Background
Web browsing led me to a blog post that highlighted some of the new Microsoft Windows OS Utilities that one should familarize with.
Forward
This quick evaluation is tracked from a list of MS Windows Utilities published by Rishabh Chauhan.
Here is a link to Rishabh Chauhan’s list:-
Rishabh Chauhan
The 9 Best Utilities for Windows Power Users
Date Published:- 2022-December-30th
Link
The 9 Best Utilities for Windows Power Users
Date Published:- 2022-December-30th
Link
BleachBit
Let us quickly talk on my experience using BleachBit on a MS Windows computer.
What is BleachBit
When your computer is getting full, BleachBit quickly frees disk space. When your information is only your business, BleachBit guards your privacy. With BleachBit you can free cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, shred temporary files, delete logs, and discard junk you didn’t know was there. Designed for Linux and Windows systems, it wipes clean thousands of applications including Firefox, Adobe Flash, Google Chrome, Opera, and more. Beyond simply deleting files, BleachBit includes advanced features such as shredding files to prevent recovery, wiping free disk space to hide traces of files deleted by other applications, and vacuuming Firefox to make it faster. Better than free, BleachBit is open source.
Author(s)
Andrew Ziem
Information
- Computer Programming Language
- Python
- Platform
- MS Windows
- Linux
Artifacts
- Installers for both Linux and Windows are available at https://www.bleachbit.org/download
Usage
Categories
List
| Manufacturer | Category | Sub-Category |
|---|---|---|
| Adobe | Adobe Reader | Cache, Most Recently Used, Temporary Files |
| Microsoft | Deep Scan | .DS_Store, Backup files, Temporary files, Thumbs.db, VIM swap files across system, VIM swp files under user profile |
| Mozilla | Firefox | Backup files, Cache, Cookies, Crash reports, DOM Storage, Form history, Passwords, Session restore, Site preferences, URL history, Vacuum |
| Chrome | Cache, Cookies, DOM Storage, Form history, History, Passwords, Search engines, Session, Site preferences, Sync, Vacuum | |
| Microsoft | Internet Explorer | Cache, Cookies, Download history, Form history, History, Logs |
| Microsoft | Microsoft Edge | Cache, Cookies, DOM Storage, Form history, History, Passwords, Search engines, Session, Site preferences, Sync, Vacuum |
| Microsoft | Microsoft Office | Debug Logs, Most Recently Used |
| Microsoft | Microsoft Paint | Most Recently Used |
| Microsoft | Microsoft Office | Debug Logs, Most Recently Used |
| Microsoft | System (OS) | Clipboard, Custom., Free disk space, Logs, Memory dump, MUICache, Prefetch, Recycle bin, Temporary Files, Update uninstallers |
| VIM | VIM | History |
| VLC | VLC Media Player | Memory dump, Most recently used |
| Microsoft | Windows Defender | Backup files, History, Logs, Quarantine, Tempory files |
| Microsoft | Windows Explorer | Most recently used, Recent documents list, Run, Search history, Shellbags, Thumbnails |
| Microsoft | Wordpad | Most recently used |
| Zoom | Zoom | Cache, Logs, Recordings |
Scenario
Choice
- Adobe Reader
- Choice:- <Full>
- Deep Scan
- Choice:- <None>
- Reason
- Resource intensive as it performs a scatter scan of all disk to identify files matching the patterns of each sub-category
- There are other tools that may accomplish the same thing and they are well tested
- Time & Resource Requirements does not meet criteria for a quick product evaluation
- Firefox
- Choice:- <Mostly Full>
- Skipped
- Passwords
- Google Chrome
- Choice:- <Mostly Full>
- Skipped
- Passwords
- Internet Explorer
- Choice:- <Full>
- Microsoft Edge
- Choice:- <Mostly Full>
- Skipped
- Passwords
- Microsoft Office
- Choice:- <Full>
- Microsoft Paint
- Choice:- <Full>
- System
- Choice:- <Mostly Full>
- Skipped
- Update uninstallers
- VIM
- Choice: <N/A>
- VLC Media Player
- Choice:- <Full>
- Windows Defender
- Choice:- <Full>
- Windows Explorer
- Choice:- <Skipped>
- WordPad
- Choice:- <Skipped>
- Zoom
- Choice:- <Skipped>
Images
Mozilla Firefox
Google Chrome
Microsoft – Internet Explorer
Microsoft – Edge
Microsoft – Office
Microsoft – Windows – System
Pre
Post
Microsoft – Windows Defender
Preview
Please preview the files that will be removed…
Delete
Delete Confirmation
If you are OK with proceeding, please select the Delete option from the “Delete confirmation” window.
Delete List
Technical Summary
- I got back 7.16 GB of disk space
- Rid myself of 31,000 unneeed files
Dedicate
Dedicating this post to Andrew Ziem.
It is not easy developing a multi-platform tool.
The tool has a very polished user-interface.
It works with no fuzz whatsoever.
I unreservedly recommend this tool.
Learning in the Open 