WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.040 What should you install when you've bought or built a new PC? 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:07.440 You'll get plenty of different answers depending on if you're asking a blue shirt, an IT pro, 00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:10.720 or whoever the designated computer person in your family is. 00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:15.440 Probably you. But one thing that a lot of people say by default is C Cleaner. 00:00:15.440 --> 00:00:20.160 C Cleaner has been around since 2004 and it promises to clean all the crap off your PC. 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:23.440 Little known fact, the name C Cleaner is short for Crap Cleaner. 00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:27.360 But I guess after a while the developers thought that sounded a little unprofessional. 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:32.080 C Cleaner became popular because it's an easy way to clear out a wide variety of unnecessary 00:00:32.080 --> 00:00:38.960 data on your system at once. Whether it's browsing history, cached images, temporary files, or even system restore points, 00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:44.720 C Cleaner provides one place to do it. It can also get rid of registry entries that point to nothing which, let's be honest, 00:00:44.720 --> 00:00:47.920 they don't actually cause any problems but they're there. 00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:51.920 Prevent programs from starting when you boot up and it even has a secure white feature to help 00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:56.320 ensure that your deleted data can't be recovered. Although careful with that one. 00:00:56.320 --> 00:00:59.360 Oh this sounds pretty good and more importantly it's free. 00:00:59.360 --> 00:01:03.120 Which is probably part of the reason it's been, according to developer peer reform, 00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:06.560 downloaded two and a half billion times. 00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:11.200 Many by me. With five million desktop installs every week. 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:18.560 Oh those people can't be wrong. Could they? Well as popular as C Cleaner is, there are also plenty of people that warn against downloading 00:01:18.560 --> 00:01:24.720 it. Even saying that it could do more harm than good. C Cleaner first started making negative headlines in 2017. 00:01:24.800 --> 00:01:29.040 When Avast, a company that makes antivirus software, bought peer reform. 00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:33.360 The same year, users noticed that C Cleaner would start collecting system information 00:01:33.360 --> 00:01:38.000 ostensibly for diagnostic purposes. While this is a very common thing for programs to do, 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:42.720 the problem was that it would keep turning back on even after users disabled the feature, 00:01:42.720 --> 00:01:46.080 which didn't set well with folks concerned about privacy. 00:01:46.080 --> 00:01:50.000 But an even bigger story was that it was hacked around the same time, 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:55.200 resulting in over two million people with compromised installations of C Cleaner 00:01:55.200 --> 00:02:03.120 that put spyware onto their system. A terrible look for an antivirus company whose software was supposed to clean your system. 00:02:03.120 --> 00:02:07.520 Not open a door for data thieves. Now this was obviously a while ago. 00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:13.040 And Avast did patch the security holes. But C Cleaner has faced other issues since then. 00:02:13.040 --> 00:02:16.880 The program has been roundly criticized for requiring users to dig through options 00:02:16.880 --> 00:02:20.880 if they don't want extra bundled software. You know, crap. 00:02:20.880 --> 00:02:26.000 Ironically installed when setting up C Cleaner. Another big problem wasn't really Avast's fault, 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:29.280 but rather more of a result of how popular the program is. 00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:32.880 C Cleaner is available in a pro version that has a few extra features, 00:02:32.880 --> 00:02:36.400 like automatic driver updates, automatic cleaning of browsing data, 00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:41.680 and ad tracker blogging. But this pro version costs money, which led some folks to try to pirate it. 00:02:41.680 --> 00:02:45.760 And these pirated versions often contained malware. 00:02:45.760 --> 00:02:49.920 Meaning plenty of people did end up paying dearly for their free software. 00:02:49.920 --> 00:02:54.080 And while this is not a problem with honestly purchased copies of C Cleaner, 00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:58.560 wasn't a great thing to happen to a company that already had egg on its face for getting hacked. 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:02.400 But current official versions of C Cleaner don't have the issues that plagued in the past, 00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:06.800 so should you use it? Well, the answer is still probably not. 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:11.200 C Cleaner does put common PC cleaning tasks into one program, true. 00:03:11.200 --> 00:03:14.720 But modern versions of Windows already come with plenty of built-in tools 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:18.640 for cleaning up unneeded files and deciding what programs will run at startup. 00:03:18.640 --> 00:03:22.160 And it's really pretty easy to just erase your Chrome data through the browser. 00:03:22.160 --> 00:03:28.720 It even has automatic cleaning of its own. Driver updates are also usually handled automatically by utilities that come with your new hardware. 00:03:28.720 --> 00:03:32.080 And seeing as most modern systems have SSDs, 00:03:32.080 --> 00:03:35.680 C Cleaner won't do very much to make your system more responsive. 00:03:35.680 --> 00:03:40.560 In a similar vein, those junk registry entries that C Cleaner and other PC tune-up programs 00:03:40.560 --> 00:03:43.840 warn you about won't usually slow your system down or hurt anything. 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:47.440 And if the program accidentally messes with something in the registry that it shouldn't, 00:03:47.440 --> 00:03:51.280 say there's a blank key somewhere that a piece of software expects to be there, 00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:57.760 there's a chance you could end up breaking something important. So unless you have a really specific need for an app like C Cleaner, 00:03:57.760 --> 00:04:03.280 you're probably better off skipping it. I mean, you spend enough time cleaning anyway, so what's a few more minutes? 00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:06.320 Thanks for watching guys, like, dislike, check out some of our other videos, 00:04:06.320 --> 00:04:09.680 comment with video suggestions down below, and don't forget to subscribe and follow.