SPRING CLEANING 4.0

Rating:
Summary: This really does what it says it does
Review: I have been using this for a while now and I really like it. I don't go much beyond the standard mode because everything I use is right there, plus I like that everything I do there can be undone. I have gotten rid of lots of junk I didn't even know I had and now my Mac runs better. It doesn't seem to crash as often and finds go quicker. I really love the mail cleaner tool. I had no idea that Eudora kept a copy of all of my email attachments. Some of the cartoons/pix my friends send me are kind of racy and even though I forward them on to others I don't want to keep them on my Mac - too embarassing. I was shocked that even though I thought I deleted them, Eudora still kept a copy of them hidden from my view.

Rating:
Summary: helpful and thorough- it's a must for computer clean up
Review: Spring Cleaning is a great way to help get your Macintosh organized and cleaned up. Follow the easy guide and choose a cleaning utility like MacUninstaller to find folders, Apps, fonts etc. associated with a particular application, you can then choose to move them to a backup archive using StuffIt (I have all my Read Me files in one spot now), or a storage folder, or just plain move them to the trash. If you aren't sure, move them to a storage folder first, if everything's running smoothly after a couple weeks, then empty your storage folder. The iClean utility is awesome for getting rid of your Internet surfing tracks to get rid of cache, cookies and other junk (I use mine weekly).

Rating:
Summary: It will clean alright - but you will regret this broom !
Review: This is one of those classic faux pas of the software world like Dbase IV, Dos 4, Delphi 4 - the cursed 4 number. So many bugs you will need two hands to swat out all the bugs in this release.

First off the interface is just plain awful. Hard to navigate, difficult and unfriendly to use, impossible to set the configuration the way you would like to.

Once you somehow manage to set the configuration the program proceeds to ignore your settings completely and totally as though you never entered them. I specifically set the program to ignore all Speech Type files. I ran the Uninstall option and there lo and behold were all the speech files cluttering up the window. I then went through and pinpointed just four specific files that I wanted it to ignore. No good. Their they were sitting pretty staring me in the face.

At the same time applications that I wanted to unintstall such as Office 2001, the Uninstall was completely blind to. How can this program be blind to such a large application as Office 2001 I will never understand. Office 2001 fully installed is an elephant. Spring Cleaning never saw it.

Then I came to uninstall Personal Web Server. It found the app but it wanted to uninstall Control Panels along with the app. I was horrified. It was trying to uninstall Modem control panels that had nothing to do with Personal Web Server - not even remotely !

Then I came to uninstall Dreamweaver Ultradev 4. Never saw it - not once.

I wrote up all this information to Aladdin. Never heard from them. I then wrote to Digital River, the company that is responsible for the download process and they were quite willing to refund me my money.

This is a cursed 4.0 program. Use at your own peril I would suggest.