ccleaner and tracks eraser pro - which settings do i use?

[btwo1]

hi.

i've downloaded both these. i want to wipe my internet history, but not any word documents i have on my computer. i just wondered which settings and options i should use on either of these. i'm not particularly computer savvy and i'm not sure what half the boxes actually mean. thank you.

or alternatively, perhaps i could be redirected to a computer forum somewhere where they may be able to steer me through this.

[nannynick]

For CCleaner:

Under the Windows tab
Under Internet Explorer, have ticks in:
Temporary Internet Files
History
Recently Typed URLS
Index.dat files
Last Download Location

Under the Applications tab
Under Google Chrome, have ticks in:
Internet Cache
Internet History
Download History
Session

I DO NOT suggest you have a tick in Cookies / Passwords as then your system will forget all about you, log you out of Mumsnet for example.


What are you wanting to achieve? Wiping your browsing history completely is rather hard these days, as your ISP probably keeps a track of things for the benefit of a police investigation. So if you are wanting to do things you never want anyone else to know about, there will probably always be someone who could find out... with a court order!

[btwo1]

no i very much doubt the police would be interested... there's just so many different boxes on ccleaner...

there's the cleaner, registry, tools and options areas... and there are masses of different things to tick and untick...

i'd like to do the job properly but thus far google-ing on the subject left even me more confused and the piriform website wasn't very helpful...

i found one thing on it saying 'secure file deletion' - 'very complex overwrite (35 passes)' - does that mean that would mean its done the job much better?

i'm not really too computer literate either, which probably doesn't help.

[nannynick]

Do not mess with registry. Just use default settings and the things I mentioned about IE and Chrome. By default it can wipe cookies, which you may actually want to keep.

The more passes, the less likely data will remain in fragments which can be reassembled. The more passes the longer it takes. That option in my view would typically be used if you were wiping a drive for selling/disposal.

[btwo1]

ok. thanks. please go with assumption i'm extremely computer-stupid. i've restored it to default settings. now i untick everything apart from those 10 you've said in the cleaner settings. and do i just leave everything else on its default setting... apart from perhaps in "settings" in "options" where you can do things more powerfully.

also i'm not sure if there are different versions of ccleaner and it's different for different computers and versions of windows - i downloaded this a few days ago.

[btwo1]

nannynick (or anybody else) - where are you?

[nannynick]

Yes there are different versions and there will be different things to tick/untick depending on what software you have installed (such as Firefox, Safari, Chrome, some Microsoft things like Office).

Use default settings. Then look in Internet Explorer bit and have ticks against the bits I listed, do NOT have a tick against Cookies or anything about passwords. Then do same for Chrome (if you have that).

Can I ask why you are trying to do this? There may be safer ways to achieve what you want to do.

Note, I do not have PC access until the weekend so I can not run latest version of ccleaner to see options it gives.

[btwo1]

pc will be going to someone else soon - and i don't want work things on it at all

[btwo1]

this can be done at the weekend, i guess. it'd be nice to get it done within the next week, anyway.

[nannynick]

So what work things are we talking, word docs, pdfs, spreadsheets, that sort of thing?
Have you deleted them and are they now in recycle bin? If so, right click recycle bin and look for a ccleaner recycle option.

On ccleaner, look under Tools for Clear Free Space or some wording like that. Running just that bit of ccleaner will erace the freespace on the drive where deleted files hide.

[btwo1]

i want to wipe record of what i've searched on the internet

[nannynick]

Which browser did you use? If Chrome, after running ccleaner with default settings, then uninstall chrome. You will want to tick all the boxes for chrome, as you do want it to forget passwords.

Tonight, run ccleaner with default settings and check that in Chrome and IE that it DOES have ticks next to Cookies. I presume you are using another system to access mumsnet.

[btwo1]

how do i know which browser i use? (sorry if this seems a dumb question)

[nannynick]

Click whatever you would usually click to go on the internet and then see if it has a Help, About bit on the menu - that is one way of finding out.
Ccleaner will list the browsers it finds on your computer, so if it has listed chrome and IE, you may have used both, or you may mostly use chrome.

[nannynick]

Have you run ccleaner with the default settings yet? Doing that will help clear up some junk.

[nannynick]

I have got home early, so checking ccleaner, i have ver 3.28.1913 which is latest.

As a first run, I would restore defaults (the option is in Options, Advanced) then click Run Cleaner. It will take a while.

Then go to Options, Settings, and where it says Secure Deletion select "secure file deletion (slower)" and select Complex Overwrite (7 passes).
Click on the sweeper icon (Cleaner) and under the Windows tab find Internet Explorer And put a tick next to Autocomplete Form History and a tick next to Saved Passwords.
Under Windows Explorer, put a tick next to Network Passwords.
Keep rest as they are.
Then click on Applications tab.
If you have Google Chrome, put a tick next to Saved Form Information, Saved Passwords, Compact Databases.

Then click Run Cleaner. It may take a while. Or it might not, depends how much stuff it finds.

Then do a simple clean of Registry by clicking the Registry icon, leaving everything as it is and click Scan For Issues. Once that is done, click Fix Selected Issues. It will prompt to backup, select No. Then a box appears, select Fix All Selected Issues. It will probably do it very fast. That will have cleaned the registry of redundant stuff.

Now if you have deleted all your work documents and feel that you need it such that they can not be recovered, then you need to Wipe Free Space (with the currently selected 7 pass option).
So click the sweep icon (Cleaner) make sure the Windows tab is selected and scroll down the list to the bottom. Tick the Wipe Free Space box and a prompt will appear warning you that it will take a significant amount of time. click OK.
Click Run Cleaner... go to bed. When you wake in the morning it may have finished, it will take many hours.

Hope that helps.

[btwo1]

ok. that's not version i have. but i will go through those steps. thank you