Should I use a Registry Cleaner

[williambuell]

When NOSCRIPT updates, it displays a page which seems to be from CNET and recommends that I use a Registry Cleaner named Registry Booster

I have always been cautious about Registry Cleaners.

The only one I ever tried was Ccleaner.

What is your recommendation? Is there a reliable one that is beneficial and safe to use or should I stay away from them in general? I am using Windows 7 on a Toshiba Qosmio.

[Alan Baxter]

Since it's not really a NoScript issue per se, I've moved this topic to Web Tech.

should I stay away from them in general?

You should stay away from registry cleaners in general. The benefit is usually negligible. A mistake by the software might not be apparent right away and it could be very difficult to track down and fix.

[therube]

What you saw was an advertisement.

IMO, generally (there are odd exceptions when using one could be handy, most often with malware cleanup), "registry cleaners" server no purpose.

[GµårÐïåñ]

Not all RegistryCleaner class products are created equal and unless you ACTUALLY KNOW what you are doing and can choose what to remove and not based on actual knowledge of what is significant and what is just an artifact that you can do without (like leftover trails from software install/uninstalls or broken library registrations, similar to temp/cache files) then I suggest you stay out of the registry and leave it alone to be on the safe side. A bit of registry fragmentation does much less damage than a misguided and bad move that can cripple your system functionality.

I have found CCleaner's registry optimizer to be fairly safe and benign but I still don't suggest that end-users use it or ask them to ensure they BACKUP the changes to a .reg file that is automatically generated (if you configure it) and that way it can be rolled back should they do something stupid. Usually if they insist on it, I will offset its benefit with ACTUAL reviewing of the keys in question myself and deferring to 20+ years of experience to decide, harmless junk or necessary. However, I find the time wasted reviewing it is not met with the benefit received from doing it - while my experience with it so far has been that it uses pretty decent heuristics to check the registry.

But no logic is perfect, so unless you can substitute your own judgement for the final decision, I recommend you just leave it fragmented, as it won't affect you that much unless you are installing/uninstalling software 10x a day, 365 days a year and just have so much crap left behind that you need to clean it or will suffer diminished function. Average users observing proper discretion in installing stuff and uninstalling stuff will usually not benefit enough to risk it unless they have been running the same installation for like half a decade and haven't done a clean install and been lazy in keeping their system clean. Hope that helps with some perspective.

[GµårÐïåñ]

I Think Ccleaner Is very good registry cleaner and also it is free.I personally use it alot.and it is trusted by million of people.

CCleaner is fine, I mentioned it too, so your late opinion on an old post not withstanding, don't post download links, and certainly not when using Chrome to access a forum for a software that doesn't exist on Chrome. Unless you are rolling your useragent like me, which I highly doubt. Plugging software in context, is fine, but don't push or post links. Also, just because a tools is popular with millions, doesn't mean its without flaw. Its a tool and registry cleaner on it is still subject to rules and algorithms which can detect something as benign that is not, so the user still needs to know what the hell they are doing.