CompMaui

Every time you view a webpage, information begins to accumulate on your hard drive. Small pictures here and there, blocks of code, large background images, and overtime they start to take up a lot of space. It can also build an accurate time line of what you have been using your computer for. So let’s free up this unneeded junk and regain our privacy by installing and running CCleaner from Piriform Ltd. (Oh, did I mention its free?)

If you would rather watch the video of this process, you can view it here.

CCleaner is truly an amazing tool that cleans out parts of your computer you never would have thought of. Let’s get started by installing CCleaner.

You can reach the download page in the graphic below here.
Click the link that says "Download Latest Version."

If you are using Internet Explorer you will see the graphic below (Note the yellow bar at the top.)
You need to click on the "To help protect your security..." bar and select download, or you can simply click "If not then click here" as noted in the graphic below.

Select "Run" in the File Download Security Warning window.

When the installer starts, select your language and click "OK."

Click "Next" when you see the screen below.

To accept the License Agreement you need to click the "I Agree" button.

In the "Choose Install Location" screen, leave everything as it is and click "Next."

In the Install Options screen, be sure your check boxes match those below. I recommend that you do not check "Add CCleaner Yahoo! Toolbar and use CCleaner from your browser"

At the Completing the CCleaner Setup Wizard screen simply click "Finish."

Congratulations, you have installed CCleaner successfully. Next up we need to open CCleaner.
Go to your desktop, find the CCleaner icon.
Double Click It To Open

In the main screen of CCleaner, ensure all of the check boxes are checked. If you are presented with a warning click ok.
This will free up as much space as possible.

To ensure we get everything, click on the tab that says "Applications."
Make sure all of the boxes are checked on this screen also.
Finally click "Run Cleaner."

When presented with this warning, click the "Do not show me this message again" box and then click "Ok."

CCleaner will go through it's cleaning process and will display a quick summery along with how much space was freed. I saved 234MB and it took 100.602 seconds.

That’s it, your system is cleaned up! Now let’s talk about "securly" erasing our tracks.
Click on the "Options" button. In the settings tab click "Secure file deletion (slower)"
Here you get a few choices. Simple overwrite (least secure), DOD 5220.22-M (secure), and NSA (very secure).
Keep in mind that the higher the security setting you choose, the longer it will take to run CCleaner, but will make file and history recovery far more difficult.

Lastly, updates. CCleaner adds features every release and I would recommend updating it once ever few weeks. It is easy to do, simply click "Check for updates..." and you will be taken to step one of this tutorial, only with a newer version of CCleaner.

Congratulations, you have saved some space on your system and your digital tracks are beginning to be covered.

Stay tuned for the next installment!