C - C - Cleaner.... is actually CCleaner. Thanks internet.

Aah the old "C-C-Cleaner"

I remember while working for a really big biz/IT consultancy, seeing CCleaner on state government owned systems and when I made a comment about it being a potential security risk, I got laughed at by both people on my team and the client (a large state government agency). 🤦‍♂️

CCleaner also has a portable version, without installing anything or the nag screens and notificiations. If you use it just for cleaning files and the registry its a good option.

I think I stopped calling it CC Cleaner after about a week when I realized it was C Cleaner. But I stopped using it around Windows 7. Microsoft really did change some things and I'm not sure CCleaner changed with it. There were some great malware removers out there for WinXP that stopped being updated after Win7.

Glad you did this, as I was a bit unsure about CCleaner I started using it some time ago as it was (and is still) very strong recommended at a forum that I am active in. As time went on I had a feeling it was not performing so well. I caught your video in May, 2019 where you mentioned BB. So I went over to using that. It seemed better.

I used to use CCleaner, just for the file cleaning part, but yeah it has gotten bloated so I'm now moving to BleachBit (Which I already use on Linux). Plus I would like to mention that Windows has its own basic "disk cleanup" utility, which is fairly decent. I still like their Defrag utility though as it's a bit more verbose than what comes with Windows.

I would love to see this deep dive on RevoUninstaller/IObit and its legitimacy as a better uninstaller (whether it should be used or is harmful).

This test also points out very cleared that on MS Windows you don't really have control over your system.

I do use CCleaner occasionally. I'm from the era that this tool was beneficial but I will re-evaluate continue using CCleaner after your elaboration. Just used winget and indeed, more than twice the number of upgrades showed up. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and provide "food for thoughts" on my side. Cheers!

When I was still using Windows 7 and had little idea about computers and operating systems, CCleaner was mandatory. Right next to Defraggler, Tune Up Utitlities and Avira Free Anti Virus.

winget upgrade --all I did not know about it - thanks.

Great video, Chris! I stopped using CCleaner around the time I started my transition to Linux, which is almost 5 years ago. It used to be great software. Nowadays on Windows I just use the built in stuff mostly, and sometimes BleachBit if needed.

This brings me back to when I used to install a bunch of random stuff from Softonic and source forge because of tutorials on KZfaq showing me how to do cool stuff. On one hand, I ended up hosting my own Wamp server at 15. But on the other hand, I accrued so much malware from shady sites without knowing better that a bunch of crap I never installed ended up being installed on my computer. Like desktop strippers and obscure screensavers. You windows 10 kids will never know how bad viruses used to be for Windows XP.

Why does everyone call it cc cleaner?

A useful and competent explanation, so I tried it and it turned out that everything works fine. Special thanks to the author for such useful content.

I got to push back for several reasons. 1) It's convenient you happened to highlight only it's flaws according to your personal preference without looking at any positives (e.g. driver updater - HUGE!) 2) It does show all the tasks and then some on services just like everything else if you clicked advanced which you also conveniently overlooked (and will remove almost as good as the paid version of Revo); 3) You recommended Bleach Bit when is great.....for linux. Not Windows. It bricks your machine and will very easily delete several critical processes and core startup functions that will result in blue screens for days. I've done it on accident a few times and then tested a bit. Bleach Bit is for advanced users who know what they are doing whereas most lay people do select all and go about their business. CCleaner is meant for Windows. 4) It has an option to select so that it doesn't collect any data under privacy. Pretty lazy on your behalf to knock them for a routine and basically by law required for any commercial products these days. 5) It will securely wipe with multi-passes any other HDDs faster and more efficiently than say MiniTool and you don't need to pay for multiple subscriptions. Same goes for Trend-Micros cleaner, etc. It's a one stop shop. 6) Now I've used your toolbox macro and several other programs you have recommended and they end up causing me more issues and time having to go back and fix things that are not well documented or explained that they are doing to my system (Tron even uses some services that haven't been updated since Windows 8 sadly). So, CCleaner is not a bad application and for most lay people not tech savvy or have an education in Comp Sci; for as bad as Microsoft is itself at patching and securing an OS, CCleaner has a place and would recommend maybe not running a video based on one's own pre-conceived biases until you've actually thoroughly gone through and checked with out off camera and given it an honest look.

Thanks for your video, Chris. I still use C-C Free in pre-Windows 11 environments on my personal machines; have used it on other people's as well to quickly clean a system in dire need. While able to use the Windows-based tools, C-C is easier for the type of thing I'm normally doing. I forgot BleachBit exists for Windows, though I add it to my Linux machines.

