The longer you use your computer, the more temporary files take the status of ‘permanent’. Before you even realize it, your system is full of useless files. Then it is time for a dustpan and a brush. We are going to clean the PC with the free PrivaZer tool.
You will be surprised how many applications leave traces on your system. Some remain local, but others, such as (super) cookies, often travel unnoticed on your surfing trips and can also pass on privacy-sensitive data to third parties.
The free PrivaZer tool aims to thoroughly clean such data and free your system and disk from all kinds of other ballast. Download PrivaZer here and note the following during installation. If you want the Donor version, you have to pull the wallet and then there are a few extras. Such as being able to automatically download PrivaZer updates.
An important choice is also Customize PrivaZer to your needs versus Go to main menu. The first option guides you through sixteen windows in which you have to answer questions for a different part of the cleaning operation. Based on this, PrivaZer sets up a cleaning profile and you end up in the main menu – where you can still adjust the choices made.
The second option takes you directly to that main menu where you have to set the desired options yourself, without the help of specific questions. All a bit confusing, but in any case you will get to your end goal: the targeted cleaning of unwanted parts.
Follow the wizard
We choose the first option. Select Customize PrivaZer to your needs and click on Next one. The tool asks you how you estimate your own experience as a computer user: are you one Basic user or rather one Advanced user? Make a choice and the first window of the sixteen will now appear.
Fortunately, most questions and possible choices speak for themselves, so that we can limit ourselves to a few more difficult parts here. For example, questions about removing invalid desktop shortcuts, automatically and irreversibly emptying the Recycle Bin, and removing the list of recently opened documents.
One of the questions concerns the removal of thumbnail caches, see image above. These contain the thumbnails of your image files, which makes it easier for you to see them in the Explorer. If you clear those caches, you clear them Windows the next time, and thumbnails of no longer existing images are removed. Not immediately a problem.
The wizard also gives you the opportunity to have the autocomplete form data removed from your browsers. This may be a good move from a privacy point of view, but be aware that you will then have to re-enter certain data in your browser (s) when you visit those sites.
With a simple Yes you can also have the website thumbnails and the opened pages (tabs) from your last surfing sessions automatically removed. Here, too, you have to make the trade-off between privacy and comfort.
The part delete cookies is a bit more delicate. You can leave that entirely to PrivaZer (Yes, automatically) which in that case will only keep ‘useful cookies’, so that you do not have to re-enter your password for sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Or you simply have all cookies removed (No, delete all cookies), or you choose to decide which cookies you prefer to lose (No, manual mode).
You can also have the web cache cleaned up. This is a temporary storage space that ensures that previously visited web pages load faster.
Register, History and Prefetch
We have now arrived at wizard screen 11 and it is about cleaning shellbags, or registry keys that keep information about folders that you had previously opened in Explorer. On this site you will find more information about the possible consequences of this information.
You can also have the history of your gaming sessions deleted and PrivaZer can free up space if the disk still has remnants of a previous Windows installation. Much the same applies to previously downloaded Windows updates: you can also have these cleaned up.
It gets a bit more technical with Windows Prefetch, a folder that contains the most important files of applications you use often. You can choose to have the entire content removed, but then those programs will start a little slower the next time. Therefore, we think it would be better to choose the option that only removes invalid or old items from the Prefetch.
The last screen recommends that you deactivate the ‘hibernation’ of your PC. You only do that if you rarely or never before Sleep mode chooses when shutting down Windows. Confirm your choices with Save.
In the next window you can have your first, often lengthy scan performed right away or you can choose to go to the main menu (and scan later). We choose the latter option.
Set preferences
In the main window you will find the item, among other things Options on, which will allow you to follow – or again – the sixteen steps of the wizard. You will also notice that PrivaZer has neatly saved your previous choices. You do right now first Advanced options as you can set some interesting preferences here.
