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Wow I just learned Bleachbit is bad for SSD, is Ccleaner bad too?

Rock N Roll Rebel

Rock N Roll Rebel

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Hi,
Yeah that's pretty much for harddrives not ssd's

Plenty of people use ccleaner on ssd's
I personally don't use it I use TFC once and a while then run trim manually after a restart

TFC - Temp File Cleaner by OldTimer Download - Geeks to Go Forum

Might add that app says it's not good for win-8.1 or 10 Oops I use it anyway I've noticed no ill effects.
 
"Bad" may not be the best word for current generation SSDs. "Totally unnecessary" makes more sense.

As noted in that thread, the SSDs garbage collection and TRIM features take care of that - even a simple erase/delete with a SSD is vastly superior to the same function on a HD.

No CCleaner is not "bad" either. But CCleaner is great and very beneficial when it comes to cleaning out the clutter. But then again, Windows own Disk Cleanup works great for that too. The advantage to CCleaner is you can tell which cookies to keep - a HUGE advantage, IMO.


Edit comment: Fixed a couple typos -bb
 
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yep that is what I like about CCleaner you can tell it what cookies to keep " I like to eat my cookies"
 
Seamonkey does this in a way at least, were you can tell it that deleted cookies are no longer allowed. Although i guess it could have it's own issue's but at least you would not be continuously deleting files.

And no this does not include expired ones either.

ckiesed.png
 
well I had to just restore my system from backup because CCleaner made Winget not work anymore I even uninstalled Winget and reinstalled it still no go did some looking up on the net and there were a few people that said CCleaner messed things up I should have never paid for it I'm going to there website and make sure auto-renew is off
 
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AsRock said:
Seamonkey does this in a way at least, were you can tell it that deleted cookies are no longer allowed. Although i guess it could have it's own issue's but at least you would not be continuously deleting files.

And no this does not include expired ones either.

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Ahhh yes I still use Seamonkey as my back up browser. I'm so used to it that I never really changed from it. I still get my Emails from Sea Monkey.
 
good thing I saved my email from Ccleaner when I purchased it I found out through that email is the only way to cancel the renew
 
Rock N Roll Rebel said:
well I had to just restore my system from backup because CCleaner made Winget not work anymore I even uninstalled Winget and reinstalled it still no go did some looking up on the net and there were a few people that said CCleaner messed things up I should have never paid for it I'm going to there website and make sure auto-renew is off
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I use CCleaner for more than 10 years, had maybe some problems when it came out, but nothing since a very long time. Best feature is the removal of tracker cookies. Just be careful with the "extended" stuff & the "Driver Updater". ;) However there where some other "cleaners", esp. registry cleaners & "optimizer" software that regulary killed my systems in the beginning.

Also do not delete your "Session" and "Stored Tabs" if you don't want to wipe your tabs. This one was driving me nuts until I found the option in the settings. And as others pointed out, don't use a "safe erase" feature, it's overwriting files countless times & in the process degrading your SSD. On SSD's deleted files are gone forever after the TRIM run.
 
With CCleaner as with all "cleaners" and "optimizers" you have to very specifically tell it what to delete. If you just go full tilt, you can also lose file associations and stuff that is in the registry that doesn't get used always but when it is, it needs to be there. I haven't used it in a while but when I did I believe only one third of its "findings" were to be deleted, all others are just too zealous and not beneficial. So the registry is a few kilobytes bigger, so what.
 
I used them both occasionally, but I never set to bleach and write "00" to sectors. Do you still think it may harm?
 
I've found wise cleaner to be better than ccleaner in both scope and quality.

Most bios these days have inbuilt securely wipe disk functions.
 
Mussels said:
anything that over-writes files for a secure delete is bad for SSD's.
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I would say "unnecessary" and "ineffective" rather than "bad" - at least for newer generation SSDs.

Most "wipe" programs default to 1 or maybe 3 passes. A small handful of "writes" is not going to hurt, or put excessive wear, on a SSD - even an older generation SSD. And even if you went to super-duper military specs and selected 256 passes. So what? Why are you trying to secure-erase a SSD anyway - except to get rid of the drive?

The bigger problem, as I see it, is TRIM, overprovisioning and wear-leveling features used on SSDs will actually prevent the wipe program from touching each and every storage location on the disk - which is necessary to ensure "all" previously stored data has been obliterated.

So a "wipe" program - that is, a program that over-writes files - is "unnecessary" because the erase/delete function used on SSDs does not leave data behind in the same manner as a hard drive for a recovery program to restore, nor does it leave residual magnetism behind that Agent 007 could read. And a wipe program is "ineffective" because the wear leveling features prevents such wipe programs from writing a bunch of random 1s and 0s to each and every storage location.

So, if you want to ensure all previously stored data on a hard drive is unrecoverable, use a wipe program. If you want to ensure all previously stored data on a SSD is unrecoverable, use Secure Erase. Most SSD makers provide free secure erase utilities on their websites. And more and more motherboard BIOS firmware include "secure erase" right from the BIOS Setup Menu.