Thankyou Chris! as ever your videos are intuitive and always a helpful resource for the Lay Windows user. :)

DUDE! just found your channel! BIGGEST THANK YOU EVER! If you are ever in NY lmk I will buy you a brew, soda, burger, whatever! 🍻

I have mainly use CCleaner to clean up my registry. Found it funny when you said do not use that function and really didn't say why other than there were a problems back in the day with programs polluting the registry. But didn't really justify not using it today. My reasons for using it is, whether the game is AAA or an indie one, it most likely left problems on your PC after uninstalling. This can also be the case with regular programs as well.

I feel the same way about CCleaner! I also had some nostalgia and laughs watching this. Specially the installation process lol. Thank you for the great content!

THANK YOU MY BROTHER FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY AND ANOTHER FAMILY!!!

IT WORKED, THANKS I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS FOREVER, BUT NO TUTORIAL COULD EXPLAIN IT AS YOU DID

Several good free programs suffered similar fates. I used this and suggested it to many people. Like so much of our world, greed took over and ruined a good program.

How many times did you say CC Cleaner lol it can catch you out.

Ok. . . That winget upgrade is magic! thank you for sharing, I didn't know it was a thing that existed by default :)

I really appreciate you researching and explaining this. What is your opinion on superantispyware, malwarebytes, or other similar free softwares?

The driver update part is working decent, it fixed my audio problems on my Lenovo Legion 5 Pro

Pro tip (for CCleaner): Make sure to always uncheck the tick inside options --> Privacy --> Improvements! You never know what kind of "Improvements" data is being shared due to the "very good" reputation of this software! Extreme Pro tip (again for CCleaner only): The above setting shall be overridden within 30 days (as far as I can recall) so if one decides to not share data, they need to perform the procedure again in 30 days!

Great work 🥳🥳🥳 Thank you 💜💜💜

thank you for sharing this with us!!!

Thanks Chris! I used to be a huge crap cleaner fan and just kept using it out of habit. Live and learn. Winget is a game changer thanks. Any other tools that could help diagnose/fix why my fairly new win10 system has 7-9% constant CPU usage (high power usage). If it wasn't for star citizen I'd just boot into linux and that would fix the problem. :)

Literally, CCleaner is one of the reasons I perma-switched to Linux. All these apps designed for "optimization" were putting my PC at risk. Windows 7 was breaking my WiFi driver every boot. I started with Mint 15 and now I run Manjaro or Fedora pretty exclusively. I have 0 problems running Windows only games and software if I need it. And most of the stuff I thought I "needed" 10 years ago....1. I really didn't need them and 2. The ones I did need have mostly superior FOSS alternatives.

Thanks Chris Titus Tech

Installed, everything works, thanks!

When you ran the installer you should have chosen customisation for your install to debloat. Also with your firewall block access for CCleaner. Also click privacy in settings & disable anonymous data collection if you dont block it with firewall. Also you can download 3rd party CCenhancer for getting extra cleaning feature's. Also by cleaning your system often you actually make it slower because the cache will be then created once again by the apps. Also sometimes CCleaner can break things for e.g. I once had a Sony VAIO Windows 7 notebook after running CCleaner I had lost access to my office scanner although it could print but the scanner would not pick up. Although other systems had no issues after running CCleaner you really have to be careful with what you clean.

Hi Chris. Yes, I run Windows 10 and I still use Ccleaner. But, I do no install the program. I only use the portable version and even then, I open the folder and delete everything but the ccleaner64.exe file. I have storage sense enabled but still find that Ccleaner finds a lot to remove. Agree that you should never use the registry cleaner option. I do not use any of the other Ccleaner features, only the cleaner. I think it is still useful if used in this manner.

It worked perfectly!!! Thank you so much

Worked , thanks a lot!

This is very disappointing to me, as I've been using CCleaner for over a decade.

I've been using CCleaner for a few years and I've never had any problems and in fact I find it really useful. It found drivers for my old hardware that other driver updaters including windows couldn't find

I used it years ago too. Thanks for the video on it.

Been using CCleaner for years but I've been thinking about getting rid of it and after watching this video I uninstalled it. Thanks for the info Chris!

Just a question. Why Are you against using the registry cleaner? That is the only reason I use that product.

This sorta reminds me of Spybot, a Windows program that was frequently praised in the early-to-mid-2000s for getting rid of spyware and some other unwanted stuff. It somehow continues to exist even though the last time I saw anyone recommend it was like 2005 and what few recent mentions of it I can find are just "stop using it, it's outdated."

