Ccleaner, the programme formerly known as Cclear, is a freeware programme available on the internet, obtainable on their homepage or as downloadable links on third party software cache websites. The company that developed the software markets it as an all in one registry & system cleaner, comprehensive, easy to use and with many advanced features that set it apart from its other shareware and freeware counterparts.

With over 175 million downloads, I had to take a sneak and peak at Piriform's latest permutation. It should be noted that I have no experience whatsoever with their previous Cclear, what follows is a guide on how to effectively use specifically Ccleaner's rich array of features. This is not a review, but mainly a step by step on how to employ it effectively – achieving maximum results.

Everything in Ccleaner's visually simplistic design is geared towards an ease of operation. Icons and self-explanatory and sub-menus are not confusing. Information is portrayed in a clear, concise manner with easy to read instructions not bound down by technological jargon.

After a while, the registry becomes inevitably festooned with the scraggly leftovers of invalid entries, confused product and hardware embedded keys, orphan digital footprints of bad software installs, empty spaces that further fragment the registry into a confused diaspora of information that causes the hiccups like rundll errors, system errors, programme crashes. It then becomes an electronic bottleneck of the Operating System – if you ever experienced a Windows load time that is near phenomenally and achingly long, you probably have a system and registry that is clogged up.

Ccleaner is terribly easy to use. It lists down all the possible areas which could be attributed to system slowdowns, combined with a checkbox feature that allows the user to choose which one. Simply click on the ‘Cleaner' or the ‘Registry Icon' and you would be presented with an easy to use menu, completely customisable for the user to choose which areas to scan and fix.

The best thing is the support for third party popular web browsers like Opera and Firefox, as well as options to scan windows explorer, system areas like memory dumps and the clipboard. On my system, it was even able to recognise applications like Adobe Photoshop , QuickTime and Nero Burning Rom – scanning them for ‘free floating' files or anything that can slow my system down.

One of the best features is the system start-up programme tool – which lists all the programmes Windows loads on start-up. De-activating non-essential files through the programme was a breeze, which helped to decrease my load time by nearly half.

Its registry cleaner identifies 15 possible miscreants within the registry – just click the ‘scan for issues button' and voila – you have a list within minutes. Watch out for the prompts – telling you of registry conflicts on specific programmes and applications, just in case you are not sure whether or not it is an essential entry, you can keep it. Of course there is a ‘fix all' issues if you are certain of your operating system's environment.

Another thing, if you have file/folders or applications you do not want scanned – the ‘Tool's section allows you to ‘exclude' sensitive files and folders. It even lists down the ‘Cookies' stored in various web browsers – simply choose which one you wish to delete and which to keep.

Ccleaner, the programme formerly known as Cclear, is a breath of fresh air, simple, easy to use, comprehensive and ultimately effective.