Indeed you’ve been lucky. They can screw up your registry, to the extent even of not being able to boot up. Altho I knew better, I recently let iObit clean my registry (one of the many tools it has). Since then, my mouse acts differently. If I keep my finger on it too long (more than a fleeting instant), it acts as if I’ve clicked twice, sometimes highlighting stuff I don’t want to highlight and deleting more than I want to delete. For example, I just clicked the end of the last sentence and the whole paragraph was highlighted. I fleetingly clicked the last sentence, and the period was highlighted.
The operative word being “luck”.
I would trust these cleaners if they would give me an explanation of each and every change they’re making. Without such explanations, I have no choice than to presume that they are removing things which LOOK like junk, without being sure that they ARE junk.
Are the authors of these registry cleaners familiar with every last piece of software that exists? How can it be so sure that any particular entry should be “cleaned”? When they can answer these questions, I’ll begin to trust them a little bit. But I have not yet seen even one which offers anything even close.
So you have no first hand experience with them, or cites about their effectiveness or lack thereof.
I have watched others use them at work. I have asked if there is any report of what changes it will make, and the answer is no. I have looked at the sales information online about them, and all I see are promises and testimonials, but nothing explanatory about how it decides which “junk” is worth getting rid of.
Suppose I would be adventurous and try one. My system might appear to be better and faster, but I’d have no way of knowing which changes fixed that, and whether some other changes are for the worse but I just didn’t notice anything bad yet. And the opposite: My system might be obviously worse off, but I would not know which changes caused it, so I’d have to undo everything, so why bother?
But if have can suggest another idea, I’d really love to hear it. Are you suggesting that some registry cleaners DO itemize every change, with a reasonable explanation?
Let’s see, at the top of GQ, there’s a sticky titled “How to protect and clean your computer from malware”. The first registry cleaner mentioned there is CCleaner. Wow! That’s the one I watched my co-worker use! Let’s take a look at what their website says…
Ooops! I owe you thanks and an apology. The screen capture shown here seems to be exactly what I’ve been looking for!
Ignorance fought! Thanks!
Bit of a sidebar question-
The McAfee 1-year subscription that came with my wife’s laptop (win7) is up and will renew for 40$. I’m pretty sure you can get the same protection for free. I read in one review that Avast gave a 365 day free trial, but I thought it was . . . well, “for real” free. Which is it?
Avast, like most antiviruses that offer a free product, also has a paid version that has more “features”, which mostly amount to bloat or things you can get elsewhere for free.
Which connects with my suggestion for Windows 7: ThreatFire. (It does have problems on Windows 8, but it doesn’t sound like the OP will be upgrading anytime soon.) Unlike regular antiviruses, the software tries to detect the behavior of software rather than trying to identify already known viruses. It makes traditional antiviruses much more effective.
Also, I really wonder what about Microsoft Security Essentials people think is effective, as it’s always mentioned despite its relatively low malware protection score. If it’s speed, that’s likely because it doesn’t work as well.
BTW, I always just pick the best free antivirus from that site’s testing. It’s worked so far.
I use Directory to find out where all my disk space is going
It is like WinDirStat but faster
Finds duplicate files too