner is the only tool that finds the broken wav files instantly if you have multiple temp directories over a server. It takes other tools awhile to recognize the partial .wav files.
I’ve used it for a long time. The new avast upselling and bloatware is annoying but if you are careful while installing and doing the first setup, disabling all the crap and setting your desired stuff to be deleted, it’s a handy tool to just open, click clean, search registry, delete all and you are done. Then check startup items just in case something is fishy. Every other “feature” of it isn’t worth the time
@@user-or4ut2qi3q It helps with older PC's which are running old operating systems or if not running an SSD. If you clean out the temp files and a few other things on those machines it has a massive uptick in performance. However if you're running Windows 10 or 11 with an SSD you won't even notice the difference after the clean.
There's one really important use for CCleaner in Windows 10 (and I suspect 11 too). Removing programs that Windows doesn't want you to delete. The Bloatware. Like the Cortana, or xBox whatever.
Except CCleaner is a bloatware itself and it tries to make you install junk in addition to bothering you with popups (it was acquired by Avast so it's not too surprising). Best option is stay away from Windows as much as you can.
While I agree with the sentiment about not using ccleaner based on that Norton owns it(Norton, the place where software goes to die). It still has always been handy for people who don't know much about computers to fix some issues they don't know how to do themselves. The driver update can be quite worthwhile for some, the cleaning it provides is simply and easy to understand with most things autoselected. The registry cleaner has some added bonus to that you reduced some of the registry hive of unused entries or invalid ones. It has provided an easy way for me to help people reduce start up, free up space online with not a whole lot of windows know how. So I wouldn't just completely dismiss it. Avast did try to explain that the telemetry turning on was a bug and did issue an update to fix it, I was on the fence about believing it, but dismissed it as fairly harmless. I was reluctant to like that ccleaner was acquired by avast with the changes they made. However I did not mind avast and kind of liked their antivirus software, so I eventually got used to it. I can't help but feel the point about people running into 'pirated' software and getting infected instead is a completely moot point. Because it has been happening long before ccleaner and it will continue long after, it is completely not unique to ccleaner at all. It's just a stupid detail to even add if anything. As for Norton owning ccleaner, I can completely understand wanting to dump the software and can't really blame anyone for doing so. Especially if you are good at doing all the same tasks as the software provides for you. I really despise Norton for many reasons and hate the company fully and would recommend no one ever buying ccleaner. It might be good at driver updating for really out of date systems, but there are other programs that provide this feature and probably are better at it. First off with Norton, I have seen them purchase and kill off plenty of good software that I used. Sygate was one that is fast, efficient and great. I suppose it let others innovate and improve, since it was sent to limbo and people had to find alternatives that wasn't norton and norton did not improve after buying this much more popular piece of software. Outpost was amazing and by far better than sygate, but it eventually was destroyed by it's own government. Now people feel microsoft firewall is pretty good and don't need anything else because they sit behind firewall/gateways and don't suffer from the same attack vectors of just being online. While I have tried software to improve windows firewall to let me control outgoing programs, it just never was as good or at least give me control of easy to choose incoming and outgoing control and version checks and other security protocols. I had others like eeye blink and beyondtrust endpoint security, but eventually all good things had to come to an end as they only sell to businesses. Another software that went to die was pgp, while I liked and used it for awhile, it had some fundamental flaws in ease of use. However gnupg was a much better alternative to using anything that symantec owns and now has destroyed. There is plenty more software that norton just keeps buying up and they really do make a giant amount of acquisitions and it's insidious. They do not improve or handle them well and norton/symantec is tainted so much, that even being associated often leads to the software's decline.
the driver updater is a pro function who the fuck is going to pay money to have drivers install on themselves... also 9/10 times with old hardware it's going to fail and could produce blue screens. 2 months ago I had a aspire5560 from 2009 who kept installing the wrong APU driver (thank you windows10) which would send it into bluescreen because driver_api crashed... so I would only ever download drivers from the manufacturer website anyone with basic IT knowledge knows this!
I've been using CCleaner for about 10 years now and I've never had any issues with it. It's fast, efficient, and simple to use. And all the stories of "using the registry cleaner could cause more harm than good" has never been a reality with me. I can only speak of my own personal experience, but CCleaner has never once caused any harm to any of my computers over the years. Also, the performance gains it can offer older computers is definitely real. I've taken old desktops and laptops from friends and relatives who weren't computer savvy at all. For years, they never cleaned, defragged, or optimized their computers. And as a result, these PCs were extremely slow to do anything. Even starting up and booting into Windows took forever. I downloaded and installed CCleaner onto these computers and let it do it's thing. Then I defragged the computers. And boom. These barely-functioning computers were working perfectly fine. No slow start-up. No slow, laggy performance. Afterward, these people praised me as some kind of computer genius that fixed their computer. And I explained to them: "All I did was some basic, routine computer maintenance that you're actually supposed to do every few months. It wasn't anything special at all. Like vehicles, you're supposed to do regular, routine maintenance and upkeep on computers. If you don't, it's going to stop functioning properly, just like any other machine."
Exactly. I've never had a single negative thing happen to any of the computers after easily a decade. I've also raised computers from the dead using CCleaner. I put in another comment that it's not magic, it just has a lot of great features that makes it so much easier to clean/update with a couple of clicks. With Windows updates, drive checks, temporary internet files, temporary system files, startup apps, bloatware, viruses, out of date drivers, you name it, any program that let's me kill 7 birds with 1 stone, and do it well, I'll take it.
Using a program for 10 years, and never bothered to learn how to not need to use ? Because CCleaner was never really necessary on Win10, only on older OS. Like knowing where was the files the program cleaned everytime you had to open the program, click for hin to make a "scan", waiting and then clicking on delete, you could've just opened the file manager and deleted the entire folder for yourself and saved tons of time. Or just opening the browser and clicking to clear history/cookies. Nothing hard really. And the traces on the registry you can literaly ignore, they don't do anything bad just by being there on the OS we have and this is nothing new, it is like this for some time now, and BTW, no windows instalation should live more than 6 months, so these pc's that "were extremely slow" of your friends and relatives just need formating instead of life suport, don't let it live for so much time, it will bring more trouble than it should lol.
@@youknowwho257 You do realize theres WAY too many people who don't know a damn ting to even know HOW to install windows, let alone do it so frequently right?
@@LeonSteelpaw That doesn't take anything away from his point that he is making though...He's practically saying people should learn and your just saying " you do know they don't know this stuff though right ? "
@@drugbustin It's a simple fact that a lot of people are tech illiterate or are outright lazy. Saying they should do something so drastic on a timeframe like that is asking a LOT from such people. Furthermore, I have not once heard anyone say to reinstall every 6 months before. Maybe that works for this person, but in most cases, that install is going to be there for YEARS until either the OS implodes on itself, or the owner decides to get a new machine
I've forever heard of the "it could delete registry entries that matter" and in my decade+ of using it I've never once experienced this. It's a good first port of call for older PC's to try and get them running like new. But like defrag, it's a relic of the past in terms of improving modern PC performance.
Occasionally I had the issue, that a windows update wouldn't properly install (bootloop), which I suspect to be the result of ccleaner. Its easily resolved by sfc/scannow but still
I've seen it specifically happen on systems a decent number of times over the years, sometimes being a mild annoyance to fix for them and a few times being a good couple of hours of screwing around. I haven't seen it recently, but I don't really fix many peoples computers anymore since I moved away from where I grew up 4 years ago.
Back in the day, best way of making your windows system faster was to make fresh install. It was not hassle if your important data was in its own partition. AND of course backup before doing it :)
@@Skank_and_Gutterboy He only says not to use any cleaners except what’s built in to windows. So that’s a strange takeaway… that also has nothing to do with the comment you replied to… Wondering if we have ourselves an Avast troll account here.
Back when I worked for a PC repairs shop years ago I probably ran CCleaner's registry cleaner on hundreds of PCs and never once did it cause an issue. While its utility over the years has dwindled due to improved hardware and software, at the same time I don't buy the argument that it could cause more harm than good. If anything deleting broken registry entries has often fixed certain quirks and issues rather than caused any, but nowadays, sure, it's mostly unnecessary. I still keep a copy of CCleaner handy though in case I ever feel like doing some spring cleaning, but it's more of a "if I feel like it" sort of thing now rather than a necessity.
I have used CCleaner for about 3 or 4 years now and never had any issues with it. I don't use it that much but I do find it more convenient cleaning multiple locations at once and it is quicker to clean Chrome using multiple profiles.
When I first installed Linux several years ago, I found out that CCleaner wasn't available for it. I then looked around on the internet for Linux cleaners and came across bleachbit. Ever since then, I've been using Bleachbit and it works MUCH better than even the paid version of CCleaner.
Still pretty neat for some function like deleting empty folders, amongst a few other simple features. You can achieve all that without using ccleaner but it's handy as a all-in-one tool.
You are absolutely right for your viewers, however if you have a noob asking/expecting you to do the maintenance CCleaner is something even they can run. Which saves me multiple hours of doing the maintenance and the drive there and back. Now I only have to go over it when I am there anyway
You could mention a very useful feature of CCleaner such as Duplicate finder. They implement this in a very good way. It's not the fastest on the market but gives you a lot of control over what duplicates and where exactly you want to delete. These days I use CCleaner mostly because of that feature.
Or, you know... you could just KNOW what you have on your pc instead ? If there's more than one of a file, you created that copy, so maybe the problem is coming from you. Drive wiper wat ? Dude just format the thing, is faster and cleaner (lol)
CCleaner was a great program for many years when I was running HDD's, but due to all the problems associated with CCleaner over recent years, I started using Glary Utilities to mostly remove temp files and folders. I don't use the registry cleaner as I moved to SSD's a couple of years ago.