We recommend you to General also place a check mark at Save registry changes on next cleanup. PrivaZer then creates a registry backup so that you have something to return to if PrivaZer has cleaned up the registry a little too thoroughly. For the same reason you place on the tab Cleaning up best also a check mark Always create a restore point. If something unexpectedly goes wrong, you can return the system to such a snapshot.
Tip: Related to this, we recommend the course backup and recovery On.
The Internet browsing tab is especially useful when you work with portable browser versions: you can indicate here where PrivaZer can find the browser profiles for Chrome, Firefox and Opera.
The tabs Include and (the somewhat misleading) Close are each other’s opposite. On the first tab you can even add folders or files that PrivaZer must also thoroughly empty during cleaning, with Close you specify the folders or files that you want to keep out of the reach of those cleaning.
Scan options
If you have completed all wizard steps, you can immediately click on in the main window Deep scan in 1 click! or on Clean up, remove internet traces with 1 click! In both cases, PrivaZer takes into account the options you previously set. If you went straight to this main window, click first In-depth scan, but even for those who have completed the wizard, this does not seem a bad choice to us: you can still check and fine-tune a few things.
When you have clicked on Deep scan, you first make it clear to PrivaZer which device you want to scan. We go for this Computerso that by default (only) the system disk (usually C 🙂 is selected. In the next window you can select other disks.
Here you immediately get a good idea of ​​which parts PrivaZer can check, about twenty. If this seems a bit too complex, click at the top Advanced user so that you see the somewhat simplified list of the Basic User.
You only have to remove a check mark if you want to keep an item outside the scan. We can imagine that you need more explanation for a number of parts. All you have to do is select that item and click on (one of) the links, such as Learn more or Options.
Scan selections
We will show you how to proceed with your scan selections using two different examples. Click on System and then on Options. You will now see a list of all parts that you can have scanned for cleaning purposes. These are divided into two subheadings (System and Thumbnails), and together they contain 23 selectable items.
Place a tick next to the items you want to have checked. If you do not know exactly what it is about, then unfortunately there is little else to do than (for example) knock on the door of Doctor Google, there is no real help function in PrivaZer.
Over to the section Cookies, Super / Evercookies. When you then click Show cookies you will see three options at Cookies Selection: Intelligent, Manual and delete all.
If you choose Intelligent, you will see the domains whose cookies are stored in the left column. You can also enter your own hostnames and add to the list Add. If you choose Manual, you have to decide for yourself which (sub) domains you want to move to the column via the arrow buttons To keep or to To remove.
Scan round
If you have set everything to your liking, with or without the help of the wizard, then you are ready for your first scan. You do that from the window with Advanced options. Check if there is a check mark on both Create a restore point like with Save register. The check mark at Start cleaning please leave it out. You will then have the opportunity to say ‘no’ to the cleaning with the scan results.
Preferably close your browser and click on the Scan-button. After the scan round you will get an overview that indicates how many ‘traces’ were found for each section.
Click on such a section and then click on (one of) the links in the section Results. You will now see a detailed track list. By default all tracks of that section are shown, but if you click on some sections at the bottom left Show all a drop-down menu appears that acts as a filter. Bee Cookies for example, you can select the desired browser or indicate that you have Supercookies, Flashcookies or HTML5 cookies want to take a closer look.
Clean it up!
Remove the check marks next to the sections that you ultimately do not want to be cleaned and start the actual cleaning operation with Clean up. A final selection menu now pops up: Normal cleaning, Fast cleanup and Turbo clean up, each time with a roughly estimated duration.
The first and often lengthy clean-up also thoroughly overwrites all free disk space. Unless you really think it is necessary, you better opt for one of the other, faster options.
In the unlikely event that something went wrong, you can, as already indicated, reverse a few things. Click on in the main window Recovery points after which you choose Register (PrivaZer) or for System (Windows), select the desired restore point and confirm with Recovery and the further instructions follow.
Finally, good to know: via the option Scheduled you can set PrivaZer in such a way that it (Monthly, Weekly or Daily) cleans one or more drives. The link will then appear for each selected station Setup, with which you select the desired operations.
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