cleaners, to use or not to use

[sham1313]

      a while back i was referred to bleepingcomputers.com because i had made a few mistakes and download 4 rogues program in a 2 or 3 month period. of course they wanted a copy paste of a log. they help me make sure my computer was clean. one of the things they told me was I should not use any cleaner whether it is rogue or not. they said it could cause more troubles then they could help. they help me a lot to make sure my computer was clean. my question is they had me download ATF cleaner. the ATF says cleaner.is it a cleaner? if not what is it?  is there a big difference in between these 2 cleaner. 1.ccleaner 2.registry cleaner, andthe ATF cleaner.
thanks confused Sharon

[Spiritsongs]

   Hi :

 Best to avoid ALL "registry" cleaners and on this "topic" I recommend reading
 what some "Microsoft Most Valuable Professional(s)" say at :
 http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28099 .

 "CCleaner" includes a "registry" cleaner, which is WHY I recommend avoiding
 this program; however, "ATF Cleaner" was developed by an antiSPYWARE
 Expert, who goes by the "name" of "ATribune", and is the ONLY "Cleaner" I
 recommend and personally use .

 

[sham1313]

     thanks you!! it is hard for me to keep up with all the reading i am ask to read but i try to read as much as i can. i have to always read more then one time to be able to understand any thing  I do read. reading has always been hard for me. it is easy for me to read the words but to really understand it i have to re read it a few times. thanks again and if i don't get it red today i will 1st thing in the  morning.
Sharon

[Tarq57]

Thing is, there is a difference between "cleaners" and "registry cleaners".
The terminology is important.
To use the registry cleaner in Ccleaner you have to deliberately select the (rather poorly named, IMO) "issues" button, then the registry cleaner is available.
(From personal experience, this is a fairly reliable and tame tool. But it can make mistakes, and I have cleaned stuff I should not have using it in the past. My recommendation is before cleaning anything in the registry, you should have a pretty good idea of what it's for, how it works, and only then will you know yourself if it's safe to clean (delete) or not. Those decisions are best not left to a piece of automated software to make.)
Without having selected that button, it's another disk cleaner. A rather good one.

[norel]

Cleaners can be useful tools in the right hands, but you need to use them with caution and know what you're doing. Make sure they have plenty of documentation and read it thoroughly first. The lighter the touch the better, you want to tweak not bulldoze. Actually, with the exception of registry cleaning  you can pretty much do all the cleaning you need to within Windows and the applications themselves. Cleaning utilities are handy because you can do almost everything in one shot. But oftentimes what the developers think should be default settings and what you think they should be varies wildly, so look them over. That being said, I've had good luck with TweakNow and CCleaner, they're both free and offer backup and restore options. To be honest, I've had more problems with Norton Antivirus screwing up my system than cleaners.

[STONER]

Try regseeker with auto clean function and only green items its very nice http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm

[cinchez]

Based on my own personal experience on computers, Registry cleaners r the ones that r dangerous!^^

CCleaner's registry cleaner isnt that dangerous...It is not a deep registry cleaner^^

Thats y im using it until now^^No problems at all!^^

-AnimeLover^^

[.: L' arc :.]

-= I'd go for CCleaner too.. Since a lot more users are using it & does have good feedbacks.. the safest cleaner to use is no other than Disk Cleanup Utility of Windows..

[cinchez]

the safest cleaner to use is no other than Disk Cleanup Utility of Windows..

Probably bro^^

-AnimeLover^^

[sham1313]

         i have gotten some real good answer to my question an plan on keeping them to refer back to later. as far as norton goes i Will not use Norton ever again.i think you spell trouble with the word norton. and Mac a fee {can't spell it}.
Sharon    

Cleaners can be useful tools in the right hands, but you need to use them with caution and know what you're doing. Make sure they have plenty of documentation and read it thoroughly first. The lighter the touch the better, you want to tweak not bulldoze. Actually, with the exception of registry cleaning  you can pretty much do all the cleaning you need to within Windows and the applications themselves. Cleaning utilities are handy because you can do almost everything in one shot. But oftentimes what the developers think should be default settings and what you think they should be varies wildly, so look them over. That being said, I've had good luck with TweakNow and CCleaner, they're both free and offer backup and restore options. To be honest, I've had more problems with Norton Antivirus screwing up my system than cleaners.

[sham1313]

 tweak. i never knew what that word ment. i think in this sense it means carefully
thanks Sharon

[DavidR]

I think in this case careful doesn't really come into it, it is simply to adjust or fine-tune.

The spelling is McAfee.

[sham1313]

thank you!! also I thank every one for there very helpful answers.
Sharon

[mevcit]

i use CCleaner for both cleaning unnecessary/temporary files and fixing registry. i really think that its registry cleaning function is harmless, it doesn't do a deep scan in registry, and does find the obvious ones. but i don't use any other registry cleaners as they may cause dangerous/unwanted situations rather than giving some benefit. besides, i use Defraggler to defrag my hard drives. CCleaner and Defraggler are the only ones for system cure of my machine.

[sham1313]

I had ccleaner and registry cleaner both not rogue and a lot of people stat  how much they do for there computer. how ever bleepingcomputer.com said I should not use any cleaner except the ATF cleaner. maybe they tell me that because I am not very good at working on computers,
Sharon