I spent a few hours researching and trying out programs to cut down my terribly bloated context menus. It bewilders me why editing this is as hard and cumbersome as it is. CCleaner was the only program I tried that was able to get rid of the most obfuscating context menu items plaguing me (shexview, shmnview get honorable mentions but they're also 2 separate programs while CCleaner is just the 1)
I found CCleaner was good at telling me things I simply did not know as a noob. Like there are startup programs you can activate or deactivate and like you should indeed check your hardware updates to see if they have new drivers. Likewise the registry stuff really was useful back in the day (I must have used it for a decade on 10 PCs with zero issues of anything being deleted or corrupted). I probably won’t renew my existing sub because they have just got insane with their pressurising now. Like you update in June and in July you get a msg “Dude, CCleaner is due for renewal in 11 months! Claim 1 month free on your next year but ACT NOW THIS MINUTE THIS OFFER IS TIME-LIMITED. Yeah, chill man, and get out of my notifications already.
I relied on cc cleaner on fixing so many clients PC's back in the early 00s. Made a world of difference with those old win98 machines. Probably worth while checking it out again actually
I used to use it religiously, say back in XP/Vista days. Maybe I still use it every now and then (like once a year). Feel like on older versions of windows it was helpful to clear out old windows update files etc wasting space & uninstalled programs not being fully removed but not really necessary anymore. Also on HDDs it was beneficial to performance to get rid of every single unneccesary thing before defragging but on SSDs its irrelevant other than for space. Gonna uninstall it now, time to move on!
I still use, and will continue to use, CCleaner. The cleaning and optimization options mentioned in the video are fine for this channel's and LTT's regular viewers, but for someone like grandma, if she can learn how to use CCleaner it can help remove the unnecessary temporary internet files, cookies, and fix registry errors in a few clicks saving you from having to pay her a visit to clean up her computer. It also makes grandma feel like some kind of tech wizard l33t h4ck3r. 😂 Hey, man. Ya gotta love your grandma! 😁
Nah, this program was necessary at some point in the past, clearly he's not right now, we have better and easier ways of doing everthing the program do and without the bothering of installing anything extra on the pc. Most OS these days are almost self suficient, well, almost =D. For everthing else, just send you grandma a youtube video link with a guide to that thing, and she's good.
There are situations where cleaning the registry is very useful. I had a hard drive where a good chunk of software was installed die, for some titles the broken registry links weren't fixed when re-installing to a new drive and that caused it to crash to desktop even though the re-installation seemed successful.
I have used this program reliably since 2006, from 2000 Professional through to Windows 10 (11 is garbage and is banned). Never had a problem from it, and infact can say that its still my preferred tool for all together cleaning. I also use it's sister, Defraggler.
Thanks, Techquickie team. I really enjoy these videos about more of the easy, popular software things, that help regular people too, not just those who are experts about computers.
CCleaner registry cleaner often fixes a critical error that prevents driver updates or installs on Nvidia gpu's( as in it saying the driver isn't compatible/can't be installed because of a unkown error) No idea if that bug still happens but back it in the day I've had to use it to fix that particular issue on several pc's
Still use CCleaner (Free) and recommend it to all clients. Only caveat is, "I" install it and set it up to match my settings. I tell clients that if CCleaner doesn't fix it, it's likely a hardware problem and that bit of advice has proven correct for many years. On the other hand, Avast in charge of CCleaner makes me nervous. They've already "infected" it. Wish it had the ability to run a registry backup.
0:43 They do if they're abundant enough. I work in desktop support and have had a handful of cases where users would have 1000+ garbage registry entries. The system would act in a... pretty lobotomized way, doing the wrong things (like opening something very different to what you're trying to open). It's what happens when you got users constantly deleting installed programs, for example. A registry cleanup snapped it back to normal though, no restart or anything required. But yes, there would have to be a very high number of wasted registry entries. It's deffinitely not a common occurence.
I had a client once who hired me to clean up her pc because her outlook email took forever to open and display. The client was convinced she had picked up a virus. What she really had was over 21,000 (yes 21 thousand) unread messages in her outlook inbox!!! Told her an inbox is not a filing cabinet and unless she liked waiting an hour to see her messages she needed to start deleting some old emails!
@@bigal1863 Yeah you can never underestimate what the end users are (in)capable of. I once checked out HR's AUX port in the front only to conclude it was fucked. I reinstalled it to not leave a gaping hole for dust to go in. 5 minutes later, she calls me asking what I did to her computer, and shows me she can't type numbers on the numpad. Take a *wild* guess why this was. Yep, that's right. I pushed the paper aside to reveal the num lock key, and sure enough... I swear, I even stopped being mad at them forgetting their passwords at this point.
Also, Windows itself absolutely does NOT allow modification or deletion of all Startup apps like CCleaner does. It hides most of them. If you want to stop ALL programs from starting you NEED a 3rd party software. There isnt a choice.
your right, uninstalling from microsoft store in particular seems impossible i tried deleting forza horizon 4 for taking up so much space and nothing just sat there eating my pc.. microsoft been going crazy bloating stuff and restricting you its unnecessary
In Windows, you have 3 startup types, 1 via registry, run folder , and via a scheduler, and why would you deactivate a hepler, a launcher of software from startup if you know where to search it will let you delete those entries and if something is protected do a research what it does , you can use Google like registry startup path 😉 or run folder path , and about file type in run cleanmgr and execute as administrator it will display everything is safe for deleting
We used to use CCleaner at the computer repair store I used to work at. We'd run cache, registry, and then clear startup too which would boost the speed of older laptops brought in. Then again, that was years ago. Now, it's not really all that necessary. If a modern computer is slow, it's usually due to having installed too much bloatware or a couple viruses. Those free antivirus programs are famous for doing nothing and bogging down your PC performance.
Ccleaner is fine. Use it for a quick clean up (as it was meant for), then close it until you need another clean in a couple months. It's simple and saves you a couple minutes. The other features are useless, which anyone who actually uses the thing should know by now.
@@om5621 y'all trying too hard. I mean it only requires opening the app, then clicking once vs whatever method you use for windows and your browsers etc.
I used to like CCleaner, but then avast acquired them and caused a lot of privacy concerns. I use Glary Utilities now, the reason being why I don't just use windows, is well... Some things can't be uninstalled in windows itself that Glary can, and also does help stopping those annoying startup programs that aren't very descriptive.
@@blunderingfool Windows defender is pretty good. It is on par in effectiveness as other antivirus software and it doesn't expose your computer to any third party. If you use windows you won't be able to stop microsoft from having intimate connection to your computer anyway so might as well limit it to them. I used bitdefender as well but it had very annoying notifications which cannot be switched off so I changed to windows defender when my subscribtion ended and I have been happy with it since.
@@eniff2925 Yup, Unless you have a specific reason to need a 3rd party anti-virus windows defender is as good as any of them. Personally, folks just need to stop being super paranoid. Use common sense and don't be going to places that look sketchy online and you should be fine.
blast from the past. I haven't used CCleaner in many years. I remember using it from 05-06 to about 2012 i think. Back in the old days I remember it being part of a virus/malware removal clean up that you would use at the end. After removing malware using whatever method, i'd run CCleaner at the end as the final step. Not sure if that last step was necessary, but that is what everyone was doing after malware removal and was recommended on forums like Tom's Hardware. I do miss the first decade of 2000 (2000-2009) internet.
While I agree that these days it's pretty much unnecessary, between 2004 and 2012, I used it religiously (perhaps a few years longer than really justifiable). I was skeptical of the registry cleanup helping, so I ran _just_ the registry cleanup on Windows XP and saw a noticeable improvement in speed on my barely adequate store-bought PC like three years into that install's life. "Windows Rot" was a known thing, back then. Throw enough CPU cycles and RAM at a problem, though, and these things get less important. Gotta remember that Windows XP basically couldn't function without a raft of practically mandatory applications on install. You would generally need both Spybot S&D and Adaware, because they each covered different malware, and then an antivirus, and a firewall was recommended until one came in Service Pack 2. A tool to clean up temporary files that the OS didn't prune seemed par for the course. After any spyware clean out, I'd run CCleaner just to clean up crap that Spybot and Adaware left behind, because malware leaves junk everywhere on your system. Even game uninstallers were messy, too, leaving hundreds of megabytes of files behind in stupid locations after an uninstall, but if you used the uninstall feature in CCleaner, that didn't happen. These days, basically everyone has moved on from spinning rust, so no amount of useless data is going to slow a machine down, because the drive doesn't need to mechanically seek through it all, and even then, Windows is far better at cleaning up after itself. There's still one big reason I recommend CCleaner, though: when a family member whines "my computer is slow!" and I'm nowhere near them to actually fix it up, CCleaner is great. There are a lot of professional tools, which in the right hands, can do a lot more measurable good, but give them to someone who knows _just_ enough to be dangerous and they can seriously break stuff (Hijack This, for example). With CCleaner, it's really hard to break stuff if you stay out of the advanced settings. It's honestly even hard to break stuff if you don't stay out of the advanced settings. I think you really have to _want_ to break something to break it with CCleaner. It's easy for me to tell someone to just run the default cleaning tools in CCleaner, and it does work to a degree.
I'm an IT Pro and one of our departments always puts this app on their systems. Never understood why. I played around with it a couple times but never found any major benefit to it. Nice job on the video.
Back in the mid-2000s when I was in junior high, my friends and I would bring our laptops to school to take notes on. I remember competing with them to see who could get the highest score on CC-Leaner. That was a good time.
SSD's are good, but there is still a case to be made for HDD's. Especially for bulk storage, and backups. Once you add HDDs to your setup, even temporarily (portable drives for backup) then ANY time you erase a file you "fragment" your storage. And that's what an incremental backup does: replaces a single file with a newer version. You could backup to tape, I suppose - or get an app that puts files back in order when you notice a drop in performance. Considering the cost of tape archive setups, the software solution is a no-brainer.
I still use it primarily because how easy it is to uninstall programs under the programs tab. It allows you to uninstall multiple programs at once unlike Windows' programs and features page. It's pretty useful for cleaning useless data too that Windows doesn't touch
Used to be great with XP too. Noticed an immediate difference in boot times, and overall responsiveness of the systems I ran it on. These days though, BleachBit is a much better option.
@3:12 Simple solution - DON"T download pirated versions of software. Also simply pay attention when installing this and make sure you do not select the other options. Been a CCleaner user for years and was aware of the hacked version (did not use that version or several revisions beyond this)..eventually updated to a version which was clear of that crap. I now keep this as part of my PC Toolkit (portable version) and swear by it. Never had issues. Also those 'Modern version of Windows' are still plagued by the same issues of previous versions and does a terrible job at keeping temp folders clean. While it is true Windows 10 and 11 are better, it never hurts to have that extra layer of help. And for using this for driver updates - DON"T. Personally I never update drivers using ANYTHING but the native software which came with the hardware and Windows update.
