McAfee QuickClean 2004 review

Today's hard disks can seem huge, but even a 200GB disk can become clogged up with junk files.

Some of these files can contain information you might want to keep secret - another reason you don't want them cluttering your disk. QuickClean helpfully removes them in a number of ways.

There are three main ways that QuickClean can keep your system ship-shape. The Disk Cleanup section is likely to be the most useful. It searches the hard disk for files it thinks you won't need, including cookies, items in the Recycle Bin and temporary files. It will also clear lost file fragments that the PC creates when it caches files after crashing. If you decide you want to keep the information in one of the junk file areas designated by QuickClean, such as the useful Web browser history, you can tell Disk Cleanup to ignore it by right-clicking the entry or by making a more permanent change in the settings.

If you're getting desperate for disk space, the SpaceMaker component of Disk Cleanup will seek out non-essential files, including fonts and large multimedia files. You can set various rules to avoid it deleting files you want to keep. You could restrict it to deleting only those files that are larger than 100MB, are more than six months old, are located in a folder called Capture and have the file extension '.avi'. If you store captured video files in a folder called Capture, and edited video in another folder you'll find this rule alone will keep your hard disk tidy.

Internet Cleanup simply deletes the Web browser's temporary files and cookies. There is an option to clean out old e-mail files, including those in Outlook Express's Deleted Items folder. You can clear the browser history when you close Internet Explorer - a pop-up box asks if you want to, and you can set this to work automatically, without bothering you every time.

Finally, the Remove Programs section acts as an uninstaller, and will also seek and destroy those annoying folders and files that some programs leave behind when you uninstall them using Windows' Add/Remove Programs. You can set a restore point if you change your mind. This is different from Windows XP's System Restore.

As hard disks increase in size, looking after junk files is becoming an impossible task to do manually. QuickClean is a fairly simple way to manage your virtual waste and make the most of your disk space.