Computer Act!ve - UK (2022-06-08)

Issue 633 • 8 – 21 June 2022 61

Use the portable version of BleachBit

click the General tab and untick the ‘Dark
mode’ box.

MODERATE CLEANING
Remove backup and
temporary files
For a more thorough system clean,
consider the options listed under ‘Deep
scan’. Here, ‘Backup files’ and ‘Temporary
files’ (see screenshot right) will remove
.bak and .tmp files generated by Windows
and programs (don’t worry – it won’t
delete your own backup files). ‘Thumbs.
db’ and ‘.DS_Store’ will erase any
unnecessary metadata. The two ‘VIM
swap’ options will clear out data held in
virtual memory. Running these ‘Deep
scan’ tools may not recover a huge
amount of space, however – only 235MB
on our test machine – and the process
can take a while.

Wipe ‘recently used’ programs
Anyone who accesses your PC can see
which documents or files you’ve recently
used because most programs, including
VLC, Paint and OpenOffice, have their
own ‘recent’ lists. BleachBit has a way of
wiping this data. In the left-hand pane,
you’ll find several programs listed among
the other categories. Click the arrow next
to each program and you’ll see a ‘Most
recently used’ option – tick these to select
them, then click Clean.
Cleaning this information will
probably only recover mere kilobytes, but
it can be a useful privacy precaution,

especially if you share your PC with

others.

Delete File Explorer activity

File Explorer holds information that

would allow others to see which files and

folders you’ve recently used or searched

for. To clean this data, click the arrow

next to Windows Explorer in BleachBit

and select ‘Most recently used’, ‘Search

history’ and ‘Recent documents list’ (see

screenshot below left). Note that

choosing the latter will clear any locations

you have pinned to ‘Quick access’.

Additionally, selecting the ‘Run’ option

clears what Windows retains of the

commands you’ve entered into the

Run.exe tool (press Windows key+R to

bring it up). Selecting ‘Thumbnails’ can

save a fair amount of space (152MB in

our case), but Windows will then need to

rebuild thumbnails as you browse folders

containing images and media files, which

may slow down performance.

The oddly named ‘Shellbags’ option

will delete further metadata that

Windows stores about your folders,

including usage dates. It doesn’t pose

much of a privacy risk, though, and

running it will alter the arrangement of

your desktop icons.

ADVANCED CLEANING

Permanently remove

specific files or folders

You may already know that deleting files

and folders in Windows doesn’t erase

them entirely – and with the right

software it may be possible for someone

else to recover deleted data. But not if you

use BleachBit’s shredder to permanently

wipe files and folders.

To shred a specific file, click the

BleachBit menu icon in the top left and

select Shred Files (see screenshot above).

Now browse to the file you want to erase

and click Open followed by Delete. The

process is the same for erasing a folder,

except you need to select Shred Folders

from the BleachBit menu.

BleachBit can also securely wipe the

free space on your drive – very useful if

you’re planning to sell or donate an old

PC. You can do this by selecting Wipe

Free Space from the BleachBit menu, or

by ticking the ‘Free disk space’ under

System while clearing out Windows junk

(see above).

Clean old browser data

You can clear data, such as browsing

history, cache and cookies, from within

browsers, but BleachBit goes much

further with advanced options (for

Chrome, Edge and Firefox).

These include ‘Form history’, which

erases all the data you’ve entered into

online forms, and ‘Site preferences’,

which clears all personalised settings

for individual websites. The ‘Vacuum’

option is interesting. It defragments your

browser’s system files, shrinking them

without removing data – though, if

we’re honest, this doesn’t appear to have

much tangible effect.

Cleaning your browser can recover a

surprising amount of space, however.

We were able to recover almost 4GB by

running all the cleaning tools available

for Chrome, for example. If you’re

planning on uninstalling a browser, it’s a

good idea to run all its clean-up tools in

BleachBit first, as this will wipe all

personal information, including any

passwords and synced account data

stored on your computer.

If you’re really worried about cluttering

up your PC, you’ll be pleased to hear that

you don’t even need to install BleachBit

• you can download the portable version
  of the tool and run it from a USB stick
  instead.
  From the main BleachBit web page,
  click Download, then Windows. Click the
  ‘BleachBit portable’ option, then extract

the downloaded ZIP file and transfer the

‘BleachBit-Portable’ folder it contains to

your USB stick.

You can now delete the ZIP file and

its extracted contents from your PC’s

hard drive. Whenever you want to run

BleachBit, insert your USB stick, open the

BleachBit-Portable folder and double-

click the ‘bleachbit.exe’ file.

BleachBit’s ‘Deep scan’ removes backup and

temporary files generated by Windows and

the programs you use

Permanently

wipe a specific

file by clicking

BleachBit’s

icon then

selecting

Shred Files

Wipe information that reveals which files and
folders you’ve searched for