Good advice, as usual, Leo. One important note of caution: If you (a typical computer user) get adventurous with CCleaner and stumble upon the registry cleaner feature, DON'T. It's probably best not to tinker with the registry unless you really know what you're doing...and even then, it's probably not necessary.
Years ago, I stopped tinkering with all of these clean-up tools. 1) I have never seen a significant storage space change. Well... when hard drives were 300 MB in size, it made a difference. But not with today's TB SSDs. 2) If you are using an SSD (which nearly every computer within the last 5 years comes with), then clutter will not slow anything down. Mechanical hard drives get slower, as they fill up, due to data being read or written to its inner-most portions of its disks (less real-estate for each rotation). When mechanical drives are empty, they use their outer most portions first. Each of those rotations contains close to twice the data as its inner most portions. None of that matters with SSDs. With today's TB size SSDs, if you clean up 500 MB, that is 0.05% of your disk space (or 1/2000 of your storage space), and I doubt you will see any performance change. You can benchmark before and after, and I bet that there will be no change. Installing 3rd party software is the most common culprit for what slows down your computer. It makes registry changes and additions, starts up services in the background, and phones home. All of that will slow things down, more than cleaning up 500 MB or even 5 GB of data -- especially if you still have 400 GB of free space. Every time you add 3rd party tools, you are trusting that those tools will do no harm. In today's "monitor everyone" environment, I suggest that you never install any software -- unless you really have a need for that software.
CCleaner is a good reminder of how applications that are allowed to update themselves can be a security problem. They once served virus code to users that way when their update system was briefly compromised. (which Microsoft Defender didn't catch either, of course)
#1 tip: enter in Windows explorer: %temp% This opens the temporary items folder. It's safe to delete all that mess, it's often where malicious code tries to hide. #2 tip: increase security, privacy and browser stability by instructing the browser to always delete the cache when you close the browser. #3 tip: don't use third party cleaners! So yes, don't use CCleaner. Stick to the tools provided by Microsoft. I don't understand why someone with a background like Leo recommends it.
Funny, I have been hesitant to use both things you mentioned, but now feel much better about them. I do use DISK CLEANUP, but don't know the downsides ( 01:53 ) of deleting everything, so have avoided checking all the boxes-- Can someone give their reasoning for NOT checking all the boxes, ASSUMING that one does not mind having to re-enter passwords and such?
Until now, I've thought of CCleaner as something to avoid, so I've never used it. Question: If I follow Leo's advice ( 03:33 and 05:20) does CCleaner "stay" on my machine? Are there any downsides to that?
It does stay. You can, of course, uninstall. The only downside of staying is that unless you turn off the option(s) for "keep things up to date" or "autoclean" (or some such) it leaves a small app running at all times. Basically if you see the CC icon in the notification area, it's still running.
Yep I occasionally do cleanups and in my browsers. Although I don't remove everything, I do hold on to some of my downloads for certain reasons and I do not use CCleaner. I especially do not mess with the registry unless I absolutely have to. Windows for the most part does a decent job of taking care of itself for the most part, most of time anyway. Should problems arise that's where chkdsk, dism, etc. come into play or reinstall. Worst case would be a clean install. Of course after first checking there are no hardware issues ram, drives, etc.
Less clutter often means more speed.
Good advice, as usual, Leo. One important note of caution: If you (a typical computer user) get adventurous with CCleaner and stumble upon the registry cleaner feature, DON'T. It's probably best not to tinker with the registry unless you really know what you're doing...and even then, it's probably not necessary.
Years ago, I stopped tinkering with all of these clean-up tools.
1) I have never seen a significant storage space change. Well... when hard drives were 300 MB in size, it made a difference. But not with today's TB SSDs.
2) If you are using an SSD (which nearly every computer within the last 5 years comes with), then clutter will not slow anything down.
