Many utilities exist to help clean up your computer, making it run faster and eliminating errors from your registry. Among these are Glary Utilities and CCleaner. The two programs measure up in several areas, but there are differences in program size, errors found, and other areas you may want to take into account before deciding which cleaning utility to use on your own computer.
Program Size
Both Glary Utilities and CCleaner are small programs, especially when compared to space-hungry applications like office suites and graphics programs. Glary Utilities is approximately 8MB, for its cleaners and several support utilities. CCleaner takes roughly 3MB for and is primarily a cleaner.
Cost
Both programs are free for home use. Glary Utilities is only for private use and cannot be used on business machines. Glary also has a paid Pro version, listed at $39.95 at the time of publication, with extras like a license for business use and 24/7 technical support. CCleaner is freeware only and does not list any business restrictions on its website.
Operating Systems
Glary and CCleaner both released new versions in May of 2011 that are compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP, and 2000. Older versions of CCleaner were available for Windows 98, as well.
Internet Clean-up
Glary Utilities and CCleaner have the ability to clean your computer. They both recover disc space by removing temporary files. CCleaner focuses on cleaning temp files, cookies and browser history. It supports all major browsers and several minor browsers available for Windows in its browser clean-up. Glary has a browser cleaner called Tracks Eraser but does not publish a list of the browsers it can clean.
Registry Clean-up
The registry is where the computer lists data needed to run programs. This can get cluttered and messy from installing and uninstalling programs. Both Glary and CCleaner have registry-cleaning utilities. CCleaner's website lists the ability to clean up several old control and uninstalled file types. Glary has an additional registry defragmenter.
File Cleanup
Both programs can clean your hard drive files as well. Glary's Disk Cleaner is meant to free up hard drive space by removing junk files. CCleaner features the ability to clean up Windows caches, like the Temp folder and Recent Files and error logs.
Other Utilities
CCleaner also comes with a disk-wiping utility that can clean your entire hard drive if you want it to. Glary includes a File Encrypter and Decrypter, and a File Splitter and Joiner. Both have ways to permanently and securely delete files, although Glary's is a separate utility and CCleaner is part of the Secure Deletion option in Settings.
References
- CNET: CCleaner
- CNET: Glary Utilities
- Piriform CCleaner: Features
- Glarysoft: Glary Utilities