Expert's Rating
Pros
- Logs and removes all traces of installations
- Many other cleaning tools
Cons
- May not be necessary for the more PC-savvy
Our Verdict
If you use its monitoring function to log installations, Ashampoo Uninstaller 5 works well and has many other cleanup functions. To make the best use of it, install it early on a new system.
Ashampoo Uninstaller 5 purports by its existence to do a better job of uninstalling programs than the uninstall procedures provided by the programs themselves. Perhaps the programs I installed to test Uninstaller 5 under Windows 7 had very good uninstall routines, but Uninstaller 5 didn’t seem to do any better of a job than they did. But there are some ancillary functions are handy.
Ashampoo Uninstaller 5 works best when you use its installation monitoring service, which “logs” installations. Without a log, the program basically just runs the uninstaller provided by the software being removed. Using one of these logs for uninstalling delivered very good results. I found no junk remaining other than that created by programs while they were running post-install. But I found none with the normal uninstalls either.
Drive and registry cleaning are also part of the Ashampoo Uninstaller 5 package. But adding every file in the temp folder to a list and claiming each one as an individual problem is a bit of a stretch. Despite that, both work decently cleaning the detritus out of your system though there were still many references to Nero 12 Platinum—which was installed before I installed Ashampoo Uninstaller 5 and uninstalled using Ashampoo Uninstaller 5 without a log—in the registry after I ran the registry cleaner.
There’s also a disk wiper (secure delete), duplicate file finder, file undeleter, and startup manager (which handles application startup items in addition to Windows startup items) in Uninstaller 5. Ashampoo might be doing a disservice to the program with its name, as it’s actually a far more versatile tool than a mere uninstaller.
Ashampoo Uninstaller 5 is a tough call. It’s a decent set of cleanup utilities that does a very good job with its logged uninstalls. Under certain, rather rare circumstances such as reviewers who install lots of software they don’t intend to keep, it might be useful. But at $40 you’re paying a lot to cure a problem that’s not particularly serious, and can be handled for the most part by a free program such as CCleaner.
Note: The “Try it for free” button on the Product Information page will download the software to your system.