Glary Utilities - Best Freeware Registry Cleaner?

[UPDATE (Jan 30, 2010): Glary Utilities 2.19.0.800 has been released.]

Licensed registry cleaners are a dime a dozen in the Internet but numerous as they may be, they are really an indispensable part of PC maintenance. (While other friends of mine have their PCs reformatted several times a year, I usually run into serious trouble every 13 months or so. I believe these infrequent trips to PC shops is largely due to my relatively well-maintained registry.) Freeware registry cleaners however (those that are backed up by reliable reviews), are hard to find.

In all the years I've spent tinkering around PC software and hardware components, haunting PC tech forums, and reading freeware registry cleaner reviews, I've only come upon two that are worth mentioning: CCleaner and Jouni Vuorio's RegCleaner v4.3.

The topic today however, is Glary Utilities, perhaps one the best freeware registry cleaners I've come across.

GUI screenshots, errors detected, and the modules of this freeware registry cleaner after the jump.



NOTE: Tinkering with the registry is dangerous. Glary Utilities is not a property of this site. Moreover, I am in no way affiliated with that website. If something goes wrong with your PC after using the freeware, I cannot provide technical support. Install and use at your own risk.

My friend Soren (who was running the site FreewareBoy.com at that time) came across Glary Utilities and recommended it to me as one of his best freeware registry cleaners. At that time, I was leery of it, having never heard of the software. I was also using a trial version of TuneUp then but now with the trial having expired, I prowled across the 'Net and checked if experts do consider this Windows registry cleaner as one of their best freeware recommends. I came across a review of v2.6.1 of the freeware and it was a PCWorld article! Sweet, I thought, this might be worth a try after all.

I downloaded the free Windows registry cleaner and got a pleasant surprise:

It has updates! Noice.

And while it may appear---*ahem*---familiar (just take a look at this GUI):


...its suite does have modules that are very useful. Check out the "Empty Folder Finder":

It also has a registry defragmenter:


The true test however, is not the nifty interface and the modules----this is after all a "Best Freeware Registry Cleaner" post----but how well the freeware's registry cleaner finds registry issues. After cleaning with CCleaner, I gave it a spin and:

88 problems found! Awesome. I then clicked "Repair Problems" (after making a restore point with ERUNT, a freeware registry backup generator), rebooted, and---while actively listening for "Ach! My spleen!"exclamations from the PC---listened to some music tracks and played a 20-minute session of F.E.A.R. Windows ran without a hitch.

It may not be the definite best freeware registry cleaner out there, but Glary Utilities is a powerful package filled to the brim with indispensable tools.

>>>Download the freeware registry cleaner here