Great video: 1) I used to call it 'C - C - Cleaner' all the time. 2) I've been looking for an alternative to Microsoft's 'Mouse Without Borders' for a while now. I'll check out 'Synergy' after the video.

Interesting video. I've never used anything but the file cleaner and registry cleaner, with no problems with either one. I would never use anything else offered in the program, just as a matter of principle. That said, what do you recommend as a registry cleaner?

I remember that I used it once or twice, it felt weird and full of nonsense. I have no clue why and how this program got this massive popularity even on android. I see a lot of people still using this program, convincing them to get past it is just a waste of time. Thank u Chris I have all my clues cleared now. Edit: I used to call it C C Cleaner too :)

I stopped using it a while back, it turned from a great tool to major nagware constantly sitting in your system tray telling you to pay for the pro version

Great you solved one headache for me, thanks

I never had heard of "winget upgrade --all" before. Thanks.

I still use CCleaner but I keep it “under control” on my main PC. I’ve used it several times, as recently as this year, to save a near-broken Windows 10 install and genuinely speed up the machine it was installed on. It took it from unusably slow to usably slow.

I like using Revo Uninstaller if I have issues with a program because it shows you the leftover files a reg key and let you remove them,

This reminds me that I still have active subscription from to time I encounter installation issue and its pretty convenient for registry cleanup.

I remember having a manager calling it C-C-Cleaner.... I wanted to die everyday. I'll see if I can go through the video...

Why do people C C Cleaner, it's C Cleaner

Hi Chris, I love your channel for basic sys admin tools for Win 10. I have not used CCleaner much but have used Advanced System Care as it seems to work well and not have huge impact. I also use Norton for Security. The general theme I get from what you say is that once you know the internals of Windows, you can find system options/tweaks/etc that may do a better job for both maintaining sys adm and security. I have found solutions w/in your debloat scripts and others, but do not find any easy set of routines that are in one place, and I do not want to have to dig through several articles that may have actions that either I cannot understand/undo, or may impact each other. I am looking for speed, performance, and simplicity for a moderate techie who ideally can use built in routines to clean up junk, optimize and more. If Win truly is the pits for this, then I guess Linux is the way to go except for the few apps that require Win. Many thanks, Ken.

Thanks, some gaming enhancing videos (2 of the top 3 results) had ccleaner in them so I downloaded it but then I thought about trying to use it properly and found your video and then uninstalled it, luckily I only had it for a day and used it once.

OMFG the winget upgrade --all command is amazing!

Dude its not CC Cleaner.. Its Just C Cleaner 😊

Registry cleaner is safe to use as far as I'm concerned. Been using it for years and nothing bad happened to my system. CCleaner is definitely way too bloated these days, there's no denying. But if you know what you're doing and what to do, it's still pretty alright. Like obviously disable smart cleaning stuff, disable its startup sequence, tick/untick stuff to clean, etc. It's quite aggressive when it comes to cleaning if you leave it as is

It works! Thanks a lot.

I still use CCleaner Pro and would rate it as 'ok' rather than 'awful product'. I use it because I find the CCleaner interface convenient and reliable for the handful of functions that I routinely use. However, I do agree most of CCleaner's useful functionality can be achieved in other ways for free, as Chris describes - if 1) you know how and 2) are happy running multiple utilities. Most software should be used with some awareness of what is going on - both good and not good. Such knowledge is even more important before running any command line or PowerShell scripts with Administrator privileges.

In comparison to you, I'm a noob user. In comparison to say, a regular mom, I might be an intermediate/advanced user. Sometimes I feel you try to cater your content to as much people as possible, making them concise, short and clear (they are great videos), but you then come up with solutions like the WinGet upgrade thing. I cannot see someone thinking CCleaner is good and using that and then going "Oh right, I forgot about winget!". It could be really cool if you give these options in the end for "more advanced users/people interested in it" but in the middle, comparing something like CCleaner tell people how to go to sites and check for correct downloads or to use Microsoft's App Store (as good or bad as that may be, is what a lot of regular people would use, even me sometimes for ease of access).

That was great. Thank you.

Thanks for sharing! Can we have recommendations on how we can clean our PC?

I use CC Pro on my personal systems and have for many, many years. I've even used it as an enterprise solution to keep endpoints clean and operating efficiently. While there are open source tools that do similar things, those tools carry just as much, if not more risk of security compromise and malware distribution. So that's not a good reason to skip CC. Every bloody software package has vulnerabilities at one point or another. Hell, even security apps have vulnerabilities. Just the world we live in. Bottom line: I have many systems in my home and in my lab, so CC is useful to me. However... Having said all that, I just learned a new trick from this video. I had never heard of winget before. Completely blew me away. Immediately ran it and had 18 apps needing upgrades and it was a snap to use. Shared it with my two security analysts and I'll have them look at it as a simple way to quickly update endpoints when we find them improperly maintained by IT. So, thanks for that tip!

