Microsoft's PC Manager Is Like CCleaner For Your Computer (theverge.com) 41
Microsoft is working on a PC Manager app that's designed to boost your computer's performance. The Verge reports: Much like CCleaner, a beta version of Microsoft's PC Manager includes storage management and the ability to end tasks quickly and control which apps start up with Windows. Much of this functionality is already baked into Windows, but this PC Manager app puts it all in one useful location. There's even a browser protection section that makes it easier to change default browsers than what exists in Windows right now.
The storage manager feature includes the ability to manage apps or remove those that are rarely used, and there's also a full cleanup scan available or a scan to find large files on your drives. The process management feature is a more simplified version of the Task Manager so you can quickly kill processes that might be eating up RAM. Hitting the main "boost" button will clear temporary files and free up memory, which could be useful on older PCs.
The storage manager feature includes the ability to manage apps or remove those that are rarely used, and there's also a full cleanup scan available or a scan to find large files on your drives. The process management feature is a more simplified version of the Task Manager so you can quickly kill processes that might be eating up RAM. Hitting the main "boost" button will clear temporary files and free up memory, which could be useful on older PCs.
Better late than never but... (Score:1)
So... CCleaner, an application which has been de-facto essential for every sane Windows user for the past 18 years, has finally been acknowledged by Microsoft as a necessity. Does anyone else get a funny feeling that, after Microsoft have written their own version, they will probably start making it more difficult for their competitors to access crucial system internals in order to kill competition?
Re:Better late than never but... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Better late than never but... (Score:5, Informative)
Who uses CCcleaner anymore ? I recall a few years ago they were caught spying on users or something, thats when I ditched it.
Yes there was spying and malware. Is CCleaner Safe in 2022? I have no idea. Active Monitoring is still there, but maybe it is possible to disable it now.
Is CCleaner Safe? Not Quite. And We Show You How to Replace It (2019)
"CCleaner's biggest recent controversy came in version 5.45. This included a feature called "Active Monitoring," a fairly standard feature that collects anonymized information about your system."
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/... [makeuseof.com]
CCleaner provokes fury over Active Monitoring, user data collection (2018)
"User anger has forced CCleaner to backtrack on merged data collection and scanning functions pushed forward in the latest update."
https://www.zdnet.com/article/... [zdnet.com]
CCleaner Malware (2017)
"The malware consisted of two Trojans, Trojan.Floxif and Trojan.Nyetya, inserted into the free versions of CCleaner version 5.33.6162 and CCleaner Cloud version 1.07.3191. It's believed the hackers compromised CCleaner's build environment to insert the malware."
https://www.kaspersky.com/reso... [kaspersky.com]
Re: (Score:3)
So it should be replaced, spies on you, and is very conducive to viruses. It really does sound just like Windows!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It won't be anything like Crap Cleaner. 99% of the crap that Crap Cleaner cleans is Microsoft crap, which means by definition Microsoft's version won't clean out 99% of the crap you want gone.
Fortunately most of the Microsoft crap can be removed by PS commands now. Remove-appxpackage or something like. There are scripts on the interwebs available where most of the work has been done for you.
I haven't bothered trying to de-crapify Windows 11. I took two seconds of looking at it on a new laptop to decide that I was better off installing Linux Mint and Windows 10.
Re: (Score:2)
"I haven't bothered trying to de-crapify Windows 11." - You can't. Try removing Cortana. You can't. It is put there my Microsoft to log you every movement so they can build a profile and market stuff to you.
It's possible to install Windows 11 without a Microsoft account but you have to jump through hoops to do it.
TPM and secure boot? Just more control mechanisms.
I ditched Windows for Linux a long time ago and it's only getting worse for Windows users.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Try removing Cortana. You can't.
Open PowerShell or Terminal as administrator
Run command:
Verified that the commands above work.
Re: (Score:2)
CCleaner hasn't really been used by anyone with a clue for years. It is half arsed that really is only good for cleaning up the mess 3rd parties make, which is great for a minority that install every piece of shit they run across, the rest it really doesn't do much of value.
Its is useful for quickly cleaning PC's belonging to clueless relative when you really don't want to take the time to do a clean reinstall without all of the 3rd party preloaded crap ware. its a quick fix for pc's that aren't really your problem.
Re: (Score:2)
"could be useful on older PCs. "
All those "older PCs" that can run Windows 11?
Stop (Score:2)
He's already dead [youtube.com].
Or, to put it another way, he's dead Jim [youtube.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Or, to really make things clear, you could say it like this [youtu.be]
for the lolz (Score:2)
Does the cleanup scan check hidden files? Would be funny if someone found someone's "hidden" files while "cleaning" the family computer.
A good trick to play on Linux noobs is to tell them that renaming a file or directory (cough, folder) dot-something instantly deletes it. Then proceed to "accidentally" "delete" an important file or directory.
Link is microsoft.com has Chinese weirdness (Score:1)
Slashdot wouldn't let me post the page's source even when surrounded with <ecode>, so I put it in pastbin as pcmanager.microsoft.com Chinese weirdness [pastebin.com].
