Surprisingly, Geek Uninstaller uninstalled Opera better and more thoroughly than Revo. I like using Geek Uninstaller Portable now.
Apologies for the late reply!
Here is a tip for all testers - uninstall an app with an uninstaller but cancel the built-in uninstaller of that app. Then scan for leftovers with your best uninstaller. AppFalcon will show
only the top leftover registry keys (parent keys) and values - no subkeys and sub values. This is implemented this way to avoid confusion with the thousands leftover subkeys and values. However, you can still see leftover subkeys and values by right-clicking on a key and select Open Location from the pop-up menu.
I just tested AppFalcon vs IOBit Uninstaller Pro
However, there's one puzzling thing. When I use Eusing Free Registry Cleanr to scan I found about 28 Empty Registry Keys for AppFalcon
Hope that the AppFalcon developer can explain why the software generates so many Empty Registry Keys
Registry Cleaners - to use them or to not? That is the question.
We have the following note in our website about registry cleaners:
IMPORTANT NOTE
Errors you might see when you run a “Registry Cleaner” are not critical, and some are not even errors. You might have thousands of such errors on your computer and never notice a system slowdown or experience any problems. Windows can handle millions of registry keys and values without any problem because of its structure. Did you know that programs like Microsoft Office install tens of thousands registry keys and values? Does installing Microsoft Office slow down your system?
28 Empty Registry Keys are probably keys of the installed apps but left blank by the developers. AppFalcon has an online database system, which has additional info about the apps including info for some of the blank keys. A lot of developers do not follow guidelines and best practices of software development APIs (Application Programing Interface) i.e. Microsoft Windows Software Development Requirements and Guidelines. That is the main reason for bugs - incompatibility bugs, software update bugs causing failed uninstalls of components, which leads to mismatched components from different versions of a program. Why don't they follow guidelines? I'm not sure besides what I have seen as a developer myself. Laziness, knowledge (don't know where to find those guidelines), fogething things.
A question rises up - what is the difference between a registry cleaner and a good uninstaller if they all delete registry keys and values?
Good registry cleaners scan for potentially problematic registry keys and values.
- Problem causing registry keys and values: Windows Installer (MSI) keys and values; ActiveX and COM (COM+, DCOM, etc.); shared files registry keys
- Not so problematic: file extension registry keys and values
- Not problematic: MRU (Most recently used files logs), cache keys, and alike.
- Not problematic: empty keys if they do not belong to a problematic key category. Deleting an empty key from MSI, COM, etc. category will not fix the problem it causes.
Bad registry cleaners show a countless number of MRU and empty registry keys. You can spot such keys (not problematic) by looking to their parents i.e. look for MRU, cache, recent, temp, log. They are just lists of files that a program searched for, opened, worked with, but they do not exist anymore (the files were downloaded to a TEMP folder and deleted, were in an USB drive, DVD, network folder, web folder, etc.)
It is better to use an uninstaller than a registry cleaner (do not use bad registry cleaners at all). Why?
Registry cleaners have a very tough job to find the problematic keys because the registry key, they will find as a problematic, belongs to a program which
A) does not exist on the system (it is uninstalled) - deleting those keys is good, we do not need leftovers. AppFalcon has same functionality - force removal of already partly deleted programs.
B) the program does exist on the system - this is tough. The registry cleaner should be able to find the exact problem and make sure it is a real problem. Otherwise, the registry cleaner will cause a new problem, and the existing program could stop working because some super duper cleaner has deleted a key that holds valuable information even if it is empty (the existence of an empty key could give info to a program or an updater/installer by itself).
What solution to the tough problem have most of the registry cleaners found? Not to bother with the problematic keys, just look for MRU and recent files that do not exist and list them as errors.
AppFalcon, as a good program uninstaller, is mostly in situation A after the built-in uninstaller or B going to A.
AppFalcon has other features that is diffrent than uninstallers we know - it detects CrApps (malware, badware, crapware, etc.). We all know that such programs are tricky to remove but AppFalcon has very powerful Force removal feature that other uninstallers do not have. It is designed to delete!
We continue to add features like app update and patching system (background updating) and more. Any comments are welcome. You can also contact the support team so you can get faster response than mine here