SOLVED Computer cleaners

[Iceboy]

Are pc cleaners such as Wise, CCleaner, and Bleachbit just hype or are they finding something?..

 

[Bighorn]

I've used CCleaner [originally named Crap Cleaner] on a number of computers over the years and no problem, but one does have to be careful/pay attention.

 

[ubuysa]

IMO junk file cleaners are fine and useful, I use Ccleaner for that purpose. However, I would avoid using any registry cleaning options, any tune-up options, and definitely any driver updater options.

 

[Iceboy]

I use bleach bit on my desktop and wise cleaner on the laptop as bleach bit won't work on it..I do it because I read where microsofts built in cleaner only cleaned its own stuff and not left over stuff from opera and firefox. But they only find traces from what I see in the results.

 

[davehc]

I'm not in too much of a hurry - I do it manually.

 

[Iceboy]

How do you all that, with what cleaners bring up?.

 

[davehc]

I have a worry that cleaners may "Clean" something I need, and, on the other hand, not clean something that is taking space.
Time is not a premium with me, at my age. I unhide everything, clean out all temps and cookies, or something (seldom) left over , normally in the user folders, from an app/utility I may have been trying.
Takes about 5 minutes, on a fortnightly basis. I then make an image of the os.

 

[ubuysa]

I have a worry that cleaners may "Clean" something I need, and, on the other hand, not clean something that is taking space.
Time is not a premium with me, at my age. I unhide everything, clean out all temps and cookies, or something (seldom) left over , normally in the user folders, from an app/utility I may have been trying.
Takes about 5 minutes, on a fortnightly basis. I then make an image of the os.

IMO as long as you just use the junk cleaning feature, and just with the default settings, you have little to fear about them cleaning something you need. Most tools (and all good ones) will list what will be cleaned before it's removed, so you have plenty of opportunity to verify what the tool is cleaning.

I certainly applaud your taking disk images. I take an image of my system drive every night (and keep the last 7 images) and I sync my user data with an external drive and with the cloud every night too. You can't have too many backups!

 

[davehc]

My own experience is that most proprietary cleaners, still leave some which have been "locked" by The MS system. With care, I delete some of these also... I have never had any problems, doing it this way.
Lately, I have found the Windows 11 storage cleaning system, if you customise it to your own desire, also does a pretty good job and, hopefully (does that apply to MS) , Microsoft know what is best and safe for there own OS.

 

[Hanselin]

If you read some of the horror stories that CCcleaner and Bleach Bit leave on your hard drive you would not download them in the first place, is it that important to put your own info at risk ? MS provide a quite effective tool for dipensing with tempory stuff left on your PC this coupled with a protector browser like Brave, I doubt the only benefit is questionable cleaners coffers. A question to ponder when you delete e-mails do they vanish or are they kept in your machines vast depository...just asking.

 

[davehc]

CeIf you read some of the horror stories that CCcleaner and Bleach Bit leave on your hard drive you would not download them in the first place, is it that important to put your own info at risk ? MS provide a quite effective tool for dipensing with tempory stuff left on your PC this coupled with a protector browser like Brave, I doubt the only benefit is questionable cleaners coffers. A question to ponder when you delete e-mails do they vanish or are they kept in your machines vast depository...just asking.

In most cases, they probably remain on you email server until their rules allow deletion, or you delete them manually. I believe once deleted from you computer email delete box, they can only be recovered again by the use of a third party program.