Because as I have always maintained, cleaning the Registry is perhaps not as dangerous as it is made out to be.
A really good Registry Cleaner gives multiple level choices for cleaning the Registry. They are generally Safe, Aggressive and Very Aggressive. Cleaning the Registry with the safe choice is like cleaning with the free CCleaner. Those with greater expertise can use the other two choices.
It's called a targeted ad. You were viewing a webpage with the word "registry" on it, and that probably matched a target word that the ad specified. I'm not sure what you meant by posting this, though, as it isn't related to the forums or the topic. Blame your browser.
Another good reason to remove any installed Google software and stay signed out of Google except while using its mail, lest it stalk you with creepy targeted ads pasted everywhere you go.
The stable Google search box built into most browsers is exempt.
An even more thorough method is here: Network Advertising Initiative
the guy at the auto parts store could have used your advise, but to the other side of that coin. thankfully, (since i was holding the battery post that was crossthreaded) i had the knowledge to smile, and say thanks for your help and forget that he told me to cut a hole in the side of my battery and put the cables and post in there.... (sorry, just happened)
my experience with ccleaner, is that its scary. its awesome and catches soooo much of the 'bad", unfortunatly, it also puts the "good" in there too. but i find it helpful to see and erase things that i 210% (i go back twice) know can go.
basically backup, backup, backup... and try try again.
found that out with that original win32 worm. found it, isolated it, removed it... along with (i dont remember what now) the FAT. fixed that (back in the day it seemed we could do anything), and within the day my motherboard fried.
+1 to the Deacon, disagree with all who do not find CCleaner a good piece of software that does exactly what it says and no more.
Does not slow anything down.
Carry out a Registry Backup after use, can't go wrong.
I have it to run on startup, takes a few seconds and job done. Tanya, your solution will take longer than CCleaner!
And Piriform's "Speccy" is a great tool for findind every Spec on your 'puter.
how much to do trust registry cleaners?
very little to none at all
that being said there are two that I like and DO trust.
ccleaner is free. its the only one i use WHEN i use it.... only when theres a bonafide issue
and if anyone can remember which one that was that was a paid one bout 14, 15 yrs ago... its that one
Ccleaner will not hurt your computer.... you will by not knowing precisely what to do. it can b tricky... it told you it was bad, so you believed it.
not true
it told you there was a problem with that reg.
duplicate? broken? not fully uninstalled or installed... or (drum roll please) they havnt put it in their database yet so its not recognized and it was a vital system crashing update windows forced on you and with its own update tools it changed and/or erased the old registries(yeah, cause that happens often)... BUT Ccleaner doesnt know
Maybe gregrocker is looking for this level of documentation against CCleaner's registry cleaning function.
This video is documenting issues caused by Uniblue's registry cleaner - I hope that users will never see such issues with CCleaner.
I think we have all moved away from the OP's question. The OP now probably has a very confused opinion (and a low one at that) of this Forum.
Basically, I would say, if you want to try out CCleaner, download it and just use the Cleaning part first, until you gain more confidence. The default settings will not cause any possible harm, leave them. If you want a REGISTRY Cleaner, don't download anything other than CCleaner. And take a tip - download from the PIRIFORM site only. Set it to carry out "Automatic" updates, even though it says 'automatic', it always asks for permission.
I can reinforce previous advice regarding other "Registry Cleaners." From bitter experience, you could open a can of worms which may harm your system, or at least clog it and slow it down. That is something many 'amateurs' such as myself, began; making a mess by downloading garbage which looks very attractive at first glance. CCleaner will NOT harm your machine, that is a fact, despite all the "evidence" presented by some here.
It is true that poking around in the Registry, without knowing what you are doing, can cause damage to it. So don't. If you want to know more about the Registry, "Windows Help and Support" is your friend, in the Start Menu. Open it and type "Registry" in the Search box. Read on, follow on if you wish. Find a good manual about Windows 7 and learn what you can. And please believe me when I say that all of us here, despite the conflicting views presented, are really just trying to help.
What about Glary Utilities? It has a registry cleaner included in its 1-Click-Maintenance. Glary seems to find more stuff than CCleaner. I don't know if that's a good thing or bad.
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