BleachBit 4.0 released with improvements for cleaning Firefox, Chrome and more themes

Ashwin
Apr 20, 2020
Updated • Apr 22, 2020
Software, Windows software
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17

I do not advise using System Cleaners, Driver Updaters, and other tools which can screw up your computer. But BleachBit is an exception to this, since it neither tinkers with the registry or includes driver update functions, and hence it's a proper cleaning utility.

BleachBit

Though I mostly use it on Linux (I prefer Windows' clean up), I do have a portable version of the program that I run once in a while to see if I could free up some more space on my SSD. BleachBit 4.0 has been released. Let's see what's new in it.

The program is now based on Python 3, and the reason behind this upgrade seems to be to make it usable on Ubuntu distributions that have ditched Python 2.  The update also improves the responsiveness of the program's window, while the cleaner is running and also brings a bunch of fixes.

BleachBit 4.0 can now clear the IndexedDB in Google Chrome, which can be used to store a lot of data. You can read about the storage system on Google's support page.

Tip: add the win2app.ini file to add more cleaning options to BleachBit.

The release notes say that BleachBit 4.0 will clean more of Firefox's cookies and history. Since that was a little vague, and the cleaner module's description remained unchanged, the only way to confirm this was by running a scan on the previous version and 4.0 and see what's different. And here's what I could find.

Bleachbit 4 vs 3 cleaner

The preview mode in BleachBit 4.0 showed that it could clean 84.8MB of cookies, and 857KB of URL history. Compared to this BleachBit 3.2.0 could only clean 1.7MB and 45.2KB of the same data types. That's a significant difference in the size. Firefox's built-in clear data option showed that it could clean up 81MB of cookies and site data. So, the new version of BleachBit does appear to be doing a similar job, which is impressive. I'm not sure what the extra ~4MB it cleans, it's probably related to data stored by extensions.

Firefox clear data

The cleaner in BleachBit 4 will clean much more of Opera and gPodder. I don't use either of those, so I couldn't test the newer modules.

New themes in BleachBit 4.0

Here is a comparison screenshot of the preferences window of BleachBit 3.2.0 vs BleachBit 4.0. There is a new option called Windows 10 Theme in the latter's interface.

Bleachbit 3.2.0 vs 4.0

Technically, there are 4 themes in BleachBit 4.0. By default, it ships with Dark Mode enabled, this is the "Adwaita Dark" theme. Disabling this option switches to the Adwaita Light theme. The Windows 10 Theme is similarly available in light and dark modes. The new theme settings are exclusive to the Windows version of the program.

Bleachbit 4 light theme

This is what the new BleachBit Windows 10 Light theme looks like.

Bleachbit 4 dark theme

And here's the BleachBit Windows 10 Dark theme which blackens the background. Did you notice the title bar has changed as well when the Windows 10 themes are enabled? The Preview, Clean and Abort tabs are now sort of scrunched together, and the buttons at the top right are somewhat larger. The interface of the program is slightly taller and displays one extra item, well half an item in the list.

BleachBit

For Windows

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Comments

  1. jan said on April 22, 2020 at 1:45 pm
    Reply

    I am a user of BleachBit since 2013. I only can say positive things about the product

  2. mwila mumba said on April 21, 2020 at 6:10 pm
    Reply

    Downloaded it but it was flagged infected and cleaned by deletion…

  3. Mullah Omar said on April 21, 2020 at 1:53 pm
    Reply

    I use snap version of browsers on Linux for an extra layer of security. Does BleachBit support cleaning their data?

  4. Trey said on April 21, 2020 at 1:03 am
    Reply

    Nice & I agree with avoiding driver and registry “cleaning” tools. Bleachbit is good stuff. Thanks for the heads-up.

  5. Not Sure said on April 20, 2020 at 10:45 pm
    Reply

    > Does it clean Chromium Edge by default?

    Proprietary software can often be cleaned by just deleting it. XD

  6. i love ghacks.net said on April 20, 2020 at 10:09 pm
    Reply

    Thanks for the version update.

    ghacks.net rules!!!

  7. Clairvaux said on April 20, 2020 at 8:26 pm
    Reply

    This is infuriating. I once more tried to install Bleach Bit. Older versions had plenty of problems interface-wise, but they worked.

    This one (it probably started earlier) just does not want to give you the language you want. That is, English. I’m not asking much. It insists on picking up the language of my country. Of course, the translation is atrocious, sort orders get irrelevant, etc. Some commands I even don’t understand.

    There does not seem to be a way to change this. The help has a paragraph which seems to say you can only change the language in Linux. There is an allegedly English-only installer, but it still picks up my own language, and offers no other options.

    Also, not high-DPI compatible. The portable version and the installed one display in a wildly different manner. Both inadequate. There’s no way to correct this.

    But yeah, the dark theme is nice. That’s about all you can say.

    I was surprised by the small number of programs cleaned. This is striking compared to C-Cleaner.

    Also, absolutely no information or embedded help on free space cleaning, which is one of the main points of the product. Apart from saying “it’s very slow” (suggesting : don’t use it).

    Embedded “explanations” on system cleaning explain nothing. It’s on the line of : Delete History means delete history. Thank you very much.

    A previous version just did not want to start. Error something or other.

    However, I’m very happy because it’s open source, so it’s completely politically correct.

    1. chippy said on April 22, 2020 at 5:45 am
      Reply

      >..does not want to give you the language you want..

      FYI: Look for “BleachBit English-only installer: slightly smaller download for people who do not need translations”

  8. PS Doff said on April 20, 2020 at 6:48 pm
    Reply

    Chrome’s own cleaning routines in all versions, clears and rebuilds IndexDB when history and cookies are deleted.

  9. motang said on April 20, 2020 at 5:32 pm
    Reply

    I have heard that it is not safe to use on a linux system as it deletes a lot of config/cached stuff. Is that true?

  10. jake said on April 20, 2020 at 12:48 pm
    Reply

    I used the beta like 10 days ago and it clean the device with out any problems or errors.

  11. Cor said on April 20, 2020 at 11:48 am
    Reply

    I’m using a portable version of Chromium including user data directories https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs/user_data_dir.md, which I believe it both had some issues detecting before.

    I’m interested in trying this again as I’m still using CCleaner 5.32. If only because I’ve also got a couple of home based email servers to scrub.

  12. Anonymous said on April 20, 2020 at 8:24 am
    Reply
    1. Anonymous said on April 22, 2020 at 5:50 am
      Reply

      Ridiculous. If anything should be labelled malware it is CCleaner and Avast!

  13. Allwynd said on April 20, 2020 at 8:16 am
    Reply

    Not to mention the ugly new skin.

  14. Amir said on April 20, 2020 at 7:23 am
    Reply

    Does it clean Chromium Edge by default?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on April 20, 2020 at 7:37 am
      Reply

      No it does not.

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