10 Things You Didn't Know CCleaner Can Do

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 09 Sep 2015

CCleaner is a top notch tool for cleaning PCs, we all know that. But it can be used for other things as well.

Let’s take a look 10 things you probably did not know can be accomplished with Piriform’s award-winning CCleaner application.

1. Manage programs that run at startup

Lots of programs run automatically when your PC boots up. CCleaner shows you which programs do so, lets you enable/disable startup programs, and it even lets you delete programs from the list of startups. Thanks to CCleaner you can reduce startup times by choosing which programs can run at startup and which can’t.

2. Save a list of installed programs

All the programs that are installed on your PC, they’re nicely listed on CCleaner’s interface so you can uninstall, repair, rename, or delete them. CCleaner can generate a text (.TXT) file that lists all the programs that are installed on your PC.

3. Customize the right click context menu

Certain programs, like 7-zip for example, integrate with the right click context menu. When you right click a file or a folder, you’ll see 7-zip in the context menu. CCleaner lets you remove it from the right click context menu, if you so desire. CCleaner presents a list of programs that have been integrated with the context menu. You can enable/disable or delete any program from this list and thus customize the right click context menu.

4. Delete browser extensions, plug-ins, add-ons

From a central location, CCleaner’s user friendly interface, you can view all the extensions that run when your browser starts, be it Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome. Disable the extensions you no longer need with a simple mouse click, delete unwanted extensions with a simple mouse click.

5. Visualize disk space usage

Even though CCleaner can remove all sorts of junk files and thus free up disk space, sometimes that’s not enough. To help you understand what sort of data takes up the most space, CCleaner comes with a Disk Analyzer tool. It will scan any drive you select and generate a detailed report that shows how disk space is being used. This will help you find and remove large files that take up lots of space.



6. Remove System Restore points

I create a System Restore point on a daily basis and every time I have to test some application that could negatively impact my system. These take up a bit of storage space and, over time, it adds up. CCleaner lists all created Restore Points and lets you individually remove any Restore Point you want.

7. Wipe so-called free space

When you delete a file, it doesn’t disappear; it’s still there, among what your OS calls free space. That’s why data recovery tools can bring back deleted files – because they’re marked as deleted, the disk space is marked as free, but the deleted files aren’t gone. CCleaner can wipe any drive’s free space and thus make sure that it’s really free. Speaking of which…

8. Wipe clean entire drives

CCleaner can wipe entire drives and that is something that comes in handy if you want to sell a hard disk or an external storage device for example. After all, you don’t want the buyer to uncover potentially embrassing information about you, now do you?

9. Find duplicate files

There’s no point in storing duplicate files on your computer. It’s nothing but a waste of storage space. CCleaner can scan drives as well as folders and find duplicate files.

10. View system information (just a little)

At the top on CCleaner’s interface, you will see a little info about your system: operating system, processor, RAM, graphics card. Obviously, if you want detailed information about your system, you need to get another Piriform product, mainly Speccy.

Download CCleaner for Windows (and Mac) right here on FindMySoft.

And don't forget to get Speccy for Windows if you want to see what’s under your PC’s “hood.”



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