Poke Me In The Eye

For as long as I’ve had a computer I’ve had a soft spot for those cleaning utilities. Obviously the best known is Norton but there are a hundred similar programs out there…and this one is free!

The basic gist of this program is that it cleans out all the useless junk that is sitting in your computer. The first page that pops up when you start it is used to clean out old files that are no longer in use. I typically find that I’ve got around a hundred megabytes of stuff that is no longer needed. This is the “Cleaner” mode and you can also use it to delete old programs. The “Issues” selection will check your hard drives for…well…issues. This can be ActiveX/Com files, old icons, shortcuts, extensions, bits left over from installations/uninstallations, blah blah. I usually have a decent amount of these as well. You can use “Tools” to uninstall programs or change/remove startup programs. Finally you’ve got “Options” where you can delete (or save) cookies, tell the program when to run and how it interfaces with the Trash Can and a couple other settings.

Now…how well does it work?

Um…it seems to delete things. Like I said before I’ve got a soft spot for these sort of programs. I imagine that they are diligently going through my hard drive and helping sort out the horrendous messes I’ve created with my rampant install/uninstalling of a massive amount of programs. In my mind it is making my computer faster, more efficient, better organized and above all…sanitary and clean.

But to be completely honest I’ve no clue how good a job it does, or if in fact it is actually doing anything worthwhile. It’s one of those “comfort programs” that have nice little bars that extend and ask you, politely, if you really want to delete those registry files. I run it once a week or so and sure…it seems to bring up the same things over and over…but I feel better once it’s done its thing. Is the computer faster? Hell if I know…but I want to believe it is. So I’ll keep using it.

One annoyance though…it seems every time I run it there is a new update. Updating what? Hmmm.

So far it’s caused me absolutely no problems and has given me a feeling that I am doing good things for my computer. And that…to me…is the essence of a quality free program.

Download CCleaner right here.