YAC 6.0.188

Overview

Yet Another Cleaner (YAC for short) is a system utility to fix the issues that come up with extended Windows use. This includes removing accumulated junk from your Windows installation, checking browser plug-ins for malicious installs, virus detection, program removal suggestions and a network monitor.

Installation

The installation was simple and fast. There was no adware bundled with this package that needed to be sidestepped to get started. There is a custom installation option to better direct where the package gets installed. There is also percentage counter for installation progress and then you're done.

A shortcut is placed on the desktop without asking and a floating window is added to provide live system information. It also opened up a new browser tab without warning, requesting a donation.

Package will run on Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7/8.

Interface

Extremely slick and stylish; clearly graphic designers were involved. Zero lag moving around the app. It is designed more for beginners than for advanced users.

The small curvy floating information window displays the used RAM memory and bandwidth indicator. It can also be selected to bring up an expanded list of the applications that are using the most resources.

The main interface has a navigation bar down the left side with the different utilities like virus detection, plug-in manager, deep clean, system boost, software manager, and others.

Pros

The Deep Clean feature gets into areas of your Windows installation and drives that other cleaner apps don't seem to do. The Network Monitor was very useful. It lists the applications that are using the most internet bandwidth.

The virus scanner works quickly and changes to a red color if it discovers anything bad on your drives or in memory.

System tray control is installed where you can turn off the floating information window and jump right to the section of the program that wish to run.

Cons

The software manager was a bit odd. It was suggesting programs that were supposedly infrequently used, but named a number of programs like two dual-pane file managers which I use daily for disk navigation as “rarely used”. Clearly wherever they get their information of Windows app usage, it's incorrect.

Plug-in Manager found the Ask Toolbar installed for the Chrome browser. Scanned and removed it, but when rescanned using the software and found the plug-in was still present. I guess it didn't remove the plug-in after all?

The main issue I had was when the app wanted to remove something, you couldn't necessarily dig deeper to see what it was going to delete before you said yes or no. As an advanced user, this gave me pause.

Alternatives

It seems that everyone has their favorite system utility. Advanced System Care 7 has been a reliable one for some time. Runs fast. Offers similar functionality, but lacks the network monitor and fancy GUI.

CCleaner is also a classic app to clean your system, fix registry issues and restrict which apps load at start-up (all things YAC does too).

Conclusion

You cannot go wrong with YAC. It seems to be reliable, didn't crash and installed quickly. No hidden extras and it does a lot of different things in a single package. It's also easy to use for the non-expert who wants to be able to click a few buttons and clean their system once a week without any fuss.