As many others said, older Windows versions used to go from buttery smooth to showing you the hourglass every five seconds in just a year, so for a long time, these tools were well justified.
Registry cleaning mattered for boot time on Win9x. Remember that loading animation 95 and 98 did with the 'throbber bar' at the bottom? It would freeze on almost every system for anything from a couple of seconds to a couple of minutes - that was time spent loading (building really) the registry. If you cleaned it then 'compressed' it, that would become a barely noticeable hitch in the animation. Between faster hardware and Windows improvements that issue went away.
I've been following the CCleaner thing for years having used it since it was first released until the 'controversy'. Now I have a .bat script file that does it all 'automanually' and I'm much happier. Very glad to hear this perspective.
Just use dos commands, they're freely available over the internet. Then set a delete command for every place there are cached or temp files etc. @@ricardocastillo57
I just use it to clean; won't use it to update apps or programs, because it screws it up, every time. Same with drivers. Won't go there. Trying to get it down to free version, but they keep auto- renewing me, too.
I work in IT, I use Ccleaner with all my windows servers every 6 months and it's completely useful. I use the portable version that doesn't install anything, and clean a lot of junk thay contrary of what Anthony says, don't do system tools like the disk cleaner (IIS temporary sh$t, c:\windows\temp folder, etc.) Usually between 2-5 GB on each machine (every 6 months!!). That amount lf space multiplied by 70 VMs is A LOT and its like 2 minute time per machine instead going over all the manual proceeses. So, I don't get the point of this video.
@@kirasmith1147 Not necessarily, IIS temp stuff for example is building up along the time and usage of the web app. Windows update temporary stuff is only generated on updating which is done in a controlled way obviously
I used to love CCleaner back when it was an independent program. It did what it was supposed to do and it did it well. Then it started getting bought by a series of companies and it quickly became less of a no-nonsense useful program and more of a bloated piece trading away its good reputation for quick, sponsored, cash. My personal rule of thumb was that as soon as a program tried to get me to install a 'toolbar' then that program was dead to me.
At my work we used to deploy it with our stock windows image, but stopped I think because of potentially some chinese ownership of the company or some other security concern like that, but I've used it for years to fix all kinds of issues. The big ones are before we took away their install rights, users always used to junk up their computers with bunches of freeware crap, and a lot of it didn't cleanly uninstall, so i would run the uninstalls for all of it, then delete the stubborn ones and run registry cleaner afterwards, which if there's no installed program attached to those registry entries, cleans them out, effectively gutting the program that won't uninstall itself, and then you just delete the files associated and it's a pretty quick and clean way to do a manual cleanup. Also sometimes we would need to upgrade something like adobe flash, shockwave, java, but the existing install had fouled up somehow, and it would neither uninstall itself nor let you run the installer, and to save myself the trouble of backing up the user's files and re-imaging, I could usually use the above manual removal methods to assure the installer for the new version that it's clear to go ahead and run(instead of popping up and telling me that there's already a version installed and to uninstall it first, especially if i'd already run an un-installer and the program was no longer showing as installed but still the installer thinks it's there.) I used it literally hundreds of times in the last decade, and at times multiple times daily, and I cannot think of one time where it broke anything or did not have the desired effect, which includes noticeable restoration of system performance when clearing out freeware bloat and cleaning out system files that build up massively over time.
Yes and no, I'd say. Registry cleaning is unnecessary and can break stuff. But cleaning temp files, etc, is fine. Not necessarily by ccleaner. Windows also has a clean old junk tool. I used it in the past but don't really any more cos of that, and that driver updates are usually easy anyway
just run the already installed disk cleanup thingy it regularly cleans out megabytes to gigabytes of temp files if I give it enough time between cleans.
I thought its name came from its cleanup of the C drive. Plus back in the Windows XP days, those leftover registry keys that pointed to nothing did actually cause system instability and slow the entire computer down. I don't use Windows at all anymore, but I still used CCleaner on W10 when I did. I didn't know about the 2017 incidents or the buyout though.
I used it when I had Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. But I dumped it for good after I switched to Windows 10, because Windows itself is already smart enough to handle everything automatically and doesn't need cleaning nor deleting any registry keys. I also once used AVG PC TuneUp, on Windows 7, because it did help to maintain things. Now I just update my system if there are any updates available, and just do a quick sfc/scannow and drive optimization process here and there.
Still useful. They just need an implementation that deletes all Windows 10/11 microsoft maleware/adware/junkware and one that also actively disables automatic updates so only you have a decision what updates and when you want to install them again. Also a feature that actively disables all diagnostics sent to mothership that's built in. Or maybe it will erase Winblows and Install LInux as its first suggested task.
I know that there is some youtuber that created a script for just this, but for help of me can't remember where... And I lost that script with my last reinstall darn it 🥴
I dunno why, but I've always called this thing CC Cleaner.
@@FoxyDrew nice one
same
Same
Same bro
you are not alone.
CCleaner is now owned by Norton (Avast bought Piriform. AVG merged with Avast. Norton bought AVG). That’s all you need to know when deciding whether or not to install it.
Norton should be broken up and should be abolished too
Wow, I didn't know this, but I did stop recommending ccleaner and avast a few years ago. Avast became the malware.
That explains why CCleaner was unable to fully remove Norton AV from my PC.
@@caffeinesippingman Avast used to be so good, and then it really wasn't.
Good lord, never knew shit rolled uphill till now.
Id like to see a "general cleanup and maintenance" video where Anthony goes over various hardware and software cleaning tips.
yes, this would be very helpful. In the end, when I use the Microsoft-cleaner (not the win11-newstyle-version, which looks like invented by a malevolent AI), it takes quite some time.
We definitely need that!
it's honestly very simple. Don't install random crap you don't need. That's 90% there is to keeping a machine healthy.
Anthony is not the most entertaining host on the rota but every time I see him I know I'm going to learn somthing realy useful and I love him for it
@@emanuelmayer I agree! I recently learned about this one. The Microsoft Disk Cleanup tool takes a long time because at the end of the delete, it then takes some time to compress the system files that it keeps backups of (for adding a feature or restoring something that broke) as much as it can. That's why it looks like it's almost done yet sometimes hangs for a long time at the end.
I've been using Glary instead of CCleaner all this time and it seems I dodged a bullet in 2018.
They used to matter more back when you had HDDs since many of these types of software could defrag the disk.
Having things like file shredders, accidental deletion restorers, registry&system file backup/restore systems, and simple temp file cleaning is also still quite useful, even if some use cases are niche.
Same. Switched to Glary around the time CCleaner got bad press and never looked back.
Just tried out Glary thanks to this comment. Really like it, thanks!
We still use HDDs.
I stumbled across Glary when looking for other software besides CCleaner. All I can say is that I love it. All of the features That Glary offers for free is astounding and the UI is perfect.
Glary offer more
It was essential on XP which lacked most of modern OS's convenient tools for cleanups. And it helped remove pesky leftovers from miscoded uninstallers--something still plaguing software in 2022. But, the few times I needed to use System Restore to fix what CCleaner did finally convinced me to stop using it and never look back. Sometimes a fresh OS install is way more effective than a "cleaning", especially on a system running on only upgraded hardware and software for many, many years.
In Windows 98 and XP times, these were useful tools if you knew what you were doing. Tuneup was another of these tools and it is much older. Later it was not so useful and there are smaller tools that are better, for example cleanmgr+.
Ah XP, the OS that tested everyone's patience
@@tytusromek9267 the average Joe won't know about that
i run once in month ccleaner to get some wierd bugs out from my browser i tho have run win 7 like 10 years now.
@@KingLarbear So much better than what came before it. I started with 3.11 and XP is bliss compared to 3.1 , 3.11 , 95 , 98 and ME.
This was actually quite a useful tool back in the XP days when performance started chugging. Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole now but it did make a notable difference to performance back in the day
Yep CCleaner and TweakXP were the bomb.
Good point. CCleaner and some sort of Defrag software like Auslogics Disk Defrag was super helpful for platter drives.
Even today on crap computer really... especially the registry part of it. That's what made me most difference on my end. But when I heard all the shady stuff, I uninstalled it and I am currently using the "somewhat" similar functions of Razer Cortex. (Got a razer mouse...) I'm not sure if thats even a good idea.
completely agree, it was the only utility I could find to rescue my old windows millennium when problems struck
Very true, back when I had all mechanical hard drives and needed to shave a second or two off the boot time, CCleaner was the best. Buuuut I barely used it with Windows 7 and I've never used it Windows 10.
Back in the windows xp and vista days it had a noticeable positive impact, as well as putting a lot of tools in one place. I definitely contributed to the amount of times it has been downloaded
It was an extremely useful tool in those days. I have not cared for it so much since Avast bought them out. Not only is it less useful than in previous versions of windows it has annoying nag screens and is basically adware all by itself.
arguable also during early win 7 days. But once win7 got a few years old, people stopped using it and by the time win 10 came around it was completely unnecessary.
Used CCleaner for many years on many Win10 and Win11 installations without even one issue. Still use it.
same here. ccleaner android app is good also
The Mac version of CCleaner acts like malware. If you force quit it, it opens itself again and you can't uninstall it from applications in Finder, having to find the option within the application. The kicker is that if the app bugs out and you get an error during uninstall, you have to reinstall it before the uninstall will work. Used to use it a lot on Windows until recently.
no one believed me then, and i doubt anyone will believe me now, but ccleaned fucking installed itself alongside the homeworld remaster
@@quantum5661 I can vouch for that shit
@@quantum5661 vouch
Good to know. I've used it before as a quick way to resolve issues with the hidden iTunes cache folder that I've seen get bloated and wont clear leading to storage being maxed out.
Sounds like a Apple problem.
Most of the time that I've used CCleaner was mainly to clear the registry of logs from free trial software. Normally when you uninstall them they leave stuff behind so that if you try to reinstall to get another free trial it will know you've already used your free time but CCleaner removes that stuff for unlimited free trials.