Nevermind, I should RTFA (Score:1)
If I'd bothered to RTFA, I'd've seen that it really is supposed to be in Chinese. I was concerned about either a hack to Microsoft's servers or a look-alike-URL-attack. My bad.
Re: (Score:1)
Can it deinstall Edge? (Score:1)
That's the big question that would make it useful.
So what? CCleaner is for people that have no clue (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously. It does a bunch of useless stuff like 'cleaning the registry' (removing a few empty strings, literally at most a few kilobytes won't have any real effect on registry queries), defragging in the age of filesystems that are resistant to fragmentation and SSDs, and all kinds of other crap.
People who know what they are doing either don't need a fisher-price interface or have a more specialize non-bloatware tool to do the job they need to do.
This MS app sounds like nothing new, and the gullible people who continue to use bloatware will continue to do so, right along their copies of Norton.
Re: (Score:3)
One thing that actually would "clean the registry" is removing any shell extensions that are on network shares. Windows will block when trying to load shell extensions, and if they are on network shares, it will wait until it times out before giving you your right click menu.
Can it stop Office 365? (Score:2, Interesting)
Office 365 (potentially illegally) modifies your email messages such that every hyperlink is forced to go through safelinks.protection.outlook.com for tracking, erm, "your protection." This also breaks any browser manager you might installed have that opens specific browsers for specific domains or URLs.
Can PC Manager turn off such anti-user tracking behavior, or does it just add more tracking and telemetry?
The "My Computer" icon on your desktop is a lie, it hasn't been your computer since Windows 10.
Re: (Score:3)
The "My Computer" icon on your desktop is a lie, it hasn't been your computer since Windows 10.
Since Microsoft literally both tricked and forced people into upgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 10, I would argue that Windows users haven't really owned their computers since Windows 7.
Personally, I was concerned about Microsoft owning my computer back in the XP days. That's when I switched to Linux. Except for occasional visits to Win2K via VM, and trying to help others with their Windows computers, I've never looked back.
Re: Can it stop Office 365? (Score:2)
"The "My Computer" icon on your desktop is a lie, it hasn't been your computer since Windows 10."
My Computer means "I'm Microsoft, It's mine!"
And why a certain Linux distro names this "Your computer".
Been a few years since I've used a Microsoft (Score:2)
Microsoft isn't all bad (Score:1)
I mean, anything that holds a good cup of coffee [microsoftmerchandise.com] can't be all bad, can it?
Granted, it is overpriced. I wonder if I can get a student discount?
Wait... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
So we know all about the "Dwarf milfs dressed as policemen" searches, paul_engr.
"For your computer" (Score:2)
So why does the headline add "For Your Computer" ?
it would make sense if PC Manager was for your computer but CCleaner wasn't. But it is.
The simple answer is the headline writer and "editor" are bad writers, but am I missing something ?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes you mising the editor its a kid and only knows the "android" CCleaner :D
Re: (Score:3)
Yes you mising the editor its a kid and only knows the "android" CCleaner :D
I didn't know what ccleaner was, and I'm not a kid at all. Though I haven't used Windows regularly in decades, but it sounds like useless crap.
Perhaps instead of addons to remove stuff, they should actually just simplify the OS?
Re: (Score:1)
Got it.
I should not have ascribed to an editor's ignorance what can be adequately explained by an editor's ignorance.
Remove Microsoft's Garbage? (Score:2)
So that's the question, isn't it. Will it remove all the garbage that Microsoft/Windows starts itself that's useless to the majority of people?
Like Edge running in the background, for people that don't use it. Like printer servers getting started for people without printers. Like all the spy/reporting software started in the background that people who know it exists generally don't want.
I'm fairly sure we can guess the answer to that one.
Why is the page in Chinese? (Score:2)
If you click on the link, you get a page with a title in Chinese. WTF, Microsoft?
Perhaps to Cover Up Privacy Transgresssons (Score:2)
ex ccleaner user (Score:2)
at my previous job i bundled ccleaner with all our business machines. with time i figured that it was nothing more than placebo. i wanted a modern "regclean" (see if you can remember that one) as it basically deletes unreferenced registry keys
sure it has some other tools built in but nothing you can't do with the OS tools already.
if you have ever used procmon you would see a shit ton of registry keys being accessed. i truly don't understand how it doesn't slow down the OS to a crawl. i see having a central
In MS we trust. (Score:2)
Yeah, right. I trust them to remove any programs they don't like, that's what I trust them to do. Keep your hands off my machine!
HA!!! (Score:2)
The last time I used CCleaner was about a year before Microsoft EOLed Windows 7. I had run the application, checked all the boxes, etc. When I rebooted my computer, it got stuck just after login. I'm near positive what happened was I had downloaded some updates but ran the Ccleaner before I installed those updates. The cleaner removed the updates before they were properly installed and then upon reboot the system just got stuck looking for files that didn't exist.
Sure, it was my fault for using the Ccleaner
Great News Everybody (Score:2)