

Had I not investigated and unchecked that option, AdwCleaner would have removed it. If you ever aren’t sure, google the name of the file, or check it against the Should I Remove It database. If the folder has a gibberish name (like many Chrome extensions), you can navigate to the folder yourself and see what program or extension it may be associated with.įor example, on another system, AdwCleaner found a Chrome extension that it marked as potentially unwanted–but it was something I installed myself. (AdwCleaner has been known to include some things you may want, like benign browser settings or Chrome extensions.) Be sure to uncheck anything you don’t want removed. Knowing this, you can read through the list, spotting anything you might actually want to keep.

That way, if you delete something you wanted to keep or mess up your computer, you can roll back to the way things were. Warning: AdwCleaner is designed to remove crap from your system, but as with all things, make sure you back up your computer and create a System Restore point before continuing. But, while it looks incredibly simple, there are a few tricks to using it right. This free application removes the annoying crap that’s bundled with installers. But if it’s too late, you don’t necessarily need to reinstall Windows from scratch– AdwCleaner can help. Ideally, the solution is to avoiding junk programs in the first place. RELATED: How to Avoid Installing Junk Programs When Downloading Free Software This wasn’t a one-time incident, either–other programs have made other annoying changes to my PC, adding things like toolbars and even extra ads in my browser.

Thanks to my stupidity, Yahoo now shows up as a search engine, and no one wants that. Even worse, this fool clicked “Next” without disabling the bundled offers. Once upon a time, there was a dumb person named Justin, who installed Java even though it’s awful.
