THE TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'

I've had a long-time love affair with CCleaner, and installed and used it on countless computers for many years. I've insisted you all use it, too, but things change and technology improves and it's time to say goodbye to CCleaner.

Background: For some time I've been unhappy with the default settings and the fact there's no internal updater so in order to use the current version you have to download and install it again - which many times resets the default settings to always run in the background, among other annoyances. Like, tricking you into installing third-party software such as Avast - which is no longer necessary but completely understandable when you realize Piriform (CCleaner's developer) was acquired by Avast.

As a free tool CCleaner has performed flawlessly, removing temporary files and cookies and making you feel good about scrubbing your computer. The free version exists mainly to trick you into paying for the "Pro" version - a tactic of many developers and quite justified. Nobody gives away their hard work and long-developed product without hoping for a return. We've skirted their generosity for years (I did pay for my own, however, because they earned it).

But the program became more aggressive, more intrusive and sloppier as versions were pumped out. With Windows 10's tools and better system management CCleaner's usefulness has been effectively neutralized. We've long-known removing cookies and temporary files actually slows down the computer for a short while as these files are rebuilt; we chose to ignore it, telling ourselves cleaning them out was better than not. Optimizing the Windows Registry has become a totally useless endeavor - Windows 10 does a tremendous job now, and has for years.

And who hasn't cursed CCleaner and me in the older days because they had to re-enter their login names and passwords after running CCleaner? I always considered it a good thing, to know and use your current logins and passwords, but for some reason it sent people over the edge at the thought of typing their email address and password in order to get back into Facebook and email. Sheesh.

So, now what? Now, in Windows 10 we simply turn on and configured Storage Sense and let it do the job. BE SURE to configure Storage Sense to never clean your Downloads folder if you save anything of importance there. 

CCleaner - you've been a good and faithful friend, but it's time to move on.

Questions? Want help? Contact me here or at cathy@cathycom.com or text or call 315-573-4905

Cathy Contant June 24 2019