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PC Paranoia part 3

Kai Chandler takes a look at Window Washer. Will it clean up your PC?

It’s all a lot of work though, isn’t it? How about a program that runs in the background and automagically wipes Windows’ trail clear of any traces of your activity. Preferably one that will clean redundant files at the same time!

There are several programs that fit the bill. For example Window Washer from Webroot Software, Inc.  Available as try before you buy shareware and costing a mere $29.95 to register, it automates most of the cleanup functions that we’ve discussed in this series.

Here’s a quick roundup of the features:

• AOL and Compuserve dropdown list, cache and address bar - Cleans these.

• Autocomplete form data and address bar– Cleans up these with IE 5 and above.

• Document History – Clean the history of the most recently opened files.

• Windows Find History - Cleans the history of files you have searched for using the Find program.

• Windows Run History - Cleans the history of files you have run using the Run command.

• Temporary Files Directory - Cleans the Windows temporary directory (eg. C:\windows\temp). Note that this directory is not the same as the temporary internet files directory

• Cache or temporary internet files – Cleans Internet Explorer’s cache files (eg. C:\windows\temporary internet files

• Scan Disk Temporary Files - The Windows utility Scan Disk creates .CHK files at the root directory of drives. These files usually contain junk data and can be erased to help keep drives clean. This option deletes the .CHK files.

• Recycle Bin – Cleans the Recycle Bin.

• MS-Office Tracks (MRU) - If you have MS-Office 97 or 2000 installed on your system, this option will clean up the "Most Recently Used" (MRU) lists that are stored. The actual documents or files themselves are not removed, only the pointers to them.

• Windows Media Player – Cleans up the "Most Recently Used" (MRU) lists that are stored.

In addition to the above, Windows Washer also allows you to schedule whether cleanups should occur on Windows startup, closedown or at intervals between 15 minutes and a month.

You can specify entire directories or registries that should be ‘washed.’

Options allow you to define how to handle cookies. You can delete them all or more usefully select which ones to keep.

Taking the ‘Windows Washer’ analogy one step further, is the option to ‘Add Bleach’ ie. to shred the contents of files by overwriting with random characters. You can specify how many times this should be done. Three times is the US Department of Defence standard while seven times meets the US NSA requirement.

 In use, it takes some minutes for Washer to clean the PC the first time you use it. Subsequent runs take a few seconds so it’s worth using regularly. Think carefully about what options you need, as it’s best to be selective. Many of the items cleared such as the Internet Explorer cache, are there to improve performance or usability, so cleaning them out may slow certain tasks or make them slightly more laborious to carry out.

To sum up, if you are keen to keep your PC clean, lean and mean, then Windows Washer is a real time saver. Download a trial copy from our downloads area.  If you only require the ability to remove redundant files, then a product such as Norton Cleansweep might be worth a look. 

Read Part 1
Read Part 2