Mechanical hard drives get slower, as they fill up, due to data being read or written to its inner-most portions of its disks (less real-estate for each rotation). When mechanical drives are empty, they use their outer most portions first. Each of those rotations contains close to twice the data as its inner most portions. None of that matters with SSDs.
With today's TB size SSDs, if you clean up 500 MB, that is 0.05% of your disk space (or 1/2000 of your storage space), and I doubt you will see any performance change. You can benchmark before and after, and I bet that there will be no change.
Installing 3rd party software is the most common culprit for what slows down your computer. It makes registry changes and additions, starts up services in the background, and phones home.
All of that will slow things down, more than cleaning up 500 MB or even 5 GB of data -- especially if you still have 400 GB of free space.
Every time you add 3rd party tools, you are trusting that those tools will do no harm. In today's "monitor everyone" environment, I suggest that you never install any software -- unless you really have a need for that software.
CCleaner is a good reminder of how applications that are allowed to update themselves can be a security problem. They once served virus code to users that way when their update system was briefly compromised. (which Microsoft Defender didn't catch either, of course)
Revo Uninstaller also has a “Junk Cleaner” tool
I have revo pro and never knew this. Thankyou 👍
@@SMOKEY-Junior You’re welcome!
#1 tip: enter in Windows explorer: %temp%
This opens the temporary items folder. It's safe to delete all that mess, it's often where malicious code tries to hide.
#2 tip: increase security, privacy and browser stability by instructing the browser to always delete the cache when you close the browser.
#3 tip: don't use third party cleaners! So yes, don't use CCleaner. Stick to the tools provided by Microsoft. I don't understand why someone with a background like Leo recommends it.
Funny, I have been hesitant to use both things you mentioned, but now feel much better about them.
I do use DISK CLEANUP, but don't know the downsides ( 01:53 ) of deleting everything, so have avoided checking all the boxes--
Can someone give their reasoning for NOT checking all the boxes, ASSUMING that one does not mind having to re-enter passwords and such?
Microsoft PC Manager is available on Beta and looks to be a more complete Disc Cleanup.
Is CCleaner better than Glary Utilities?
Until now, I've thought of CCleaner as something to avoid, so I've never used it. Question: If I follow Leo's advice ( 03:33 and 05:20) does CCleaner "stay" on my machine? Are there any downsides to that?
It does stay. You can, of course, uninstall. The only downside of staying is that unless you turn off the option(s) for "keep things up to date" or "autoclean" (or some such) it leaves a small app running at all times. Basically if you see the CC icon in the notification area, it's still running.
Yep I occasionally do cleanups and in my browsers. Although I don't remove everything, I do hold on to some of my downloads for certain reasons and I do not use CCleaner. I especially do not mess with the registry unless I absolutely have to. Windows for the most part does a decent job of taking care of itself for the most part, most of time anyway.
Should problems arise that's where chkdsk, dism, etc. come into play or reinstall. Worst case would be a clean install. Of course after first checking there are no hardware issues ram, drives, etc.
Another thing I forgot to mention is also making sure all drivers are up to snuff.
Thank you, Leo.
How about a comparison between CCleaner and Revo Uninstaller?
Revo is to uninstall softwares 👀
While ccleaner deletes other stuff too
Hey everyone, good morning!
What about using bleachbit instead of ccleaner?
There is a portable version of c cleaner, no install needed
Will this do anything for my Recovery D: drive. I shows red and only 919MB free of 12.6GB for some reason?
Am I in trouble? Thanks. JimE
Nope. Recovery drives are supposed to be mostly full. They contain a bunch of recovery info.
@@askleonotenboom Thanks Leo! That makes me feel better.
I had no Idea. JimE
Glary Utilities is also a good option other than C Cleaner.
I use Glary Utilities and Bleachbit.
I use Ccleaner.
thanx
ccleaner and problem solved also glary utilities and ppl use bleach bit disk cleanup good also
Glary will not drive you crazy.
@@JoeSmith-ig3pr you use glary