This is exactly what I use it for. Definitely not for larger scale cleaning.
I use advance uninstaller for the same purpose (it's free)it also has a feature called installation montior which will record what a software is doing while installing to completely clean during uninstallation
Bullcrap uninstall is free and open source 100% recommended
@@pablojp3498 While open source is always a nice bonus CCleaner is also free since all the stuff from the paid version is just unnecessary junk only added to trick people into buying it. The free version does everything CCleaner was actually created to do.
What is free trial software that you usually use this feature?
It's wild to me how many people have forgotten (or weren't using computers / alive) back when these sorts of tools were actually needed because both windows and programs you installed on it treated the registry like a latrine
(To be clear, you no longer need it)
The registry is still treated like a latrine, but it's just not really an issue in newer versions of Windows like it was in the past.
@@TalesOfWar Maybe Microsoft improved their sewer system
@@mohammedmuzzammil7834 LMAO
I used to use it back in the day, but I'm not quite sure it was "actually needed". I feel like I just joined the train of "everybody who knows anything about computers uses it and it shows numbers of things it cleaned, so it must be good"
(that's at the XP/7 days, I skipped the 2k stuff and at 95/98 times I had no idea what I was doing anyway)
It was only needed if you were frequently installing and removing things, but back in the 9x and somewhat in the XP days it was not very difficult to get yourself into a bluescreen situation simply by getting the registry set up in ways where it tried to load things that weren't available anymore. I remember ATI drivers in particular being really bad about leaving behind harmful registry clutter when you uninstalled them.
I've used this software for many years as an IT professional for cleaning out broken installs\uninstalls from the registry. It works well in some use cases. Overall though, I agree it's not necessary anymore and given the potential compromises I don't keep it on the systems. I install it, run the tools I need, then uninstall it.
Well, if it got compromised, it'd probably lie about uninstalling itself
@@Fiufsciak , I was thinking the same thing, if it's compromised and you just "install, do a little, then uninstall", the fact is the damage is already done because you installed it in the first place. I mean that's exactly what hackers/exploiters want is for you to take that first step and "click to install".
@@zenithperigee7442 ironically thats what they do, a lot of programs that are maliciously already on computers often check USB inputs and corrupt the files on them, lots of them love CCleaner, offloading the same unsecure application on many computers is an unsafe practice..
I personally find 90% of these “optimization apps” to be dog water. The only ones worth while cost money and all they do is put all of the optimization you can do yourself into one place. I find it much easier to just use CMD for sfc/dism, defrag, and file explorer to clean up drives. There’s probably more higher level stuff to optimize the computer but I don’t know of it.
"Dog Water" a man with the vocabulary of an intellectual. Good on ya sir.
@@TruFire710 Defragging an SSD is absolute dog water anyway.
I find some pretty useful. For example tune up utilities lets me close and open background tasks for apps such as those that control peripherals. Granted you could always just set up your peripheral settings then uninstall the program which is what I personally do right now since I don’t want to pay for a licensed program. I could still see it being useful to some folks.
Modern browsers are memory hoarders, so cleaning the browser cache and data usually helps
@@snake698 for like 6 mins until you get 3 tabs back open and it doesn't matter anymore 😢
This lines up with what I’ve been telling my clients for years, and very diplomatic in your coverage of it
I used to use CCleaner religiously from the late 2000s up to about 2020. Then once the ownership changes started happening, so came the UI overhauls and the pay walling of features, and then when I heard about the grumblings of more harm then good, I was out. I will say though, that despite what you say about the registry cleanup being unneccesary, I swear anytime I had a significant amount to clear out, it INSTANTLY became noticeably more responsive atleast within the Windows desktop environment. And I never once encountered an issue with something becoming broken after doing so.
Paul Denney
"Than" not "then".
@@redblade8160 thanks professor
youve been using snakeoil for 20 years kid
Honestly the responsiveness on the desktop can be pure placebo because you focus more on the mouse movement than before you cleaned it. And because you know that you just cleaned it. Would be a fun thing to test out with another person who randomly cleans it for you.
@@OutOfRangeDE
Stop playing the psychologist, it doesn't suit you you!
I always use ccleaner portable. Especially being in the IT field.
So many people still using HDDs and it makes a massive improvement for them
Why not just tell the client to get an SSD. They are cheaper than USB drives now.
@@renegade_patriot we usually do recommend upgrades for certain people. Others we clean them up and plan to replace the whole computer within the next 6 months anyways. A lot of the time the computer is so old (3rd gen Intel) that it isn't worth the SSD and time to try and speed is up a little so just full replace
@@z0mb13k1ll2012 holy. Yeah time to upgrade from the Tandy on windows 3.1 and get into the 21st century 😆
CCleaner was like the most useful tool when I did tech work at Office Depot. We were supposed to run hella scammy diagnostics and I just ran CCleaner and it improved grandma's performance and got rid of some pop ups she was experiencing. This and Adwcleaner were the kings.
Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need.
malwarebytes has really started sucking recently. the only reason I keep it is so I can use it's scanner and it isn't as intrusive as another AV. I use defender.
ADWcleaner is malwarebytes so yea.
haha I was offered a job at an office depot once and they told me in the interview they wanted me to run their own software to diagnosis and fix computers. I told them no, being honest and broke was better than running a scammy tool and being slightly less broke.
@@JessicaFEREM So if Malwarebytes sucks, then how about Kaspersky? Also is any 3rd party security software even needed, given that Windows already has Windows Defender on it?
@@ArawnOfAnnwn Kaspersky is the best AV from the tests I've seen.
Defender is my favorite tho because it's good enough.
Haven't used it in a few years now, but back in the day it was one of my most valued tools. Stopped using it when it was bought up and found other ways to do what I needed to get done. Informative and useful video. :)
My main problem with ccleaner is that while yes, it can clean up what you want it to, it can also "clean" up some stuff you really shouldn't mess with unless you really know what your doing. I see too many regular users who are far from computer experts download and use it and the havoc it's capable of. It's just really easy to set it up to be over eager in it's cleaning, and potentially ruin your install.
M365 paper pushers shouldn't be deleting every false positive they find. They might end up breaking windows.
There's warnings that state possible adverse effects as you open up the choices they have disabled by default. If users don't read it or learn about each advanced cleaning, it's on them. I never had an issue using it.
👍
it's rubbish, just use revo uninstaller.
@@wickedfuctup You're not the people who end up calling me for tech support either, you're not who I'm worried about. The people I'm worried about don't read warnings, but somehow figure out that this tool exists, and the proceed to nuke everything on their system with abandon. I then get called to clean up the mess.
Stopped using it in 2006, I make my own decisions based on my own experience... Didn't know it was still popular. Glad you made this video. Bravo...
CCleaner is part of my shotgun approach when I get handed a System that does "irregular, weird thingies". Together with a select few other tools, it helps me get rid of anything that MIGHT be causing an issue. I use it ONCE when I notice something odd happening, and wouldn't advice anyone to use it regularely.
Back in the day people also always said never update your BIOS unless you have to, and nowadays I keep my bios on the most up-to-date version available at all times, things change, and CCleaner was definitely more useful in the days of HDDs.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. You will still occasionally get tripped up by a 'new' bios that may not work right with 'old' programs. Better to just reinstall the version of windows that it came with, after backing up the data.
@@d.e.b.b5788 if you don't have a problem leave the bios alone!
The bios thing is still true.
Unless you mobo has a double bios I would still suggest not upgrading it unless necessary.
Even with modern HDDs, modern OSes can be set to automatically do a junk clear and defragging, making CCleaner useless for almost everyone
I bricked my motherboard 3 years ago while resetting bios settings, not to mention updating it. It's not that resetting was at fault, it was the write operation itself which is risky. I was resetting it before with no issues.
Combination of c cleaner and file assassin has saved a few installs for me in the past.
When malware can't or won't uninstall and nothing seems to stop it re installing you can sometimes kill the start up routine with c cleaner then use file assassin to nuke the actual folder or files.
Particularly useful for browser hijacks.
Family IT guy/Super small IT Business owner - I've used CCleaner since the dawn of it's existence. Took a break from using it when they had that security issue. But I generally use it for family/clients, The main reason is so I know what programs are out of date and need to be updated on their PC's and whatnot like that. It's an overall okay tool for the small stuff like that. I keep the portable version on a flash drive.
I was a student worker for a college IT department from 2000-2004. We supported Windows NT machines running WordPefect and Netscape Navigator on a token ring network.... it sucked even by the standards of those days. We ran junk like ccleaner and regclean all the time just to try and keep the computers from crashing every 5 minutes without a format and reinstall.
Token ring? I read about that while studying in '99, never came across one though. That doesn't sound like fun
@@JohnnyThousand605 If you accidentally unplugged the connector without first powering down the computer it would crash the entire building. The IT guys would gripe you out the whole time they were manually resetting the network
@@scittw22 crah the entire building - would network just stop working or computers would also crash?
@@scittw22 Been there, done that, lol. Office manager was mad the next day. And you're probably old enough to remember some PC XT type boxes had a "Turbo" button to push OFF because some software needed extra time to run and running a PC in turbo mode would crash this software! The "good old days", they were terrible...
@@volodumurkalunyak4651 The network. You knew you were in trouble when you could hear a click from the network interface cards
I remember I used CCleaner back when I had HDDs and trash registry entries would actually slow down your PC noticeably, especially for startup. I think that's the primary reason CCleaner became popular. With modern Windows registry optimizations and blasing fast SSDs, I don't think there's really any point to installing any kind of registry cleaner as the risk of it getting something wrong greatly outweighs any reward.
they are still fantastic to clean out old registry entries or duplicates that cause very odd conflicts sometimes. every single little bit helps. pc maintenance should be a more common thing
Having Andy talk about CCleaner was an instant click. I used it for a very long time but haven't really found it necessary for some of the reasons pointed out in the video. PC Manager was a new one to me though, so I'm thankful for that find as well!
I've created a few windows installers and it's notoriously difficult. Most installers don't uninstall cleanly for this reason and leave a lot of junk in the registry. Cleaning the registry once a week definitely seems to improve the performance for me even in Windows 11 with a Dell Inspiron 15 5518 but always backup the registry before you do it. Also if you're drive is nearly full like mine you can reclaim 3-4GB of space.
