Mz Ultimate Cleaner

Mz Ultimate Cleaner is a light, fast, free tool that scans your hard disks for junk files, browser traces, temporary files, and other files that can accumulate in your system, slowing it down and maybe even compromising your security. Its proprietary algorithm scans quickly, and it cleans quickly, too. It's by Mz Tweaks, a one-man band known to some as Michael Zacharias.

Mz Ultimate Cleaner's simple interface is all business. The compact dialog displayed our system's two hard disks with their total size, free space, and format. The program uses the Mz Intelligent Scanning Method by default, though we could deselect it if we wanted to. It's supposed to be faster than the usual techniques, so we kept it. And this tool is fast. Our scan completed very quickly, displaying the results in a tree view that let us choose which items to keep and which to bin. We clicked Delete Selected, and Mz Ultimate Cleaner took out the trash. It has some nice options: we could change the language and theme, check for updates, add or remove file extensions, and choose whether to send files to the Recycle Bin or delete them permanently. The Traces button let us choose which items to clean; we deselected our default browser's passwords, Office History, and other files we didn't want junked. We could press a button labeled Clean Traces Now to immediately clean up selected files or close the options and run a scan.

Mz Ultimate Cleaner is a little light on the documentation, with no Help file, so we recommend using it with knowledge and care. But it doesn't take a weed-whacker to your registry or change Windows settings like more aggressive "cleaners" and "optimizers." Pretty much the worst thing you can do is delete your browser's saved passwords and maybe some useful cookies, which counts as a potential P.I.T.A. but hardly requires System Restore.