Do you want to be safe from cookie trackers and malicious files?
Windows has the notoriety of increasing spam and junk files with the usage of pc!
It all adds up to the storage, and sometimes hackers use these files to penetrate the system and important files.
CCleaner Professional is a tune-up and optimization software for Windows 10/8.1/7.
By the name itself, we can understand it’s a cleaning software which includes junk, cookies and registry items.
It isn’t easy to find the path to the temp folders and cache file storage areas of Chrome, Edge, and Firefox browsers.
Even though you can manually delete them, it is time-intensive, and many errors can creep up.
You can inadvertently delete a system file, which may cause a malfunction of the program or app.
Piriform CCleaner has provided the professional tool at a very affordable cost to keep all these issues at bay and make things simple.
You can find discounts on various other sites that will reduce the price further.
Some of the features are available in the free version also.
History and Malignance
Avast acquired Piriform CCleaner in 2017. It has been in the pc optimization market for around 18 years.
CCleaner 5.45 version was maligned with features like Active Monitoring. Like the present 5.85 version, it did not have the philosophy of not collecting personal data.
It impersonates Windows users by collecting and sharing data. The same setting was enabled after a restart.
Malicious Trojans were able to seep through into the tool and affected millions of computers.
Though the software company patched up the vulnerability in subsequent versions, it caused havoc in the CCleaner community.
Before Avast taking over, Microsoft users believed in the free version for cleaning junk and registry items.
Most of the users switched off the product, thinking it was a malignant tumour for pc.
In 2021, the latest version of 5.85 has been updated with driver update utility and many other features.
It removed the Active Monitoring tool, and you can close the tool from the system tray. For updates, it creates a scheduled task, which can be disabled if you want.
But when you purchase the Professional Edition, you get pc health check-ups and security kinds of features.
In this review, we are going to see the latest features of CCleaner Professional in 2021.
My PC Configuration
I’ve been using this PC for more than 10 years, since 2011. Even in 2021, the computer works perfectly without any hiccups.
A decent APC UPS supported by a home inverter and surge protector keeps all the accessories safe.
Recently, I have purchased the LG 22 inch IPS monitor. At the top right-hand side of the CCleaner tool, you can see the CPU, MOTHERBOARD and GRAPHICS configuration.
I have a Windows 10 Pro 64 bit OS, Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E7500 @2.93GHz, 8.00GB RAM and NVIDIA GeForce 210 graphics card.
Health Check
It is one of the latest and powerful tools of the professional edition. You cannot get this feature in the free version.
Though you can scan for health, to implement them, you need the pro features. If you use the free version, the list of pro features is disabled after scanning.
It makes it imperative that you buy the professional edition to keep your pc in good shape.
PC’s health check-up includes the following essential checks and cleaning.
Boost your PC’s performance – It will disable unwanted apps to make your PC boot faster.
Improve your PC Security: Update apps and drivers quickly and close the security loopholes.
Maintain your PC’s Privacy – Safely remove the trackers, cookies and unwanted data left over by websites and advertisers.
Get more disk space: Safely remove unwanted junk on your system.
It would help if you closed all the running browsers like Edge, Chrome, and others to run this feature.
Even if they are not closed, CCleaner will request to close them automatically.
If that doesn’t work, a request to close them by force is done. You need not worry as none of your bookmarks. It will not delete existing websites.
Just the browsers will close. On re-open, they will work as usual.
After Scan
The following was the list of items that the Health Checkup feature listed below from the CCleaner Professional 5.85.9170 version.
I had 9 trackers to remove, 80.4MB junk items, 0 startup items to disable, and 0 apps to update.
The last 2 features are in the Pro version only. As I had already done a scan and ran the betterment tool, most of the performance was complete.
I already disabled most of the problematic apps and startup items. I also have an SSD which made my boot times faster.
But for legacy devices, this tool should help a lot. Also, for beginners who don’t know which apps and startup items to disable, this tool can be a boon.
If you want to speed up your Windows 10 pc, you can follow these steps.
Sometimes, I feel that the free tool is enough as it does most of the cleaning.
But for automated tasks of cleaning browsers pc and improving security.
I could immediately see the benefits of health check-ups and cleanup. My PC was much faster, and the browser was opening more quickly.
In addition, if you can use the Malwarebytes tool to scan for malware and have a Browser Ad guard, you will see the website loading faster.
This anti-virus tool protects from ransomware, adware, viruses, trojans and gives complete details about it.
Also, the combination of CCleaner Professional and Malwarebytes Premium does not slow your PC. Improve the system security and performance.
Custom Clean
In this module, you have two options – 1. Windows and 2. Applications.
Under the Windows option, you can clean the internet cache, history, cookies, download history, last download location, temporary internet files, index.dat files and many others.
These are the default settings for this option. If you want advanced cleaning using CCleaner Pro, you can check those settings also.