CCleaner is great for removing Microsoft specific bloat that Windows itself wont allow you to remove. Registry cleaning is unnecessary. You should never update drivers from any "driver updater" application. Windows updated have verified drivers and newer versions usually are for models/version/OEM computers that might get specific problems
+1 This is the only reason I use CCleaner when setting up a new Windows install: getting rid of Microsoft included garbage bloatware that you can't uninstall from Settings or Control Panel.
Same thing with Adobe installation.
You're better off installing Revo Uninstaller
If my hardware is working, I NEVER update drivers. I have had more problems in the past with updated drivers. If it ain't broke, Don't "fix" it.
For sure the number one reason I have used CCleaner right there. And that sometimes will help the computer run better because you're removing bloatware.
I use this tool only for the registry cleanup because yes, invalid registry pointers can sometimes prevent programs from reinstalling, as well as helping with removing driver leftovers.
Some issues I had with cleaner softwares were how they decide to delete files that they recognize as "unknown junk". These files are usually in weird formate, but could be vital to programs and especially video games.
It was a disaster back then when all my custom rhythm game maps are deleted, only left with their mp3 files lol.
Just delete things manually
And not essential files cause you still need to know what you are doing
I had all my osumania maps deleted in a similar fashion. Still upset about it 2 years later
@@incongruous4 well thats what backup drive is for
3 of them atleast
Thing is, Windows 10 is way more complex than Windows 7, let alone XP, and while 3rd party software companies _think_ they know the OS inside out, they don't. So, many of them are flying blind.
BleachBit good alternative for CCleaner. Also it's open source.
using ccleaner is fine if you just use it once in a while.. no other tool gives you such control over what to clear from the various caches. it isn't perfect but it is, for me, essential if you're about to defrag the disk. however, afterwards, you have to remove it from memory and also startup under msconfig else the popups nag you to death.
I've heard other people say that the registry clean-up does nothing helpful but it's usually the step that gives performance back to old machines I've helped people tidy up. Having a lot of unused registers entries can in fact slow your system down since it points to nowhere yet has to be gone through every time the computer tries to do much of anything. It's probably a bit situational, but it's not black or white.
The registry is a database. The number of items in the database doesn't really affect its performance.
@@0mongo0 Real world observation says otherwise. When I started at my current job almost 11 years ago, the average computer in the company had 2gb of ram and an 80gb hard drive, massively out of date, and we upgraded all several thousand of them to 4gb before upgrading to windows 7, but most still had their original boot drive, 80gb or 160gb 5400rpm wd blue or seagate white label drives, and it didn't take much to slow them down, or much to speed them back up.
@@hzuiel This!
Here is the thing. Do the invalid entries slow things down? Why did we used to see a difference, but no longer see those differences? With CPUs and SSDs and GPUs, our computers are so much faster today that the differences are insignificant. Once upon a time, it was critical to write programs in assembler to make them fast, but in the end, hardware is cheaper to improve than software, and speed of development for software is more important that the number of machine cycles.
The best fixer upper? Backup your data, format C: and reinstall a fresh install of winblows. Magic, I swear! your computer will be just as fast as it was when you first got it! Of course, most people have no idea how to do this, and Microsoft doesn't want you to know, because then you won't buy another version of winblows! I currently have 'ancient' computers running as quick as lightning, with WinXP, Win7, and even Win98, all because they have recent formating and reinstallation of the operating systems.
I’ve loved ccleaner back in the day of windows XP it was really useful software and did make a computer of the time so much faster after its use (due to limiting hardware) I stopped using it a few years ago for unknown reason. I just stopped, but it has a core memory of seeing how much space I saved and getting excited at how much better my system ran
CCleaner, or as I call it CC Leaner, in my opinion and experience has a time and place. While yes… you can do almost everything with out of box or first party software, it is often a quick and simple solution rather than using multiple different tools (aka end user friendly).
I have also found it’s uninstall utility to be especially useful when I need to uninstall something but the official .msi file simply refuses to do so. While it does try to use the msi file, if it fails it’s delete does almost always manage to delete all the files relevant (something you’ll very likely miss if you attempt manually, places like %appdata%)
And as a backend web engineer, CCleaner is really nice at clearing browser history and data because I use multiple browsers… yes I could go one by one and clear them all manually but CCleaner is significantly faster, especially when IE is still needed to be tested on for legacy functionality.
I also would like to point out that while you definitely shouldn’t clear your registry without any care… registry-based malware does exist and is a common route to replication. While an antimalware should remove these… “should” is the problem. You also should make a backup before deleting them off system just in case.
All in all, CCleaner doesn’t make much sense for an average enthusiast or power user but for web engineers it’s simply a time save… or your grandparents, it’s better than the alternative (aka nothing).
P. S. If you think the average end user is going to use 10 different tools, and not mess something up in the process or get too confused and do nothing… when was the last time you tried explaining something as simple as a meme to a boomer. It’s like that.
Use BleachBit instead of CCleaner.
@@GoldSrc_ I am Hilary Clinton and I approve this message.
You can use Cleaner v2023, designed to clean only what is essential while maximizing the use of Windows' native tools.
The philosophy of this software is not to delete the maximum amount of data (marketing hype) but to clean your computer with the least possible risk.
This Windows cleaning software is 100% free, with no spyware, no data resale, no telemetry... It was originally designed to clean our own development and testing PCs!
The registry cleaning is mostly useful and noticeable on weak/old systems. I used to run it on a few old pcs at my old job. Very old systems that were used for the POS systems. But after a week the registry would get bogged down and the old systems would become damn near unusable. Restarts, etc would not help the issue. Crap cleaner did its job, back then. This was in the mid 2000s. I personally use an old version, pre Avira on my PC, which is an older phenom based PC. (I don't playmodern games) that last version works fine and I run it once a month.
Whenever I used Ccleaner, it would be great for a while. But then after a few months, I would notice something is broken in Windows's core system. Couldn't run windows update, couldn't update from windows 7 to 10 without re-formatting, even some weird issues with AMD chipset drivers saying I don't have an AMD CPU, even though I do (but that could just be an AMD thing). Plus, now that it went full malware/steal your data route, it ain't worth it anymore.
Yeah back in the day registry cleaning with it causes me so many issues on windows xp 7 and 8.1 that I just stopped using it. Plus I've used solid state drives and let windows optimize it so didn't really need it to optimize like back on mechanical drives
Y'know, I'm having trouble with an AMD Pro driver installation sticking (or at least the panel, the driver itself is fine). I'm ready to blame AMD and WUpdate, but I wonder if CCleaner via TronScript is causing this issue.
thats sounds like a bigger problem than ccleaner could cause unless you having it clean some special places...
Never have had any issue with it, and still do not. I am using an Intel CPU, though.
The name does stand for “crap cleaner”, after all. Is it any surprise that every now and then it “accidentally” removes some important part of Windows itself?
CCleaner was really good back in the day on Windows 7 and 8
True
Sweet memories 💪😎
Yeah it was, just like malwarebytes used to be too. Now they both want to sell you a useless premium version
@@casedistorted the free version of Malwarebytes is good for removing malware on windows machines. Won’t ever pay for it again after the 3.0 update started causing hard-freezes on my machines.
These days I just install it on an infected machine, get it to delete any malware, and then uninstall it.
It was good on WinXP. Win7 was already a point when CCleaner was unnecessary and on 8 it was completely pointless.
Liked your video, but from my experience and in real use, CCleaner does really help and improve performance by cleaning cache or registry, especially on older PCs with old HDDs. Every PC I serviced CCleaner did what it should. Sometimes on PCs from regular users it would clean 5 or 10 Gigs or garbage, and that definitely improved boot time and overall perfomance. Never had even One issue with it, and Im talking about 10+ years of usage, and tons of serviced PCs and laptops.
1:20 registry shrink did help a lot on HDD's. if you had broken software like MS office 13, it made a lot of entries each upgrade, which made registry weight like 400MB (usually its like 60MB) one time removal and shrink was also getting it defragmented, which could make a lot of difference in general sluginess of windows. I used similar soft called glary utilities, which also had random other tools that could give you ~20 sec off your boot on hdd's and was IMHO more powerful.
those things like to run on boot and periodically, which is pointless, IMHO all you need is portable version and just run it once per 2-3 years if your windows survives that long.
No windows should last 2-3 years, anything above 6 months line is already too much time and crap push on a OS, everybody should learn to do a quick format BEFORE the windows start to lose performance.
@@youknowwho257 This is complete nonsense
@@CPUGaming I agree tho. I noticed over the years that I would regularly encounter problems with windows after a few months from a fresh reformat.
@@MyChiliIceCream But that has very little to do with windows itself, but due to the software you install
@@CPUGaming But it has everything to do with windows. A windows user shouldn’t need to reformat every 6months. My sister and gf uses a Mac and they don’t know anything about simple troubleshooting and maintenance but I don’t see their devices slowing down.
I really enjoy the length and structure of these videos. Short, sweet and to the point makes it easily digestible. Good work guys 🤘
I used ccleaner for many years. The only reason I stopped using it, was me switching to Linux. But I don't think it is an inherently bad tool. I think every point against the current version of ccleaner in this video is true, but in the end it comes down to convenience. It is way easier to tell my parents to use this program, than to tell them a bunch of different crap they need to do, so I stick to my recommendation.
Linux has a lot better similar program called Stacer. Not only delete caches and orphan files but increase little the performance too .
On Linux, you can use BleachBit instead... it's similar
they removed the option for it to not start with windows
Ccleaner will wipe your browser history, Windows explorer history, all of browser caches by default. Do you really need to wipe all of that every time using ccleaner???
@@kittysplode Mine doesn't start when I launch Windows...and it is the latest version. Of course, I have it set to not start in my startup programs. You are part right- There is no button to toggle to say don't start up, but in ccleaner, under "Tools"-"Startup", you can literally tell it not to start. Weird that it does that to you. I have not had that issue, once I removed it from the startup list.
I still use it yo clean the register and temp files, etc. So I always had a good experience with this.
