Internet Cleanup 2 review

Concern over spyware means that software which keeps your Internet tracks hidden is in increasing demand these days - demand which Aladdin's Internet Cleanup 2 hopes to meet.

Although it's new on the market, some components are familiar, and three of the tools accessible from the program's single window have already had an outing in another Aladdin utility, iClean.

The Web cache and Internet history file removers combine with the cookie editor to effectively wipe clear your Web browser's memory in a two-pass identification and removal process. Admittedly, most browsers allow you to perform these tasks within their own application, but as many Mac users regularly switch between browsers, this suite of tools is a handy way of centralising cache management. It's only a pity that unlike the Windows version there's no option to automatically erase the cache when you quit a browser.

Two of Internet Cleanup's other tools, NetBlockade and Secure Delete, can also be run as standalone applications. NetBlockade is an effective utility to kill Internet pop-ups and banner adverts. While Safari and Chimera browsers block pop-ups and OmniWeb features a configurable ad-blocking system, none is as versatile as NetBlockade's. URLs can be configured with wild cards to prevent pop-up or banner access from known domains, and you can easily add a source URL to the blocked list by dragging the pop-up over the NetBlockade window.

Secure Delete - a tool to make selected files unrecoverable by overwriting the space they occupy on the hard disk - is less impressive as its functionality is already available to anyone familiar with the 'rm -P' command in the Mac OS X Terminal application. Cleanup's final tool is SpyAlert, which searches for hidden monitoring applications on your machine, something more useful for Windows users.

Sensibly, Cleanup only reveals and removes those items that you own, and it doesn't expose the Internet tracks of other users on your system. A bundled utility allows you to run Internet Cleanup with root privileges.

In all, Internet Cleanup may be as uninventive as an Atomic Kitten b-side, but that doesn't prevent it offering a quick and simple way to remove potentially incriminating data from your Mac.