CCleaner, a registry repair tool that comes in both free and paid versions, created by the Piriform company, is known to be an incredibly fast registry cleaner. In fact, we timed it on our 32-bit, 3Ghz Pentium 4 computer, and it finished a registry scan in just under 15 seconds. It only found an error. Our first question was: How complete was that scan?
Other registry cleaners we’ve run on our computer have taken anywhere from a minute or more (many in the two to four minute range) to more than six or eight minutes, and in some cases as long as 14 minutes. Our natural curiosity wonders how a scan that only takes 15 seconds can be as thorough as one that takes two, four, or six minutes.
Obviously, CCleaner doesn’t scan as many files as these other cleaners. How can you do it in fifteen seconds? And our results have confirmed these findings. Other cleaners, like RegCure, ended up detecting more errors and empty entries in their scans than CCleaner. RegCure caught eighty-six errors on the same machine where CCleaner only caught one. But that is attributable to the variation in the search algorithm used. Each utility has its own parameter definition to choose what it classifies as an error in the log. Some choose to make mistakes on the side of caution and thus make fewer mistakes.
While we like the free version of CCleaner, we just can’t get over the fact that it only catches a fraction of the errors other utilities catch. And he does it on a regular basis. What counts, however, is the fact that your registry has not been damaged by the cleanup and you can still use it without having to restore the previous registry backup. In other words, it does not disable the use of the computer.
One of CCleaner’s biggest selling features is that it can do more than just clean the registry. It comes with a System Cleanup feature (to clean old and unused system files and registries), a Tools feature (with tools to uninstall programs, manage your system’s start menu, find a missing file, restore your system to an earlier date and a disk cleaner), and an Options tab (which allows you to manage cookies, an opt-in/exclude function for cleaning files) and an Advanced Settings tab (which, among other things, allows you to restore default settings as well as nine other items).
While we can’t give CCleaner a hundred percent recommendation regarding its registry cleaning capabilities, we can say that it can be a useful program regarding its other capabilities if you don’t already use another program that you will easily access. these other maintenance options.
In the final analysis, all we can say is that CCleaner may be a program that you might want to consider having as an additional registry repair tool. Its main attraction, for us and perhaps also for you, is in the additional functions that it can perform. However, we don’t consider it powerful enough to be a top-of-the-line tool for keeping your registry clean. Use it as a backup or a plugin, but not as your main registry utility.