Open Source application BleachBit is a CCleaner alternative for Windows and Linux. The software can be used to delete temporary files and other information that are recorded by the supported operating systems and specific applications.

Running a software like BleachBit regularly protects the user’s privacy by deleting information about opened programs, files and websites. It also increases the free available hard drive space by deleting temporary files.

BleachBit is available as a portable version and installer. Both versions display the same interface on startup. The left side lists the programs and locations that can be cleaned, the right information about each entry or progress of the cleaning.

privacy software bleachbit

The information provide immediate information about each entry in a category which is helpful to determine the temporary files to be deleted. CCleaner for instance does not provide information about the entries.

The available programs and locations are comparable to CCleaner with the exception of missing custom locations. BleachBit users cannot add additional locations to the cleanup process.

BleachBit users can clear system files and locations like the Recycle Bin, logs or recent document lists as well as temporary data from programs like Skype, Thunderbird, Mozilla, Opera or Microsoft Office. Lastly there is an option to deep scan the computer system for temporary and backup files.

The preview button can be used to run a scan on the system without actually deleting files immediately. This is helpful to determine the files that are deleted and the disk space that gets recovered by doing so.

Temporary files can be overwritten automatically to prevent file recovery. Another option to prevent this is to wipe free disk space of a drive or folder. The program preferences offer options to change the files or folders and whitelist programs that should not be deleted under any circumstances.

BleachBit makes many things right. It would be a worthy CCleaner contender if the developer’s would add an option to delete files in custom locations.

Windows and Linux users can download the privacy and maintenance software from the developer’s website over at Sourceforge.

• Improved Windows 7 jump list cleaning.
• Improved Windows 7 thumbnail cache cleaning.
• Added support for Windows Server 2008 R2.
• Improved 64-bit support and performance.
• Fixed issue with Windows 7 task scheduler.
• Fixed issue with Startup tool, displaying incorrect folder contents.
• Added support for AVG Antivirus 9.0.
• Added support for ExcludeKey in INI files.
• Improved support for wildcards and RECURSE/REMOVESELF.
• Fixed minor GUI bugs in non-English versions.
• Fixed minor GUI usability issues.
• Improved input validation.
• Lots of minor bugs fixed.

The new version of CCleaner is as usual available as an installer (which tries to add the Yahoo toolbar), a portable version and a slim version which both come without the toolbar. The program can be downloaded directly from the homepage of the developers where it is available for all supported operating systems.

Indo Cleaner is a privacy software that can deal with most recently used file listings. It basically is a cleaner that checks various lists for entries giving the user the option to delete some or all of them so that they cannot reveal any information about which files have been opened in the past.

All available mru lists are selected by default after installation and start of Indo Cleaner. This includes Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office and Windows Media Player but also Firefox and Opera. It is possible to uncheck any of the programs listed to prevent the lists from being cleaned up.

The remaining most recently used lists will then be checked and the number of entries that are stored in the Windows operating system are shown. Here it is again possible to uncheck some programs or proceed with the cleanup to delete the selected recently used files.

Indo Cleaner is not the only privacy software that can clean the most recently used files. Ccleaner is for example another program that can delete those files. Indo Cleaner (via Into Windows) is compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista (and likely Windows 7).

What Microsoft has not taken into account are privacy sensitive users who do not like this type of information recorded on their system. The cleaner MRU Blaster takes care of the most recently updated files in Windows by deleting the information in Windows.

CCleaner was used to test the effectiveness of MRU Blaster by cleaning Windows with it before running MRU Blaster. Even after cleaning the system with CCleaner the program did find 257 entries that could be additionally cleaned on the system.

The user can specify the applications and locations that should be scanned and cleaned in the program’s settings which is also the location to download the two available plugins that clean cookies and temporary files.

MRU Blaster comes with a scheduler that can be set to run in specified intervals. The application has to be running in the background for this though.