I stopped using it many years ago, but I returned to using it just for custom cleaning of browser cache, compacting databases, temp folders, etc (stuff that's safe to delete) a couple years ago, as it still saves me time when ai do it about once a month.
Ya on my Android tablet I find it handy
I stopped using it a while ago and in 2017 after I heard the website hack and malware download thing I stayed clear of it for a while. But I find myself resorting back to it for a consolidated and lightweight center for cleaning my browsers, drives and startup. It's true that you can do all that more easily now just the "normal" way but ccleaner still makes it faster and easier, which means you're more likely to do it regularly than skip it. By Anthony's logic, you could say any GUI windows app that can be replaced by a series of command lines is therefore useless. If some software speeds up your chore, it has value, end of story.
The criticism that "some people pirate the pro version and get malware instead" is a hilariously bad take. You can say that about ANY paid software, it's totally unfair and in bad faith. I'm honestly surprised that Anthony could say that with a straight face. It seems that a lot of the recent content on LTT channels have been heavily editorialized in bad ways. I really hope there isn't some kind of sinister financial reason for it.
@@zxbc1 drivers-wise (and BIOS-wise) I will never trust any automated "driver center". It can be a last resort if I'm having serious issues manually.
If you do alot of sound mixing nd rerecording conversions to .m4a CCleaner is the only tool that finds the broken wav files instantly if you have multiple temp directories over a server. It takes other tools awhile to recognize the partial .wav files.
I’ve used it for a long time. The new avast upselling and bloatware is annoying but if you are careful while installing and doing the first setup, disabling all the crap and setting your desired stuff to be deleted, it’s a handy tool to just open, click clean, search registry, delete all and you are done. Then check startup items just in case something is fishy. Every other “feature” of it isn’t worth the time
But what do you actually gain by using it?
@@user-or4ut2qi3q It helps with older PC's which are running old operating systems or if not running an SSD. If you clean out the temp files and a few other things on those machines it has a massive uptick in performance. However if you're running Windows 10 or 11 with an SSD you won't even notice the difference after the clean.
I been using CCLeaner Five year. I,ve had no touble with this softwere and it does a Excellent Job
There's one really important use for CCleaner in Windows 10 (and I suspect 11 too). Removing programs that Windows doesn't want you to delete. The Bloatware. Like the Cortana, or xBox whatever.
Except CCleaner is a bloatware itself and it tries to make you install junk in addition to bothering you with popups (it was acquired by Avast so it's not too surprising).
Best option is stay away from Windows as much as you can.
@@TheLordoftheDarkness oh I am TOTALLY waiting for times when staying away from windows will be an option for consumers.
Microsoft is making it harder to remove stuff like XBox and Edge. It's basically impossible.
absolutely agree but yeah windblows forces their crap on everyone today
While I agree with the sentiment about not using ccleaner based on that Norton owns it(Norton, the place where software goes to die). It still has always been handy for people who don't know much about computers to fix some issues they don't know how to do themselves. The driver update can be quite worthwhile for some, the cleaning it provides is simply and easy to understand with most things autoselected. The registry cleaner has some added bonus to that you reduced some of the registry hive of unused entries or invalid ones. It has provided an easy way for me to help people reduce start up, free up space online with not a whole lot of windows know how. So I wouldn't just completely dismiss it.
Avast did try to explain that the telemetry turning on was a bug and did issue an update to fix it, I was on the fence about believing it, but dismissed it as fairly harmless. I was reluctant to like that ccleaner was acquired by avast with the changes they made. However I did not mind avast and kind of liked their antivirus software, so I eventually got used to it.
I can't help but feel the point about people running into 'pirated' software and getting infected instead is a completely moot point. Because it has been happening long before ccleaner and it will continue long after, it is completely not unique to ccleaner at all. It's just a stupid detail to even add if anything.
As for Norton owning ccleaner, I can completely understand wanting to dump the software and can't really blame anyone for doing so. Especially if you are good at doing all the same tasks as the software provides for you. I really despise Norton for many reasons and hate the company fully and would recommend no one ever buying ccleaner. It might be good at driver updating for really out of date systems, but there are other programs that provide this feature and probably are better at it.
First off with Norton, I have seen them purchase and kill off plenty of good software that I used. Sygate was one that is fast, efficient and great. I suppose it let others innovate and improve, since it was sent to limbo and people had to find alternatives that wasn't norton and norton did not improve after buying this much more popular piece of software. Outpost was amazing and by far better than sygate, but it eventually was destroyed by it's own government. Now people feel microsoft firewall is pretty good and don't need anything else because they sit behind firewall/gateways and don't suffer from the same attack vectors of just being online. While I have tried software to improve windows firewall to let me control outgoing programs, it just never was as good or at least give me control of easy to choose incoming and outgoing control and version checks and other security protocols. I had others like eeye blink and beyondtrust endpoint security, but eventually all good things had to come to an end as they only sell to businesses. Another software that went to die was pgp, while I liked and used it for awhile, it had some fundamental flaws in ease of use. However gnupg was a much better alternative to using anything that symantec owns and now has destroyed. There is plenty more software that norton just keeps buying up and they really do make a giant amount of acquisitions and it's insidious. They do not improve or handle them well and norton/symantec is tainted so much, that even being associated often leads to the software's decline.
the driver updater is a pro function who the fuck is going to pay money to have drivers install on themselves...
also 9/10 times with old hardware it's going to fail and could produce blue screens.
2 months ago I had a aspire5560 from 2009 who kept installing the wrong APU driver (thank you windows10) which would send it into bluescreen because driver_api crashed...
so I would only ever download drivers from the manufacturer website anyone with basic IT knowledge knows this!
Well said all around
I've been using CCleaner for about 10 years now and I've never had any issues with it. It's fast, efficient, and simple to use. And all the stories of "using the registry cleaner could cause more harm than good" has never been a reality with me. I can only speak of my own personal experience, but CCleaner has never once caused any harm to any of my computers over the years. Also, the performance gains it can offer older computers is definitely real. I've taken old desktops and laptops from friends and relatives who weren't computer savvy at all. For years, they never cleaned, defragged, or optimized their computers. And as a result, these PCs were extremely slow to do anything. Even starting up and booting into Windows took forever. I downloaded and installed CCleaner onto these computers and let it do it's thing. Then I defragged the computers. And boom. These barely-functioning computers were working perfectly fine. No slow start-up. No slow, laggy performance. Afterward, these people praised me as some kind of computer genius that fixed their computer. And I explained to them: "All I did was some basic, routine computer maintenance that you're actually supposed to do every few months. It wasn't anything special at all. Like vehicles, you're supposed to do regular, routine maintenance and upkeep on computers. If you don't, it's going to stop functioning properly, just like any other machine."
Exactly. I've never had a single negative thing happen to any of the computers after easily a decade. I've also raised computers from the dead using CCleaner. I put in another comment that it's not magic, it just has a lot of great features that makes it so much easier to clean/update with a couple of clicks. With Windows updates, drive checks, temporary internet files, temporary system files, startup apps, bloatware, viruses, out of date drivers, you name it, any program that let's me kill 7 birds with 1 stone, and do it well, I'll take it.
Using a program for 10 years, and never bothered to learn how to not need to use ? Because CCleaner was never really necessary on Win10, only on older OS.
Like knowing where was the files the program cleaned everytime you had to open the program, click for hin to make a "scan", waiting and then clicking on delete, you could've just opened the file manager and deleted the entire folder for yourself and saved tons of time. Or just opening the browser and clicking to clear history/cookies. Nothing hard really.
And the traces on the registry you can literaly ignore, they don't do anything bad just by being there on the OS we have and this is nothing new, it is like this for some time now, and BTW, no windows instalation should live more than 6 months, so these pc's that "were extremely slow" of your friends and relatives just need formating instead of life suport, don't let it live for so much time, it will bring more trouble than it should lol.
@@youknowwho257
You do realize theres WAY too many people who don't know a damn ting to even know HOW to install windows, let alone do it so frequently right?
@@LeonSteelpaw That doesn't take anything away from his point that he is making though...He's practically saying people should learn and your just saying " you do know they don't know this stuff though right ? "
@@drugbustin
It's a simple fact that a lot of people are tech illiterate or are outright lazy.
Saying they should do something so drastic on a timeframe like that is asking a LOT from such people.
Furthermore, I have not once heard anyone say to reinstall every 6 months before. Maybe that works for this person, but in most cases, that install is going to be there for YEARS until either the OS implodes on itself, or the owner decides to get a new machine
I've forever heard of the "it could delete registry entries that matter" and in my decade+ of using it I've never once experienced this. It's a good first port of call for older PC's to try and get them running like new. But like defrag, it's a relic of the past in terms of improving modern PC performance.
Occasionally I had the issue, that a windows update wouldn't properly install (bootloop), which I suspect to be the result of ccleaner. Its easily resolved by sfc/scannow but still
I've seen it specifically happen on systems a decent number of times over the years, sometimes being a mild annoyance to fix for them and a few times being a good couple of hours of screwing around.
I haven't seen it recently, but I don't really fix many peoples computers anymore since I moved away from where I grew up 4 years ago.
Back in the day, best way of making your windows system faster was to make fresh install. It was not hassle if your important data was in its own partition. AND of course backup before doing it :)
The software used to be good up until they bundled or with avast and pushed it out if you had it installed previously
@@Skank_and_Gutterboy He only says not to use any cleaners except what’s built in to windows. So that’s a strange takeaway… that also has nothing to do with the comment you replied to… Wondering if we have ourselves an Avast troll account here.
Back when I worked for a PC repairs shop years ago I probably ran CCleaner's registry cleaner on hundreds of PCs and never once did it cause an issue. While its utility over the years has dwindled due to improved hardware and software, at the same time I don't buy the argument that it could cause more harm than good. If anything deleting broken registry entries has often fixed certain quirks and issues rather than caused any, but nowadays, sure, it's mostly unnecessary. I still keep a copy of CCleaner handy though in case I ever feel like doing some spring cleaning, but it's more of a "if I feel like it" sort of thing now rather than a necessity.
I have used CCleaner for about 3 or 4 years now and never had any issues with it. I don't use it that much but I do find it more convenient cleaning multiple locations at once and it is quicker to clean Chrome using multiple profiles.
