WinClear Review - Internet History Eraser

WinClear — Internet History Eraser — the Review

Product: WinClear
Class: Utility — Privacy -- temp file and Windows/Internet history deletion
License: Commercial product.
Version Reviewed: v2.0

WinClear is a computer history cleaner program designed to delete or erase the history of your activity on your computer. Obviously, it can't dig into the guts of every program to find and delete the history each might retain (and you probably would not want that).

WinClear targets general Windows items, recent document lists in many programs, chat history, and all sorts of data that Internet Explorer records on your use of IE.

I wrote in my email newsletter that I had been trying out WinClear. I was impressed with it from the start.

On my notebook, after I had deleted my temporary files (I thought) and the Temporary Internet Files, I was surprised that WinClear found over 800 MB of temporary files for me. Since I was down to only 2 GB free on my notebook, getting 800 MB more was a significant find.

I kept playing occasionally with the unregistered version of WinClear for a while longer and finally bought three licenses -- one for my notebook, one for my wife's computer and one for my son's. Why did I buy three and not one? Because WinClear is licensed per computer and it has a significant discounts for each additional computer.

So, how did I like it? Maybe this screenshot will tell you...


"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause."
That really is 10.69 GB of storage space recovered!

The next set of images are the "Choose Items" options in WinClear for my particular computer. This is a "smart list" — WinClear will only show the pertinent items that it finds on the computer (it mis-identified OpenOffice 2.0 as the related StarOffice, but that's not a real problem).

Hover over any image for a description
Click on the image for a larger version


The Positives
WinClear is a wonder at finding temporary files. On my notebook it deleted 847 MB. Since I only had 2 GB available on my C: drive, this was a HUGE benefit. On my wife's computer, it found and deleted 10.69 GB, and on my son's, it found an amazing 17.73 GB of temporary files and other "history" — he was ecstatic.

WinClear wiped my Internet Explorer history, Temporary Internet Files (IE's name for the browser cache), temporary files and my IE cookies. Bam!

Note that when you run WinClear, your first step is to set some options. Here you can tell WinClear to ignore certain types of "history" data (click on the images above to see the options on my computer). I set my copy to ignore my recent files lists in Excel and Word.

The next step is to let WinClear scan and show you what it finds.

Then, you can tell WinClear to delete or erase what it found. By default, WinClear will delete what it finds. But, you can check the "Shred Files" box and then pick Random (1 pass), DOD 4220.22-M (3 passes), NSA (7 passes) or Gutmann (35 passes). Obviously, the more passes WinClear makes to erase the data, the longer the process will take.

If you use IE as your browser, WinClear looks like just the thing for keeping a pristine history on your machine. If you've got a notebook, it could be just the thing for wiping all that "saved form data" and "saved passwords" before you travel with your notebook.

The Negatives
The negatives I found were relatively minor issues for me.

Really, I haven't found many for IE users. WinClear is really focused on the Microsoft-centric user. It wipes Internet Explorer temporary internet files, IE cache, IE history, IE search history, and recent file lists in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Windows Media Player, as well as handling Windows own history and temporary files.

The files winamp.ini and winamp.m3u are among the data that WinClear wanted to delete by default on my son's computer. These are the WinAmp configuration file) and the WinAmp playlist.

Unfortunately there is a bug on the Options "Save" routine that doesn't seem to save all of the option settings. For some programs such as Word and Excel, the Options Save worked fine, but for others, it didn't save the data. In other words, be sure to review the Options each time before scanning and deleting.

For non-IE browsers Firefox and Opera, I found the web site to be misleading (I didn't check Mozilla, Netscape or the AOL Browser). While WinClear did not interfere with Firefox (v1.5.0.3) or Opera (v8.54), it didn't delete my cache, cookies, history, or my saved form data, either. That's not the way I would interpret their statement: "Browser Compatibility: Supports all popular web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox, AOL, Netscape, Opera, and MSN Explorer"

My goal in purchasing my copy of WinClear was to have an easy way to wipe all browser passwords, history and saved form data before I took my notebook on trips. From that point, I'm disappointed, since WinClear did not "clear" any Firefox history, temp files, passwords or cookies.

On the other hand, I'm not returning my copies (I bought licenses for 3 computers), either.

I submitted a bug report to the WinClear folks on the support for the Firefox and Opera issue. I quickly received an reply telling me how to wipe the data with regular Firefox and Opera functions. They also advised that they were sending the bug report to their developers for handling. That's a lot better response to a bug report than I get from most software companies.

For now, cleaning Firefox and Opera history is still a matter of going into the Options or Preferences, finding the right spots, and deleting them piece by piece.