CCleaner

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I’ve just run CCleaner free on my machine to get rid of junk. It comes up with a message saying I have 9 out of date drivers, some of which are important. It wants me to pay £1.19 per month, or £1.99 for the Professional Plus version to resolve this. Not a lot of money, and I’m happy to pay to avoid the hassle and potential pitfalls of trying to do it longhand. Anyone got any experience of this software

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Don’t most OS’s have that stuff built in?

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

I’ve used the free version for years, mainly to occasionally clean out the registry.  It has been good for that.

Windows or apps associated with hardware generally do an OK job of alerting me to driver updates.

I’ve recently been cautioned that the optimiser CCleaner can run in the background can conflict with some software.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

I have used the free version CC for more or less since it came out (it was called Crap Cleaner then) and I still regularly use it to tidy up the registry, remove duplicate files and uninstall software I no longer use. (Windows 10)

I too have let CC look for ‘drivers that need updating etc’ but have never felt the need to buy the ‘Professional’ version.

I close CC after using it and also have disabled it from running in the background (which I think it does by default)

 

Ian P

[David Jupp]

On David Jupp Said:

I’ve used the free version for years, mainly to occasionally clean out the registry.  It has been good for that.

David, like you I have also been using CCleaner for a few years, the latest version has changed with the Registry Cleaner function now not directly available from the menu so I am not sure it still cleans the registry, can you advise on this point please ?

Emgee

[Ches Green UKParticipant @chesgreenuk]

I’ve used the older (free) versions of CCleaner for years without (AFAIK) any issues.

I don’t let it anywhere near the Registry or update Drivers.

I recently (by mistake) let Windows update my mouse driver …. the mouse immediately started misbehaving. Seems Logitech has removed most mouse drivers from their Support page and rely on Windows to supply legacy drivers. Not good.

I use CC to clean Browsers’ caches (even the Browsers that apparently shouldn’t be running). I run Firefox which clears it’s cache when it closes, but belts and braces.

CC also cleans junk from Applications I select in the CC list.

I know that most of this stuff is doable manually, but CC is a one-click solution so saves a lot of time and hassle.

Sadly, Avast acquired CC in 2017, so who knows what ‘extra’ telemetry is now going on behind the scenes.

Ches

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

I haven’t updated for a while, so can’t comment on latest version.

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