You just don't understand how good CCleaner used to be and how bad it is now in comparison.
When I first installed Linux several years ago, I found out that CCleaner wasn't available for it. I then looked around on the internet for Linux cleaners and came across bleachbit. Ever since then, I've been using Bleachbit and it works MUCH better than even the paid version of CCleaner.
Although Linux barely ever needs a cleanup because of its inherently different file structure 😁
@@ArniesTech 45 gb cache folder pacman yay
I figure if it's good enough for government officials to use and get away with stuff it's good enough for me.
Once I discovered BleachBit, I stopped using CCleaner altogether. Much better and lighter program.
Totally agree. BleachBit, alongside BCUninstaller are my preferred cleaning programs
Still pretty neat for some function like deleting empty folders, amongst a few other simple features. You can achieve all that without using ccleaner but it's handy as a all-in-one tool.
You are absolutely right for your viewers, however if you have a noob asking/expecting you to do the maintenance CCleaner is something even they can run. Which saves me multiple hours of doing the maintenance and the drive there and back. Now I only have to go over it when I am there anyway
You could mention a very useful feature of CCleaner such as Duplicate finder. They implement this in a very good way. It's not the fastest on the market but gives you a lot of control over what duplicates and where exactly you want to delete. These days I use CCleaner mostly because of that feature.
And drive wiper is good to clean a harddrive before selling it
Or, you know... you could just KNOW what you have on your pc instead ?
If there's more than one of a file, you created that copy, so maybe the problem is coming from you.
Drive wiper wat ? Dude just format the thing, is faster and cleaner (lol)
@@youknowwho257 So you don't know how format works..
@@youknowwho257 dunning-kruger
@@youknowwho257 L take lol
CCleaner was a great program for many years when I was running HDD's, but due to all the problems associated with CCleaner over recent years, I started using Glary Utilities to mostly remove temp files and folders. I don't use the registry cleaner as I moved to SSD's a couple of years ago.
Ccleaner started to have cmd line popups even when the program was off, switched to Gary's utilities
I found CCleaner to be crap and filled with spyware. So I also had to get rid of it and install Glary Utilities.
not sure how the registry cleaning and using an SSD correlate with each other?
@@andreivaughn1468 I believe SSD's made the need for registry maintenance obselete.
@@Grievous- I thought problematic and defunct registry entries made issues with uninstalling/reinstalling programs a problem? Huh, whatever.
I spent a few hours researching and trying out programs to cut down my terribly bloated context menus. It bewilders me why editing this is as hard and cumbersome as it is. CCleaner was the only program I tried that was able to get rid of the most obfuscating context menu items plaguing me (shexview, shmnview get honorable mentions but they're also 2 separate programs while CCleaner is just the 1)
You could just eat it all like big boy here does
Whenever I'm looking for tech advices, I see Anthony and I immediately know there's an answer to my doubts :)
Literally was just thinking this, talking about perfect timing. Great vid as usual tho 🥳🥳
I found CCleaner was good at telling me things I simply did not know as a noob. Like there are startup programs you can activate or deactivate and like you should indeed check your hardware updates to see if they have new drivers. Likewise the registry stuff really was useful back in the day (I must have used it for a decade on 10 PCs with zero issues of anything being deleted or corrupted). I probably won’t renew my existing sub because they have just got insane with their pressurising now. Like you update in June and in July you get a msg “Dude, CCleaner is due for renewal in 11 months! Claim 1 month free on your next year but ACT NOW THIS MINUTE THIS OFFER IS TIME-LIMITED. Yeah, chill man, and get out of my notifications already.
I relied on cc cleaner on fixing so many clients PC's back in the early 00s. Made a world of difference with those old win98 machines. Probably worth while checking it out again actually
Shows how reliable windows is now to be honest. Ok it's not perfect but there's a lot of things we don't need to worry about these days
how did you learn so much about pcs ,you are by far the smartest person i have seen on youtbe. thanks for all your knowledge
I used to use it religiously, say back in XP/Vista days. Maybe I still use it every now and then (like once a year). Feel like on older versions of windows it was helpful to clear out old windows update files etc wasting space & uninstalled programs not being fully removed but not really necessary anymore. Also on HDDs it was beneficial to performance to get rid of every single unneccesary thing before defragging but on SSDs its irrelevant other than for space.
Gonna uninstall it now, time to move on!
I still use, and will continue to use, CCleaner. The cleaning and optimization options mentioned in the video are fine for this channel's and LTT's regular viewers, but for someone like grandma, if she can learn how to use CCleaner it can help remove the unnecessary temporary internet files, cookies, and fix registry errors in a few clicks saving you from having to pay her a visit to clean up her computer. It also makes grandma feel like some kind of tech wizard l33t h4ck3r. 😂
Hey, man. Ya gotta love your grandma! 😁
Batch file.
Nah, this program was necessary at some point in the past, clearly he's not right now, we have better and easier ways of doing everthing the program do and without the bothering of installing anything extra on the pc.
Most OS these days are almost self suficient, well, almost =D. For everthing else, just send you grandma a youtube video link with a guide to that thing, and she's good.
There are situations where cleaning the registry is very useful. I had a hard drive where a good chunk of software was installed die, for some titles the broken registry links weren't fixed when re-installing to a new drive and that caused it to crash to desktop even though the re-installation seemed successful.
I have used this program reliably since 2006, from 2000 Professional through to Windows 10 (11 is garbage and is banned). Never had a problem from it, and infact can say that its still my preferred tool for all together cleaning. I also use it's sister, Defraggler.
Thanks, Techquickie team. I really enjoy these videos about more of the easy, popular software things, that help regular people too, not just those who are experts about computers.
CCleaner registry cleaner often fixes a critical error that prevents driver updates or installs on Nvidia gpu's( as in it saying the driver isn't compatible/can't be installed because of a unkown error)
No idea if that bug still happens but back it in the day I've had to use it to fix that particular issue on several pc's
this is exactly what i still use it for or would have gotten rid of it as soon as i saw the avast promo
Still use CCleaner (Free) and recommend it to all clients. Only caveat is, "I" install it and set it up to match my settings.
I tell clients that if CCleaner doesn't fix it, it's likely a hardware problem and that bit of advice has proven correct for many years.
On the other hand, Avast in charge of CCleaner makes me nervous. They've already "infected" it.
Wish it had the ability to run a registry backup.
same, never had an issue with it
0:43 They do if they're abundant enough. I work in desktop support and have had a handful of cases where users would have 1000+ garbage registry entries. The system would act in a... pretty lobotomized way, doing the wrong things (like opening something very different to what you're trying to open). It's what happens when you got users constantly deleting installed programs, for example. A registry cleanup snapped it back to normal though, no restart or anything required.
But yes, there would have to be a very high number of wasted registry entries. It's deffinitely not a common occurence.
I had a client once who hired me to clean up her pc because her outlook email took forever to open and display. The client was convinced she had picked up a virus. What she really had was over 21,000 (yes 21 thousand) unread messages in her outlook inbox!!! Told her an inbox is not a filing cabinet and unless she liked waiting an hour to see her messages she needed to start deleting some old emails!
@@bigal1863 Yeah you can never underestimate what the end users are (in)capable of. I once checked out HR's AUX port in the front only to conclude it was fucked. I reinstalled it to not leave a gaping hole for dust to go in. 5 minutes later, she calls me asking what I did to her computer, and shows me she can't type numbers on the numpad. Take a *wild* guess why this was. Yep, that's right. I pushed the paper aside to reveal the num lock key, and sure enough... I swear, I even stopped being mad at them forgetting their passwords at this point.
I’d love to see a video like this about modern antivirus
Also, Windows itself absolutely does NOT allow modification or deletion of all Startup apps like CCleaner does. It hides most of them. If you want to stop ALL programs from starting you NEED a 3rd party software. There isnt a choice.
Only if you consider regedit as a third party application.
your right, uninstalling from microsoft store in particular seems impossible i tried deleting forza horizon 4 for taking up so much space and nothing just sat there eating my pc.. microsoft been going crazy bloating stuff and restricting you its unnecessary
In Windows, you have 3 startup types, 1 via registry, run folder , and via a scheduler, and why would you deactivate a hepler, a launcher of software from startup if you know where to search it will let you delete those entries and if something is protected do a research what it does , you can use Google like registry startup path 😉 or run folder path , and about file type in run cleanmgr and execute as administrator it will display everything is safe for deleting
@@battyflaps5410 ah ad remove programs , or if you want to be a geek powershell
We used to use CCleaner at the computer repair store I used to work at. We'd run cache, registry, and then clear startup too which would boost the speed of older laptops brought in. Then again, that was years ago. Now, it's not really all that necessary. If a modern computer is slow, it's usually due to having installed too much bloatware or a couple viruses. Those free antivirus programs are famous for doing nothing and bogging down your PC performance.
Ccleaner is fine. Use it for a quick clean up (as it was meant for), then close it until you need another clean in a couple months. It's simple and saves you a couple minutes. The other features are useless, which anyone who actually uses the thing should know by now.
Agreed! I've been using ccleaner on my PCs and never had any issues. Its a really convenient utility to have around when you need it.
Why use CCleaner for a quick clean up when windows have a better tool for that built-in? U don't need to worry about if CCleaner is safe or not
@@samega7cattac cus it's faster
@@Kenzirs are u using windows xp or smth? cuz 10-11 def does it p fast as well
@@om5621 y'all trying too hard. I mean it only requires opening the app, then clicking once vs whatever method you use for windows and your browsers etc.
I used to like CCleaner, but then avast acquired them and caused a lot of privacy concerns. I use Glary Utilities now, the reason being why I don't just use windows, is well... Some things can't be uninstalled in windows itself that Glary can, and also does help stopping those annoying startup programs that aren't very descriptive.
Something tells me I should stop using Avast. Any recommendations?
Thanks, I didn't know about the acquisition. No wonder ccleaner's become a pita.
@@blunderingfool Bitdefender
@@blunderingfool Windows defender is pretty good. It is on par in effectiveness as other antivirus software and it doesn't expose your computer to any third party. If you use windows you won't be able to stop microsoft from having intimate connection to your computer anyway so might as well limit it to them. I used bitdefender as well but it had very annoying notifications which cannot be switched off so I changed to windows defender when my subscribtion ended and I have been happy with it since.