And if you really, once and for all want to ensure your data is unrecoverable, use a drive shredder.
 
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I have used Ccleaner for years to remove internet garbage and dead registry entries, but that's basically it, I certainly never use the wipe space feature.
 
Ferather said:
I certainly never use the wipe space feature.
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Not sure why you say "certainly" - as though it is a bad feature. For HDs, it works great. I particularly like the wipe free space only feature. It is handy if you want to keep the OS intact.
 
Bill_Bright said:
That's totally over-written. Not writes.
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I fear that an HD wipe will wipe ALL the free space

Now an intelligent SSD wiper would check if things were zeroed and if not, zero them once, but an HD wiper is worried about side traces on tracks.
 
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Shrek said:
I fear that an HD wipe will wipe ALL the free space
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Huh? I don't understand what you are saying.

First, on a hard drive, that is exactly what a wipe program is supposed to do. So nothing to fear - that is what you want.

Second, on a SSD, no it won't wipe all the free space and that IS the fear! That is, the fear is some personal, sensitive data might be left behind. This is due to the various load leveling features with essentially all modern SSDs - and this is exactly why a "wipe" program should NOT be used on a SSD.

Sadly, folks seem to focus on the wear (limited number of writes) factor of SSDs but that is a misguided focus.

For what purpose do we wipe a hard drive? To ensure no previously saved personal data is left behind. In other words, for security (or privacy) reasons.

Since wear leveling prevents a wipe program from touching every storage location on a SSD, a wipe program does NOT ensure security. And that is why wipe programs should not be used on SSDs.

And on SSDs it is NOT about putting a 1 or 0 in the storage location. Remember how HDs and SSDs store data. On a HD, a magnetic charge from the R/W head "physically" orientates the magnetic particles on the platters in patterns that represent a 1 or a 0. To illustrate, a particle arranged in a North/South orientation may represent a "1" while a particle in an East/West orientation may represent a "0". There is no actual numeral "1" or numeral "0" saved to the disk.

On SSDs, a "cell" is either charged (to represent a "high" or a "1"), or not charged ("low" or "0"). And again, there is no actual numeral "1" or numeral "0" saved to the disk. And yes, over time, this charge can fade away which is exactly why the data on a SSD periodically refreshes - well, as long as the SSD does not sit unpowered, sitting a shelf for several years.

So a "Secure Erase" program does indeed, hit "ALL" the free space - including the reserved over-provisioning areas, ensuring each cell/storage location no longer holds a charge.
 
Shrek said:
I fear that an HD wipe will wipe ALL the free space

Now an intelligent SSD wiper would check if things were zeroed and if not, zero them once, but an HD wiper is worried about side traces on tracks.
Click to expand...

on HD's there is no wiping, you have to rewrite something so you can't get back what was written there. And even then some entities like NSA and shit like that have tools that can recover data even if that space has been rewritten, no more then x times.
 
Bomby569 said:
And even then some entities like NSA and shit like that have tools that can recover data even if that space has been rewritten, no more then x times.
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Maybe - but not likely.

Even if they can recover a "1" that is now hidden under a "0", a "1" by itself means nothing. And even if they can recover a full byte of information, a single byte means nothing. And even if they can recover a full 4K file cluster (the typical size on most NTFS formatted hard drives), a single 4K cluster most likely does NOT contain enough information to be of any use to anyone. And even if they can recover 100s of 4K clusters, it is near impossible to arrange them in the correct order because that information has been wiped too. And of course, all the file fragments most likely are not in the right order either - unless the drive was, for some reason, defragmented just before wiping.

Contrary to what we may see on CSI, even with the available tools, recovery is a long, tedious, expensive, and rarely successful process. And if the drive was used at all after the wipe, recovery chances plummet.
 
I've been using Windows built in function for years on a combination of SSD and HDD. Runs once a week and never had issues at all with it.
 
LifeOnMars said:
Runs once a week and never had issues at all with it.
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I am assuming you mean Windows integrated defrag and yes, it works quite well. But do note the BIOS and thus Windows knows the difference between a hard drive and a SSD and therefore, does not even attempt to defrag a SSD. In fact, to help avoid confusion, this is why the feature is no longer called Windows Defrag but rather "Optimize Drives".
 
Bill_Bright said:
I am assuming you mean Windows integrated defrag and yes, it works quite well. But do note the BIOS and thus Windows knows the difference between a hard drive and a SSD and therefore, does not even attempt to defrag a SSD. In fact, to help avoid confusion, this is why the feature is no longer called Windows Defrag but rather "Optimize Drives".
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Exactly, which is why I use the os in such a way. It knows what it's doing. Don't even install SSD magician because there is literally no need. (Never needed secure erase but even my bios can do that)
 
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