Right. Registry cleaners are not used to delete cookies. I was responding to the comment that CCleaner's Registry cleaner, "...has no real use and can only create more problems then you'll ever be able to solve...." That's just not true or there would surely be 10s of millions of users with totally unsolvable Registry problems out there. And there isn't. That old, and worn out warning is from over a decade ago when Registry cleaners IN THE WRONG HANDS could indeed cause irreversible problems - and major headaches for those of us trying to resolve them. But let's be realistic, Piriform would not have survived as a company if its extremely popular and widely used flagship product, CCleaner, kept breaking computers.Registry cleaning usable to delete tracking cookies
There are some very reputable companies who have put their names and reputations on the line for registry cleaners. Comodo makes a good one that let's you test run with the changes before it makes them permanent. Pretty cool - if you take the time to use that feature. And of course, CCleaner prompts to backup the Registry before making changes too. Always essential, often overlooked by those "wrong hands".
My only problem today with some of the popular cleaners is their marketing weenies promoting their cleaners as "fixers" - as "optimizers" promising to make your computer run better than it ever did! Horsepucky!
I use CCleaner often. Not every week, or month. But after I make major changes to my system. After ensuring all is fine, I will run it. For example, if I swap out graphics cards, anti-malware solutions, or install a major service pack, after a few days of all working fine, I'll run CCleaner.
I often install programs for testing. When done testing, I'll uninstall and run CCleaner to tidy up after. I've been using CCleaner for at least 5 years when it was still called Crap Cleaner and have yet to have it cause problems on any system I've ever used it on that I could not easily undo - and that need has been a rare, and not recent occasion at that.
I don't normally recommend using registry cleaners because their "benefits" for most "normal" users are not clear. But when I do, CCleaner's is the only one because (1) it is NOT aggressive. It does not find 1000 things wrong that must be fixed now or you die. And (2) it prompts to backup the Registry first, and the restore from backup works.
So the question becomes ONLY, do Registry cleaners, in particular, does CCleaner's Registry cleaner provide any benefits? Maybe. Depends on the user, and how he or she uses his system. The question is NOT, will using CCleaner's Registry cleaner break my computer. There is NO evidence to suggest it will. "Providing benefits is a totally different issue from causing damage.
And it is not fair either, IMO, to lump all cleaners into the same pile. They are not all created equal.
That said, it is always a wise precaution to backup the Registry first. Anything could happen from a power failure to a hard drive crash to RAM failure to excessive CPU heat - any of which might, given the right circumstances, wreck havoc on the Registry - and not be the fault of the cleaner.
I also recommend, if you want to use a cleaner, running the cleaner from the beginning when the computer is new and then make it a maintenance routine every so often after that. Running a cleaner for the first time on a machine that's several years old and been through several major updates, patches and upgrades is scary - even for me. I would not attempt it, unless that machine was fully updated and working perfectly. And even then, good thing there's ERUNT and backup images.
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I now return control of this thread back to our previously scheduled programming.
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