There was a time when CCleaner was the single best tool you could use to speed up your PC.
Windows has become better at doing some of the things that made CCleaner what it was.
However, CCleaner cleans dozens of Windows features and over 500 third-party apps.
The release of the new CCleaner 6 begs the question: is CCleaner still worth it?
The short answer: yes it is.
Lets see what makes CCleaner 6 worth your time.
Image Credit: SurfsUp/Shutterstock
What Is CCleaner 6?
Whats New in CCleaner 6?
CCleaner 6 is a substantial release.
For the uninitiated, CCleaners Software Updater helps you to keep the programs on your PC up to date.
And CCleaner 6 aims to make the update process hassle-free.
The company has also promised that the list of supported apps will keep on growing.
The signature feature of CCleaner 6 is the all-new Performance Optimizer.
Performance Optimizer optimizes both new and old machines.
Lets look at these features in more detail.
Unlike other startup managers and task managers, Performance Optimizer doesnt disable all background processes outright.
It uses a patented method of analyzing installed apps and putting them to sleep.
Before we dive deep into whether Performance Optimizer delivers on its promises, lets see how it works.
First, Performance Optimizer scans the computer for all installed applications and maintains a list.
Afterward, it analyzes these programs and determines the background processes associated with these programs.
Next, Performance Optimizer lists these apps and gives you the option to put them to sleep.
Once you put them to sleep, the apps dont run in the background.
In essence, Performance Optimizer determines non-critical and unused apps and puts them to sleep.
It re-enables the apps as soon as you need them.
Image Credit: SurfsUp/Shutterstock
So, how well does Performance Optimizer work?
More importantly, does it produce any measurable performance uplift in real life?
Boot Time Improvements
Performance Optimizer reduced boot times quite noticeably for all three machines.
The boot time improvement was most pronounced for the old PC with an HDD.
Performance Improvements
The general performance also saw a noticeable uptick after using Performance Optimizer.
Once again the performance uplift was the biggest for the old PC.
The old PC returned a synthetic benchmark score of 2660 without optimizations.
After Performance Optimizer put unnecessary apps to sleep, the scoreincreased by 34%to 3564.
Both the mid-range and future laptops scored minored performance increases of 2% each.
For the mid-range laptop from 2021, battery life improved by 5.6% after using Performance Optimizer.
Impressively, the future laptop saw abattery life increase of 30%and ended up lasting an extra hour.
After optimizations, the PC only drew 45W.
Similarly, power consumption during startup also decreased from 150W to 70W.
Putting all of this together, CCleaner 6s Performance Optimizer delivered impressive gains in all areas.
Aging hardware benefited the most from these gains.
Improved Software Updater
A normal Windows PC has upwards of 50 programs.
Making matters worse, some apps dont update automatically.
So, if you forget to update them manually, you may continue to use an outdated version.
Bad actors can potentially exploit these security loopholes to hijack your box and cause excessive damage.
This is where CCleaner 6 comes in.
Software Updater automatically keeps track of available updates and installs all updates with one click.
So, use it and make your PC more secure and reliable.
Put simply, it works wonders for old PCs.
Add to it the improved Software Updater and CCleaner 6 proves to be well worth your time.
