Piriform have released a new version of their popular cleaning tool CCleaner for Windows. Version 4.0 includes 2 new features (although only one of them is available in the free version), major performance increases and new graphics and icons.
On starting CCleaner 4.0 the first thing to notice is the new ‘improved’ graphics and program icon.
Unless there is some underlying graphics optimization that could speed up program loading (hard to believe) it is really a matter of taste as to whether they look better – the new icons are less detailed and more stylized, perhaps following the Windows 8 Modern UI trend.
The old and new icons are shown side by side below for comparison:
The actual program interface is relatively unchanged but Piriform state that the internal architecture has been improved for better performance. Registry cleaning has also been optimized and improved although my quick scan for registry errors using Ccleaner 3.28 and 4.0 on the same PC didn’t find any obvious differences in results or speed.
However, my tests were on a well maintained and quick SSD equipped PC – perhaps the scanning and cleaning speeds or level of detail would show more of a difference on slower or more cluttered machines.
New Duplicate File Finder – This is the major new feature available for the free version of CCleaner (the paid Professional version adds a new System And Browser Monitoring feature too). File Finder searches for duplicate files and is available from the Tools tab as shown below:
This feature helps you to quickly find duplicate files and choose which ones to delete, potentially freeing up more space on your PC. You can include/exclude specific drives or folders and easily filter searches with a variety of tickboxes.
The results let you select any of the duplicates and delete them – obviously care is needed, especially with anything in the Program Files directory as there may be valid reasons why a file is duplicated or it may be hard to work out which one is not required.
Other Improvements – CCleaner 4.0 also adds cleaning for Avast Antivirus 8, Adobe Photoshop CS6, Samsung Kies and Real Player 16.
Other technical changes include improved Drive Wiper performance, optimized Startup item detection (in the Tools \ Startup tab plus many other performance improvements and bug fixes. Windows 7 and 8 users can benefit from an optimized 64-bit build.
Download – You can download the free Installer version of CCleaner 4.0 here or download the free Portable version from the bottom of the builds page here.
