What Are The Best Settings For CCleaner?

Hi there I hope I am posting in the right forum. My daughter and I are recieving help from this site at the moment to repair 2 computers…so thank you for all the advice. I need some directions of a different nature now. I have been advised by a friend to use CCleaner. I downloaded it, opened it up and was a bit daunted about what to do. I Googled 'CCleaner settings' to guide me on how to use it but sites are conflicting; some say to clean the registry, some say don't tamper with it, etc. I previously used Regcure which has now expired and I am happy to use the free CCleaner but the options for configuration and cleaning are more vast than Regcure; so in a nutshell, I am a bit too scared to use it without knowing what to do. Could someone please point me to the right site for obtaining information on what to remove and what to keep. Thankyou Belinda

TBH unless someone knows what they are doing in the registry it's advised to leave well alone, many people stuff they're systems up using registry tools so bad they need to reinstall, so the rule of thumb is don't touch it, not unless someone who knows what they are doing instructs you to do so for some technical reason. The settings are set to the default, and for 99.9% of people this is usually fine, so unless it's cleaning something you need just run it as the default, if you use cookies to stay logged into sites etc then I can instruct you how to sort this whilst still removing the junk, otherwise run as it comes and it's fine. The main point to note with this software is during the installation, in fact it highlights the need for vigilance during ANY install, watch out for the check boxes, see what each box offers, in the case of this program it includes Yahoo toolbar as standard, but unless you want this add on you have to remove the tick from that box, if you don't it will install it, but apart from that the default settings are fine, but leave the registry alone, unless guided for a specific reason.

Thankyou very much for this advice…this is exactly what I needed to know….oh, what about the cookies that you mentioned? Belinda

Cookies are commonly used for staying logged into web sites, eg this site, remove the cookie and you have to log in each time, save the cookie and you stay logged in all the time, this has security issues if your not in sole use of the system, or have others who may be able to access it and you don't want them too, or more so a system in a public place, in which case always physically log out when done, but in your own home with no 3rd party accessibility it should be fine, I always save mine for these reasons. Now to do this start with cleaning the system then close it, this WILL remove the cookies stored, I do this for ease of seeing the cookie to save as it should be the only one showing after, although occasionally you may see another, anyway with a clean system launch your browser and log into your 1st site, once logged in launch the cleaner again, BUT, this time click on the Options tab on the left, then click on the Cookies button, in there you will see 2 columns, initially one will have cookies listed, as you've just run it there should only be 2 or 3 on average, simply look for the cookie with the extension of the site you have logged into, highlight it, then click on the right arrow to move to Protected the side. Simply repeat this with each cookie you want to save and thats it, you can add\remove cookies the same way (albeit in reverse for removing them from the protected side) as you want\need, just be aware if you use other cleaners as well these will need the same treatment to protect the ones you want to keep these items, only difference here is you can run this cleaner which will clear out unwanted cookies and leave the ones you want, then you can launch the next cleaner and simply move all it sees over to the protected side in that program, because all you see will be what you want already as you've done this once before, hope this helps.