Advice Request What's good free cleaner for Windows 10?

Please provide comments and solutions that are helpful to the author of this topic.

What's good free cleaner?

  • CCleaner

    Votes: 29 33.7%
  • BleachBit

    Votes: 7 8.1%
  • Privazer

    Votes: 10 11.6%
  • Wise Disk Cleaner

    Votes: 29 33.7%
  • Others (Please make a post)

    Votes: 11 12.8%

  • Total voters
    86

roger_m

Level 42
Verified
Top Poster
Content Creator
Dec 4, 2014
3,187
Cleaners are snake oil in general. I let my system do the housekeeping with its built-in tools.
While there's no need to ever clean the registry, some third party disk cleaners can junk from a lot of third party programs. This means that sometimes they can free up a lot more disk space than Windows does.
 
Last edited:

Digmor Crusher

Level 25
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Jan 27, 2018
1,435
Been using Ccleaner for years, never any issues, have used the registry cleaner hundreds of times with zero issues. Now I use the portable version and block internet access , Ccleaner has gone from one of the best cleaners to a Avast tool that pushes software or installs pups, basically a piece of crap. Yet it still works best for me, I just mitigate the Avast crap best I can. Windows tools work well, not as good as Ccleaner unfortunately IMO. Bur I am getting tired of this, may be close to dumping Ccleaner forever as I am not a fan of the shady crap they are pulling.
 

Cortex

Level 26
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Aug 4, 2016
1,465
I like Wise Disc Cleaner though with Brave I clean all on exit, using a SSD I don't do any overwriting with Wise, lots of so called junk cleaners find are Windows temp files that will be probably be recreated so for me cleaners are somewhat overrated?
 

Protomartyr

Level 7
Sep 23, 2019
314
This is a copy and paste from a previous post of mine in another cleaner thread but still applies:
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I use CCleaner with CCEnhancer (unofficial add-on) that enables support for more programs.

CCleaner used to be just a simple and reliable cleaner but has been adding extra features or trying to bundle software that I don't need.

Some things I do:
  • I usually get the slim installer from the builds page instead of the main page. The portable installer is also on that page if you prefer that version.
  • Block CCleaner.exe and CCleaner64.exe from phoning home in Windows firewall.
  • Delete CCUpdate.exe which is the emergency updater for the program. It has the tendency to trip Windows Controlled Folder Access feature so I deleted the updater to stop getting notifications that it was blocked. I use SUMo (Software Update Monitor) to keep my programs up to date anyways so I don't need the updater from CCleaner.
  • Disable any monitoring in the Monitoring tab under settings. I don't need it or want it running in the background.
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With that said, I'll probably be ditching CCleaner and transition to just using Storage Sense once the new configuration options are implemented.
On Linux I use BleachBit.
 

HarborFront

Level 72
Verified
Top Poster
Content Creator
Oct 9, 2016
6,158
I'm using

  • Revo Uninstaller Pro – for uninstalling software and cleaning leftovers
  • Everything – for removing remnant files/folders
  • Windows regedit32 – for finding and removing remnant registry entries
  • Eusing Free Registry Cleaner/Wise Registry Cleaner/CCleaner64 ----- for general registry cleaning
  • Wise Disk Cleaner – for general disk cleaning
  • IObit Unlocker – for removing stubborn file/folder
  • RegistryDeleteEx64 – for removing stubborn registry entries
 

amirr

Level 27
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Jan 26, 2020
1,628
Portable CCleaner 1-2 times per moth.
I want to use Portable version of CCleaner, how to do that?
After downloading it from https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/builds, and unzipping the file, I just need to click on the first CCleaner64 one because I use Win 10 64bit? Should I copy these files to USB and then run from USB only, even if I want to use it in my own PC?
1595111883603.png



I mostly manually clean the browser cache and data, but love CCleaner that it cleans DNS Cache.
Is there manual way to clean DNS Cache in Windows 10?
Thank you.

P.S. Do you also block CCleaner Portable via Firewall or it's not necessary to do that with portable version?
I ask this, because this guy does: which writes " See also: Blocking A Programs Internet Access Via The Windows Firewall"
 
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Protomartyr

Level 7
Sep 23, 2019
314
@amirr
  • Correct. Use CCleaner64 if your system is 64-bit.
  • To manually flush the DNS cache on Windows 10, run command prompt as admin and enter: ipconfig /flushdns
  • I'm not sure if the portable version of CCleaner phones home. You can try blocking it anyways. Note that this will break the automatic checking for updates and the software updater function under the tools section. I don't use these tools as I use CCleaner just for the cleaning function.
  • More info on how I use CCleaner can be found in my other post.
 

amirr

Level 27
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Jan 26, 2020
1,628
@amirr
  • Correct. Use CCleaner64 if your system is 64-bit.
  • To manually flush the DNS cache on Windows 10, run command prompt as admin and enter: ipconfig /flushdns
  • I'm not sure if the portable version of CCleaner phones home. You can try blocking it anyways. Note that this will break the automatic checking for updates and the software updater function under the tools section. I don't use these tools as I use CCleaner just for the cleaning function.
  • More info on how I use CCleaner can be found in my other post.
1.the number 2, does the same Clear DNS as CCleaner does?
2.CCleaner portable checks for updates?

Thank you.
 

Protomartyr

Level 7
Sep 23, 2019
314
1.the number 2, does the same Clear DNS as CCleaner does?
2.CCleaner portable checks for updates?

Thank you.
1. Should be the same.
2. CCleaner portable has the option to check for updates in the program itself under Options > Updates. However, the CCleaner portable zip doesn't include the CCUpdate.exe that normally comes with the installation of CCleaner. So I'm not sure.
 

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