@@eniff2925 Yup, Unless you have a specific reason to need a 3rd party anti-virus windows defender is as good as any of them. Personally, folks just need to stop being super paranoid. Use common sense and don't be going to places that look sketchy online and you should be fine.
Been using it for years and will continue to do so. For a better clean up, also install CC Enhancer. Will give CCleaner much more cleaning options.👍👍👍
CCleaner development team loves you.
blast from the past. I haven't used CCleaner in many years. I remember using it from 05-06 to about 2012 i think.
Back in the old days I remember it being part of a virus/malware removal clean up that you would use at the end. After removing malware using whatever method, i'd run CCleaner at the end as the final step. Not sure if that last step was necessary, but that is what everyone was doing after malware removal and was recommended on forums like Tom's Hardware.
I do miss the first decade of 2000 (2000-2009) internet.
While I agree that these days it's pretty much unnecessary, between 2004 and 2012, I used it religiously (perhaps a few years longer than really justifiable). I was skeptical of the registry cleanup helping, so I ran _just_ the registry cleanup on Windows XP and saw a noticeable improvement in speed on my barely adequate store-bought PC like three years into that install's life. "Windows Rot" was a known thing, back then. Throw enough CPU cycles and RAM at a problem, though, and these things get less important. Gotta remember that Windows XP basically couldn't function without a raft of practically mandatory applications on install. You would generally need both Spybot S&D and Adaware, because they each covered different malware, and then an antivirus, and a firewall was recommended until one came in Service Pack 2. A tool to clean up temporary files that the OS didn't prune seemed par for the course.
After any spyware clean out, I'd run CCleaner just to clean up crap that Spybot and Adaware left behind, because malware leaves junk everywhere on your system. Even game uninstallers were messy, too, leaving hundreds of megabytes of files behind in stupid locations after an uninstall, but if you used the uninstall feature in CCleaner, that didn't happen.
These days, basically everyone has moved on from spinning rust, so no amount of useless data is going to slow a machine down, because the drive doesn't need to mechanically seek through it all, and even then, Windows is far better at cleaning up after itself. There's still one big reason I recommend CCleaner, though: when a family member whines "my computer is slow!" and I'm nowhere near them to actually fix it up, CCleaner is great. There are a lot of professional tools, which in the right hands, can do a lot more measurable good, but give them to someone who knows _just_ enough to be dangerous and they can seriously break stuff (Hijack This, for example). With CCleaner, it's really hard to break stuff if you stay out of the advanced settings. It's honestly even hard to break stuff if you don't stay out of the advanced settings. I think you really have to _want_ to break something to break it with CCleaner. It's easy for me to tell someone to just run the default cleaning tools in CCleaner, and it does work to a degree.
I'm an IT Pro and one of our departments always puts this app on their systems. Never understood why. I played around with it a couple times but never found any major benefit to it. Nice job on the video.
Just an extra attack vector
Back in the mid-2000s when I was in junior high, my friends and I would bring our laptops to school to take notes on. I remember competing with them to see who could get the highest score on CC-Leaner. That was a good time.
SSD's are good, but there is still a case to be made for HDD's. Especially for bulk storage, and backups. Once you add HDDs to your setup, even temporarily (portable drives for backup) then ANY time you erase a file you "fragment" your storage. And that's what an incremental backup does: replaces a single file with a newer version.
You could backup to tape, I suppose - or get an app that puts files back in order when you notice a drop in performance. Considering the cost of tape archive setups, the software solution is a no-brainer.
I still use it primarily because how easy it is to uninstall programs under the programs tab. It allows you to uninstall multiple programs at once unlike Windows' programs and features page. It's pretty useful for cleaning useless data too that Windows doesn't touch
I never really touched that feature because I tend to use revo uninstaller to make sure everything is scrubbed completely
Used to be great with XP too. Noticed an immediate difference in boot times, and overall responsiveness of the systems I ran it on. These days though, BleachBit is a much better option.
@3:12 Simple solution - DON"T download pirated versions of software. Also simply pay attention when installing this and make sure you do not select the other options. Been a CCleaner user for years and was aware of the hacked version (did not use that version or several revisions beyond this)..eventually updated to a version which was clear of that crap. I now keep this as part of my PC Toolkit (portable version) and swear by it. Never had issues. Also those 'Modern version of Windows' are still plagued by the same issues of previous versions and does a terrible job at keeping temp folders clean. While it is true Windows 10 and 11 are better, it never hurts to have that extra layer of help. And for using this for driver updates - DON"T. Personally I never update drivers using ANYTHING but the native software which came with the hardware and Windows update.
I always saw the C in CCleaner as a local disk (C:) Cleaner!!
wow thanks man right to the point no music or foriegn languages that are ununderstood or lies. love your explaination of this tool.
As many others said, older Windows versions used to go from buttery smooth to showing you the hourglass every five seconds in just a year, so for a long time, these tools were well justified.
Registry cleaning mattered for boot time on Win9x. Remember that loading animation 95 and 98 did with the 'throbber bar' at the bottom? It would freeze on almost every system for anything from a couple of seconds to a couple of minutes - that was time spent loading (building really) the registry. If you cleaned it then 'compressed' it, that would become a barely noticeable hitch in the animation. Between faster hardware and Windows improvements that issue went away.
i love how linus let the rest of the team shine with their own tech tip videos
Na he`s just chillin bro. 😆
I've been following the CCleaner thing for years having used it since it was first released until the 'controversy'. Now I have a .bat script file that does it all 'automanually' and I'm much happier. Very glad to hear this perspective.
Could you share your file with me?
Just use dos commands, they're freely available over the internet. Then set a delete command for every place there are cached or temp files etc. @@ricardocastillo57
IT Engineer 18 years, never had a single issue with it because I install and use it correctly
I just use it to clean; won't use it to update apps or programs, because it screws it up, every time. Same with drivers. Won't go there. Trying to get it down to free version, but they keep auto- renewing me, too.
I work in IT, I use Ccleaner with all my windows servers every 6 months and it's completely useful. I use the portable version that doesn't install anything, and clean a lot of junk thay contrary of what Anthony says, don't do system tools like the disk cleaner (IIS temporary sh$t, c:\windows\temp folder, etc.) Usually between 2-5 GB on each machine (every 6 months!!). That amount lf space multiplied by 70 VMs is A LOT and its like 2 minute time per machine instead going over all the manual proceeses. So, I don't get the point of this video.
Or just create a script on your vms to clean up temporary files.
Reminder that most of what you're "cleaning" is shortly regenerated, since it's temp files that get cleaned up them themselves usually
@@JAM_2024 too many different services and apps running on each server for that
@@kirasmith1147 Not necessarily, IIS temp stuff for example is building up along the time and usage of the web app. Windows update temporary stuff is only generated on updating which is done in a controlled way obviously
Yikes
I used to love CCleaner back when it was an independent program. It did what it was supposed to do and it did it well. Then it started getting bought by a series of companies and it quickly became less of a no-nonsense useful program and more of a bloated piece trading away its good reputation for quick, sponsored, cash.
My personal rule of thumb was that as soon as a program tried to get me to install a 'toolbar' then that program was dead to me.
At my work we used to deploy it with our stock windows image, but stopped I think because of potentially some chinese ownership of the company or some other security concern like that, but I've used it for years to fix all kinds of issues. The big ones are before we took away their install rights, users always used to junk up their computers with bunches of freeware crap, and a lot of it didn't cleanly uninstall, so i would run the uninstalls for all of it, then delete the stubborn ones and run registry cleaner afterwards, which if there's no installed program attached to those registry entries, cleans them out, effectively gutting the program that won't uninstall itself, and then you just delete the files associated and it's a pretty quick and clean way to do a manual cleanup. Also sometimes we would need to upgrade something like adobe flash, shockwave, java, but the existing install had fouled up somehow, and it would neither uninstall itself nor let you run the installer, and to save myself the trouble of backing up the user's files and re-imaging, I could usually use the above manual removal methods to assure the installer for the new version that it's clear to go ahead and run(instead of popping up and telling me that there's already a version installed and to uninstall it first, especially if i'd already run an un-installer and the program was no longer showing as installed but still the installer thinks it's there.)
I used it literally hundreds of times in the last decade, and at times multiple times daily, and I cannot think of one time where it broke anything or did not have the desired effect, which includes noticeable restoration of system performance when clearing out freeware bloat and cleaning out system files that build up massively over time.
Yes and no, I'd say. Registry cleaning is unnecessary and can break stuff. But cleaning temp files, etc, is fine. Not necessarily by ccleaner. Windows also has a clean old junk tool. I used it in the past but don't really any more cos of that, and that driver updates are usually easy anyway
just run the already installed disk cleanup thingy it regularly cleans out megabytes to gigabytes of temp files if I give it enough time between cleans.
I thought its name came from its cleanup of the C drive. Plus back in the Windows XP days, those leftover registry keys that pointed to nothing did actually cause system instability and slow the entire computer down. I don't use Windows at all anymore, but I still used CCleaner on W10 when I did. I didn't know about the 2017 incidents or the buyout though.
I thought is stood for "crap cleaner"
CCleaner...does anyone remember "First Aid" back in Windows 95? That helped me out a few times, but CCleaner only gave me headache and frustration.
I used it when I had Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. But I dumped it for good after I switched to Windows 10, because Windows itself is already smart enough to handle everything automatically and doesn't need cleaning nor deleting any registry keys. I also once used AVG PC TuneUp, on Windows 7, because it did help to maintain things. Now I just update my system if there are any updates available, and just do a quick sfc/scannow and drive optimization process here and there.
Still useful. They just need an implementation that deletes all Windows 10/11 microsoft maleware/adware/junkware and one that also actively disables automatic updates so only you have a decision what updates and when you want to install them again. Also a feature that actively disables all diagnostics sent to mothership that's built in. Or maybe it will erase Winblows and Install LInux as its first suggested task.
I know that there is some youtuber that created a script for just this, but for help of me can't remember where... And I lost that script with my last reinstall darn it 🥴