Ncleaner - The App That Tells CCleaner To Take A Hike

Today we will be taking a look at nCleaner. It is a free Windows system cleaning application. This app will let you clean your system, applications, free more disk space, boost your system’s speed and get more stability and privacy protection. All for the low, low price of free…

Who could say no to all of that?

Plus in case you’re wondering how this differs from apps such as CCleaner, read on for a full list of what Ncleaner will do for you….

nCleaner contains the nkProds patented system and application cleaner chock full of over 90 cleaning items. That is enough to keep any geek busy for an evening. These tools include:

  • a Registry Cleaner
  • a Tweak Manager
  • an advanced Startup Manager
  • a Junk Finder
  • a Free Space Shredder
  • a System Resource Monitor
  • a System Adviser
  • real time system resources monitoring
  • full on logging
  • advanced Scheduling
  • automatic updater
  • plug in options
  • custom clean
  • and advanced statistics

Wow that sure is a mouthful!

So the claim that caught my eye was this:

“nCleaner has the best cleaning ration on the market due to an advance detection algorithm, also providing security and stability. With nCleaner you can free up to 2 GB of unnecessary disk space. nCleaner supports and handles all major Internet browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer (and all derived browsers like Avast), Mozilla Firefox, Netscape and Opera. It also supports and handles all major Instant Messaging applications like Yahoo Messenger, Windows MSN Messenger, ICQ, AOL and Skype, office applications, and system items.”

Those are some pretty awesome claims, don’t you think?

Let’s put nCleaner to the test on some of the laptops I have in a pile labeled “Where computers go to die…”. I managed to get a machine up and running and more importantly I got someone’s crap filled hard drive going as well. On boot up I saw some crazy icons loading up… But don’t worry I am on a separate network so I won’t be infecting my co-workers (not today anyway).

I jumped right in and downloaded the <900kb file and performed the default Clean in Analyze Mode. You will want to keep the settings at the defaults, so you don’t screw stuff up. After you get a little more comfortable with it deleting files (that cannot be recovered) then you can go back to it (make a backup before you do anything you are not sure of.)

So as you can see, it found all sorts of crap to clean and I let it do its thing and we freed up more than 17 gigz of space. Woot!

Check out some more screen shots of the available options:

What should we clean? I left the choices at their defaults…

Let’s remove garbage from our machine. Old log files, help files, Scan Disk files and loads more. Again I left the defaults as to not get into trouble!

So many damn options. Check out the option to auto clean when a partition drops to a certain percentage of free space.

I have tried loads of these types of applications but nCleaner from the same guys who make cCleaner have a great product here and best of all it is absolutely fricking free for non-commercial use. I have introduced this to several end users and they instantly fell in love. Some of them love the memory cleaning options while others like the ’set it and forget it’ options included.

Do you have a favorite Windows cleaning application? Let us know what you use in the comments.

(By) Karl L. Gechlik is a superhero of the IT industry who wears many hats and changes in telephone booths. Karl mostly uses his powers for good and the occasional hysterical prank. Get your geek on & follow his geeky antics at askTheAdmin.com today.

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  • 18 Comments » Leave One...

    Comment by air
    2008-07-16 09:27:12
     
    Comment by Karl L. Gechlik
    2008-07-16 10:10:52

    I wrote about the dangers of the program but that is if you are deleting everything willy nilly. The defaults do not harm your system… You going in and marking the app to delete system files now that is going to be a system failure! Read this paragraph again and BACKUP and PERFORM THE ANALYZE MODE SCAN FIRST!!!!

    “…I jumped right in and downloaded the <900kb file and performed the default Clean in Analyze Mode. You will want to keep the settings at the defaults, so you don’t screw stuff up. After you get a little more comfortable with it deleting files (that cannot be recovered) then you can go back to it (make a backup before you do anything you are not sure of…”

     
    Comment by Rarst
    2008-07-16 10:47:13

    I like CCLeaner because it’s very stable and portable. Looking at feedback for nCleaner it seems to lack both. :)

    >but nCleaner from the same guys who make cCleaner

    Am I missing or misunderstooding something? Seems like two totally diferent companies to me.

     
    Comment by Joshua
    2008-07-16 17:01:42

    quote:
    “… but nCleaner from the same guys who make cCleaner…”

    NKProds (nCleaner) is a different company than Piriform (CCleaner). NKProds is located in Romania, Piriform in the UK…

    How can these companies possibly the same?

     
    Comment by Nxqd3051990
    2008-07-16 19:55:54

    I like something really simple like CCleaner. So I don’t want to give a try with this guy :D

     
    Comment by Javi
    2008-07-17 01:56:42

    I installed nCleaner and the system crashed when I tried to execute it. I tried it twice, and always happened. Windows XP SP2.

    2008-07-17 06:45:44

    What do you mean the system crashed when you tried to run it? It froze up or did you get an error message? I had no problem running this on XP SP2 or 3.

    Do you have administrative rights on the box?

     
     
    Comment by Jason Mayoff
    2008-07-17 06:48:45

    Well, if it comes from a superhero (with a cape or without?) then I’ll have to try it. I’ve got a couple of Windows machines lying around that could stand to lose a few pounds.

    I’ve always been worried about trying these types of things — thinking they’d delete some critical files.

     
    Comment by Zia
    2008-07-17 08:49:22

    I will wait for the dust to settle…I will monitor the blogosphere until reviews of the product become more positive

     
    Comment by meggva
    2008-07-18 19:40:47

    Although nCleaner installs under Windows 2000, it is not supported according to their forums. nCleaner gives you an error that its missing srclient.dll which is a Window XP module to create restore points.

     
    Comment by Andrei
    2008-07-20 06:05:54

    Hello,

    My name is Boghiu Andrei from NKProds. I am the Project Manager for nCleaner.
    As observed there is no connection between CCleaner and nCleaner rather than the name (we have been using the name nCleaner for almost 3 years now). Also as mentioned there is no connection between the two companies NKPords and Piriform.

    Indeed nCleaner does not support Windows 2000, although it will work if you copy srclient.dll from Windows XP.

    Hope you continue to use nCleaner and looking forward to releasing a new version that will address some of the problems mentioned here.

     
    Comment by Roland Deschain
    2008-07-21 01:30:12

    I have installed it on my system with Windows XP SP3 and done only the default scans and cleans and my system became unusable and I had to resort to whole rebuild of my system.

    I trusted makeuseof.com reviews before, and used it and now I should think twice about reading and using anything mentioned on this blog.

    Comment by Mike Benton
    2008-07-22 01:19:28

    Hey Gunslinger,

    Stephen King fan myself. You shouldn’t blast a blog that makes hundreds of contributions to thousands of thankless people on a constant basis. He did warn you to make a backup. As with any heavy duty system cleaning, a backup is a must. I’m pretty sure makeuseof has even done a few articles on backup apps in the past.

    Maybe you should think twice about backing up.

    Back it all up

     
     
    Comment by JK
    2008-07-22 03:27:48

    I did a registry defrag once (using a software whos name i have forgot.) It blew up my Windows XP System and I had to reistall it. Since then, I am afraid of trying another such cleaning software.

     
    Comment by AboutOnlineTips
    2008-07-30 21:03:13

    Well I am a die hard fan of ccleaner. I will give a try for ncleaner too just for comparison purpose.Will post my comment after testing ncleaner.

    –Chris

     
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