Why do people say Cee Cee Cleaner instead of Cee Cleaner? 😄

What is effective at cleaning registry dregs? Now I use Revo uninstaller but previously ccleaner was supposedly safe for cleaning unlinked registry keys?

I still do on my Windows machine (which I haven't fired up since building a new Linux box - thanks Chris for the tutorials in getting started there!). The main use was to find larger folders when space started filling up, not for clearing any files. It was one of the best visualizers to explore the file system by folder size.

C Cleaner

Hi! You can always use the portable Version which doesn't install anything... - just for getting an overview i think it's not completely useless. The only thing I use is the uninstaller since a lot of programs are a bit hard to remove ...

As soon as you created this channel Chris, I've followed it from the beginning, you commented on Bleach Bit, I downloaded, installed and used it ever since. I abandoned ccleaner from that day on.

Thank you are one of a kind. !!!

CCleaner is terrible BleachBit 1000 Times Better

Thank you so much you really help me :)

my understanding is to avoid piriform these days. Spend money elsewhere, and the alternative free stuff is better. Cleanup? Bleachbit Updates? Ninite or Chocolatey Registry issues? AusLogics or reinstall. Startup programs? Autoruns Even their other offerings... Fragmentation? DiskPerfect or built-in Deleted files? Paid tools or PhotoRec

That Winget command is amazing! Is there a command like that to be able to do drivers as well?

i used to use ccleaner until i found your video, i've learnt a lot thanks to your video, i uninstalled ccleaner and i'm never touching it again

I used to use it. I quit using it in 2017 right after the Avast purchase. Everything Avast produces is malware, so I just washed my hands of ccleaner the instant they bought it.

I don't run or install CCleaner much at all these days. Back when I used to use it, I would only run a couple of its functions. I can admit I *have* and *did* run the registry cleaner function but I NEVER had any problems with the system misbehaving or running poorly afterward. It's been soooo long since I've run it, I forget all the details. I *believe* CCleaner's registry cleaner function was fairly benign, in that it didn't go very deeply into the registry. I think a video examining way registry cleaning is bad would be good. I mean actually run a handful of cleaners on a test Windows box and see how Windows performs afterward. I think I pretty much stopped bothering with CCleaner around the time of Windows 8. Anyway, great video! Thanks for posting!

I used a lot of software to update my stuff on windows. And there, you made me discover winget... THANK YOU

I used this in the Windows 7 years to clean up certain registry files that like you said wouldn't go away . It definitely would have been useful if it was around on m y Windows 95/98 machine with a 750MB HDD. Today things are different storage is dirt cheap compared to back in the day and most drives start off at around 256GB which is way more than enough for most people anyway. I just use the Windows cleaner once in a while as it's good enough for what I need and I really don't have to worry about managing disk drives that are hovering around 80-95%.

THanks Chris, I started using CrapCleaner back in the late 20th Century.. It was great.. those where the days! Defraggler too, oh how I used to love to sit for hours watching all the pretty coloured squares change.. Then I'd play Interstate'76 til bedtime. I stopped using it about 10mins ago after watching your video. And yes... if you hadn't guessed already.. I am old..

How would you suggest or what good replacement to cleaning all browsers so cache so on?

I use CCleaner free version but I have it locked down, no checking for updates, does not show up in details that's it's running in the background. I mostly use it to clean cookies. I've never used it to clean registry.

You really good at explaining thank you

So, What program would you recommend for a fast cache cleaner for windows?

Nostalgia - it was one of my favourite piece of utility back in the days.

Hey chris can you explain your reticence on regisry cleaning? Cheers feller...

Nice vid, bit of a IT noob and am just curious why to stay away from using resigtry cleaning software?

A month after installing it, strange things began to happen on the PC and I had not installed anything during that month. that has happened to me several times until I discarded that software and problems stopped appearing

works perfectly, thank you

I still keep CCleaner to strip out left over installation registry entries that Revo Uninstaller misses.

HI Chris, I saw in the video that you have virtualbox installed. As of this moment virtualbox is patched with hanaloader that installs a RAT on windows. Its C2 connection is either running over dropbox or onedrive. Just a heads up cause i don't know if the update pipeline is infected.

I actually didn't know any of this till today. I will uninstalling it today. Thank you for pointing it out.

Still working as of today, ty!

great video like always

Yeah, it happened at our job sites. Since that happened, it has been not allowed anymore. I wondered if it was still bad.