Under the applications option, you can clean Chrome, Windows Store, Applications, Utilities, NVIDIA install files, MS Paint, MS Search, MS Wordpad and many others.
Be careful when you tick the advanced options, as those options are for administrators and users well versed with Windows.
It is better to create a system restore point if you change the default options.
Generally, the default settings should clean the junk, cache and temporary files very clean. I experienced no problems after running this module.
Driver Updater
It is one of the favourite features of CCleaner Professional in 2021. In the earlier versions, this option was not available. But it’s a new tool added to the pc tune-up utility.
Some drivers from Microsoft don’t play well with old devices and hardware.
Even I forgot the driver CD for my old Bluetooth adapter. But CCleaner was able to find the correct drivers and install them on Windows 10.
For complete details, you can read about the CCleaner driver update utility here.
Registry Cleaner
- Missing Shared DLLs
- Unused File Extensions
- ActiveX and Class Issues
- Type Libraries
- Applications
- Fonts
- Application Paths
- Help Files
- Installer
- Obsolete Software
- Run At Startup
- Start Menu Ordering
- MUI Cache
- Sound Events
- Windows Services
The default settings in this module are the above. You can scan your registry using CCleaner. It will find all the junk registry items.
Then, it will ask you to save the registry. It is better to take a backup before this process starts up.
Sometimes, items related to uninstalled apps and programs are deleted.
But they may be required for other apps and programs. In 2021, CCleaner registry cleaner is much better compared to the early days.
It creates more minor problems. And anyhow, you have the backup if necessary.
Tools
Uninstall: You can do uninstall, repair, rename and delete using this option. .
Some apps like that come with Windows 10 installation are not easy to delete.
CCleaner does an excellent job at removing them. But be careful before removing system apps. Installing them back can be a little tricky.
Software Updater: Using this tool, you can update the software applications to the latest versions. Instead of finding the latest update from a spammy website, CCleaner gives authentic updates.
Startup – Four items are mentioned here – 1. Windows 2. Scheduled Tasks 3. Context Menu 4. Windows Services.
You can disable the startup items in any of the above categories. It will speed up the boot time and operational speed of the Windows computer.
Browser Plugins: It is one of the best features of CCleaner. Some of the Internet Explorer browser plugins still hide in the backdrop of Microsoft Edge.
You can disable them. It will improve the speed of the browser operations.
Disk Analyzer: You can know which type of files occupy the most significant space on your disk. It comes in handy when you want to delete the folders/files on disk getting full.
Duplicate Finder: Duplicate files can fill the memory space. By letting CCleaner find them and delete them, you can keep your pc slate clean.
System Restore – All the latest system restore points are mentioned here. You can delete the unnecessary ones.
Drive Wiper: If you are afraid of somebody using data recovery tools to find deleted confidential files, you can use this tool carefully.
Options
Settings: In this option, you can set the home screen as Health Check or Custom Clean.
You can add “Run CCleaner” to recycle bin. For advanced users, you can change to secure file deletion. Depending upon the option, it will increase the number of passes.
You can wipe alternate data streams and cluster tips. Wipe free space drives is another option. You can also wipe MFT free space.
Cookies: You can see all the lists of cookies available on your computer. You can select them and add them to the list to keep them. Before that, you need to close all your browsers.
Include – Select additional files and folders you want CCleaner to remove.
Exclude – Select files, folders, apps, registry entries to exclude from CCleaner cleaning.
Scheduling: You can set a schedule for CCleaner to automatically clean your pc. It can be either Health Check or Custom Clean.
Innovative Cleaning: It is another Professional option. Enable browser cleaning on closing the browser. It keeps privacy by deleting the trackers and unrelated cookies.
Users – Select the users who can utilize CCleaner Professional.
Updates: Update CCleaner automatically and send notifications when there is an update.
Advanced – For advanced users, additional settings are provided.
Privacy: Additional information from Piriform and Avast can be had here. You can also allow the company to gather app usage data for improving the product.
About: Here, you can find the version and license information of CCleaner Professional.
Priority Email Support 24/7
It is also the premium feature that helps the typical user. Let it be installation and restoring to a previous system point; the expert team takes care of it.
Since hardware and OS have different configurations, the support team takes the compatibility of Windows 10, CCleaner.
If you find that some of the features are not working correctly, you can escalate the issue to a proper support engineer.
Final Words
In few lines, I can say that CCleaner does its job best with automated tasks.
That is its strength compared to manual cleaning by other tools. Also, it gets a better approval rate from Microsoft Community users over another registry, cleaning and optimization software.
We used the product for over 3 months and did not find any glitches.
Browser cleaning was automatic and quick. Health Check kept the system secure and fast.
Except for the 2 or 3 features, CCleaner Professional did not have any additional benefit.
If it could provide additional services, it’d be great. But I like the pricing, as it is in the range of average Windows users.
I recommend this product as a cleaning, driver update utility and health check-up tool.
