Put bluntly, Winoptimizer 11 is the better of the two, but it’s $40 and CCleaner is available for free. Winoptimizer 11 did as good a job as CCleaner and is far more educational about what it’s actually removing. Windows 7 and 8 are far more stable after software removal than XP was, but I still clean stuff out because it will start bogging down a system after a while.

I use Piriform’s CCleaner regularly to remove the aforementioned drek left over from software testing. But even a small margin is welcome, and the program gathers a ton of useful features under one roof, facilitating an easy tweaking and optimizing experience-something you might not get around to if you stuck with the myriad freebies.Īt the heart of most optimization programs like Winoptimzier 11 is a garbage collector that removes the drek (unused files and registry entries) left over from old software installs, temporary files forgotten by Windows or applications, and software caches.

But darn if Ashampoo’s Winoptimizer 11 doesn’t provide some facilities that made my system run faster, albeit by a small margin. Windows 7 and 8 don’t need a lot of help in that regard, and in the past some optimizers have messed up my system. I’m always suspect of programs that claim to make Windows run faster.

Ashampoo winoptimizer 18 review