The internet is riddled with many online programmes as well as dynamic websites that do a scan on your computer's registry. Some of them do not justify their price tags, and some just simply do not justify existence.



Cclean, in my opinion, presents itself as a simple solution to a complex landscape of market driven products and programmes. The download size – a mere 2.8 megabytes, was easy and fuss free – already earning brownie points over other websites that ‘piggy' back on unnecessarily complex file storage websites.

I chose a pretty high end system which had been running for 6 months straight – inevitably, the lightning machine had began to stutter and chug, especially during start-up - so it would be a good test bed for Piriform's new permutation.

The design is very well done, large fonts and easy to understand menu systems. Visually ergonomic, running through the icons and submenus presented very little problems - and so I zoomed into the ‘Registry' menu first. Presenting 15 possible areas (which the user can choose) of registry hiccups, Cclean is one of the more comprehensive registry scans available. For this test I chose all, and the scan on a large capacity desktop with more than 80 programmes installed – took less than a few mere minutes. Cleaning took even less time – with adequate prompts for critical looking entries and embedded keys – ensuring a safe deletion.

And there is automatic registry backup which the user can place in a thumb drive or external drive.

Cleaning also took less than five minutes. Next I moved on to the applications and windows settings – over 30 different areas, including specific applications that Cclean can detect and scan. It even allows the user to choose which files and folders to protect from scanning, as well as customise which cookies to delete-or keep after a scan.

It may sound complicated, but everything is done neatly with the universal user in mind. It is one of the most fuss free programmes I have ever seen – with a learning curve that is just as quick as its scanning and cleaning capabilities.

Now for the ‘baited breath' test. After cleaning and deactivating some of my start up programmes through its ‘Tools' functions – I restarted the test system and timed the load time.

I can happily report that the lump of coal that was my windows load and start up was noticeably faster – in fact by more than a minute. In digital time – that is quite an achievement. Programmes were crisper and the mouse was more responsive during the initial load. I also had a niggling ‘rundll 32' error – ‘cannot launch programme message' everytime the computer loaded – which was gone after Cclean's efficient scan.

In all – Cclean works, because it does complicated and time consuming checks in mere minutes, carefully raking through system banks and the sensitive windows registry to speed up operating time.