I have always been of the mindset, the more you add to a system to automate mundane tasks, the more you open yourself to exploits. I have had to deal with many workstations, servers, and personal computers that were previously maintained by other (less experienced) administrators that swear by the use of CCleaner, Defraggler, and Speccy (not linking intentionally, use Google if you want links to their software). I have always immediately removed them as one of my first clean-up tasks.

Some might think I was just being picky about using programs I simply do not like. This is far from the case. My view is that unless it saves you a considerable amount of time and resources, it really is not worth adding to your PC.

As stated earlier, some swear by the use of these tools. I consider their use the result lazy and/or absent-minded administrators. What those software titles provide can easily be accomplished by using the system tools that were already included with each machine. Couple that with the ability to schedule said maintenance tasks and I feel that Piriform’s (now Avast) system maintenance and cleaning software has always been pointless.

Seriously, learn your systems and you can properly manage them without installing tons of 3rd party apps that open your systems to hacker exploits such as those recently made public regarding CCleaner. CCleaner was exploited over a month before being patched and affecting over 2 million machines.

Anyone with a different opinion and reasonable explanation as to why they feel that way? Post your comment below 😉