Just did a testing of 6 free uninstallers to see their cleanup capabilities after un-installation. I used Rollback-RX to take the machine back to it's original state after each test.
HiBit Uninstaller, Revo Uninstaller, IOBit Uninstaller, Geek Uninstaller, Wise Program Uninstaller & Glarysoft Absolute Uninstaller were used for the tests. The software that was used to do the testing on (install & uninstall) is Google Chrome. Here are the results and my rankings in order. It may not be conclusive as I haven't tested many programs for the test.
Good initiative. However, one software uninstall is not enough to make a final verdict.
Maybe if you could increase the sample pool.
Some easy and common software to test could be:
1) Firefox
2) Any Commom AV (kaspesky, bitdefender, avast, eset, etc)
3) Google Backup and Sync or One drive
4) 7zip
5) any pdf editor
6) Any game
7) Codec packs
I'm just giving some examples... in case you wanna expand your test (what would be awesome)
Revo as it has multiple varying scanning modes, quickly finds unwanted files left behind by other uninstallers which are embedded deep in the system registry.
Good initiative. However, one software uninstall is not enough to make a final verdict.
Maybe if you could increase the sample pool.
Some easy and common software to test could be:
1) Firefox
2) Any Commom AV (kaspesky, bitdefender, avast, eset, etc)
3) Google Backup and Sync or One drive
4) 7zip
5) any pdf editor
6) Any game
7) Codec packs
I'm just giving some examples... in case you wanna expand your test (what would be awesome)
The only one I ever tried was Revo, to clean up my old Windows 7 laptop, but it didn't uninstall anything. I've used IOBit Unlocker with success, so if I needed an uninstaller, I'd try theirs, but so far I've had no problems uninstalling software on Windows 10.
Total Uninstaller is not very good and has been around for years under various names. It is also published as Max Uninstaller, Special Uninstaller, Bloatware Uninstaller and possibly other names as well.
Unlike Total Uninstall, it does not use snapshots, so it just scans for leftovers after uninstalling a program. Usually HiBit/Revo/IObit/Geek will do a much better job of finding leftovers.
Also it's worth nothing that it does not receive updates very often. It was last updated in March of 2018. I'd give it a miss, considering that there are far better alternatives available for free.
I've just been testing HiBit Uninstaller and comparing it to IObit. I uninstalled a few programs and was extremely impressed with HiBit. Every time, it found significantly more leftovers than IObit did, with what appeared to be zero false positives. After rebooting some of the USB ports on my computer were not working. I opened Device Manager and there an error with one of the USB drivers. I uninstalled the device in Device Manager and then did a scan for hardware changes, to make Windows install a driver for it again. Afterwards it was working fine. I presume the device error happened as a result of uninstalling a universal Android ADB driver and some phone management software (Wondershare's dr.fone), rather than anything deleted by HiBit, as there appeared to be no false positives in its scan results. But I thought I should mention it.
Based on my (fairly limited) testing, it would seem that most likely, HiBit will always find more leftovers. However, I presume that unlike IObit it can not continue where it left off from, after a reboot. But I've just emailed the developer to see if he can add such a feature.
Having said that, I still believe that using snapshots is the best option, so I'll keep using Total Uninstall on my main computer.
IOBit Uninstaller v9.5.0 was released a few days ago and the Install Monitor is now included in the free version.
+ Install Monitor is free to all users to automatically log all changes made to your system during the program installation
+ Improved leftover scanning algorithms to scan for more leftovers after the program uninstallation
+ Fixed the occasional failure of uninstalling Steam games
If you don't want to spend money on an uninstaller which uses snapshots, I'd recommending using both IObit Uninstaller and HiBit. IObit will automatically monitor the install of a lot of software and keep a record of the changes made, so it can be used to cleanly uninstall the software. If IObit monitors a program's installation, use it to uninstall the software, as it will have a record of any files and registry keys created when the software was installed. For programs that IObit fails to monitor, uninstall then with HiBit, as it will find more leftovers.
For it to be able to continue where it left off after rebooting. If an uninstaller wants to reboot the system, once Windows starts again, HiBit would launch again and scan for leftovers. If there were multiple programs selected to be uninstalled, after rebooting it would continue to uninstall any remaining programs.
Currently, IObit is the only uninstaller which can do this.
Good idea! I do know that on some programs hibit itself will tell you that certain files will be removed after restart. It cleans them up after restart but doesn't bring the program back up to the front. I personally when I am uninstalling something and it says you must restart, just close out of it and do the rest manual scan with hibit and it usually will find the leftovers and tell you if it is needed to restart afterwards.
For it to be able to continue where it left off after rebooting. If an uninstaller wants to reboot the system, once Windows starts again, HiBit would launch again and scan for leftovers. If there were multiple programs selected to be uninstalled, after rebooting it would continue to uninstall any remaining programs.
Currently, IObit is the only uninstaller which can do this.
Revo Pro. HiBit is still missing some features that makes Revo Pro a little bit better. But he is working on some improvement so soon it it will be as good as.
Except for the "Hunter mode" that Revo has. That is something that no others have that makes Revo, special.
HiBit: the dev can't accept any payments for his work due to the constraints of his county (Iran, I think). He says he has a day job and HiBit is a hobby. No direct income = no additional frills. It would be bizarre to me if HiBit was to suddenly acquire real-time file monitoring like Revo Pro and remain gratis. lol.
I'm pretty grateful for HiBit--it's a capable, no-frills product. What you see is what you get.
I have been using GeekUninstaller as a portable application in "USB toolbox" for a couple of years now. A 6 MB, single file, great for a quick look if I need to open my usb toolbox on a PC, laptop from a friend or relative. Though I may switch that out for HiBit portable, given the good reactions I have read about it and the fact that Geek hasn't been touched or reacted by the main developer for over two years. But if it works, it works right.
On my personal computer I use BCUninstaller myself, though I never gave Hibit a real go... Anyone have any experience with the two, personally?
