BleachBit 0.6.3 released

BleachBit 0.6.3 hides metadata of previously-deleted files, deletes Windows log files, fixes bugs, and updates 16 translations.

UPDATE

September 16: BleachBit 0.6.4 has been released.

Changes

The following changes are included since 0.6.1:

• More thoroughly wipe free disk space. BleachBit now tries to wipe inodes on Linux and the NTFS MFT (Master File Table) on Windows to hide metadata of deleted files. The metadata includes details such as the filename, file size, and modification date. Initial testing shows this is effective on ext3 (the most common Linux filesystem), ext4, and Microsoft's NTFS.
• In case of certain errors deleting a file or directory, BleachBit will no longer skip other files that can be deleted.
• Specific to Windows
  • Delete Windows system log files.
  • Delete Microsoft Office 2007 diagnostic log files.
  • Don't stop deleting when a directory cannot be removed because it is not empty.
  • Include better links in Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs.

Translations

Attention translators: Please read the news on the translations page regarding upcoming changes.

• Update Arabic thanks to Nizar Kerkeni and MaXeR.
• Update Brazilian Portuguese thanks to Sidney Ribeiro Júnior.
• Update Catalan thanks to Oriol Gonzalez.
• Update Croatian thanks to Miro Glavić.
• Update Czech thanks to Roman Horník.
• Update Dutch thanks to Rob.
• Update French thanks to Jean-Luc Aufranc and S. Matrunchyk aka SkyMan.
• Update German thanks to MixCool.
• Update Hebrew thanks to Yaron.
• Update Hungarian thanks to Gergely Szarka.
• Update Italian thanks to Luca Falavigna.
• Update Portuguese thanks to Carlos Geadas.
• Update Russian thanks to S. Matrunchyk aka SkyMan.
• Update Spanish thanks to juancarlospaco and Pablo Ponce.
• Update Thai thanks to shane.fox.
• Update Ukranian thanks to S. Matrunchyk aka SkyMan.

Want to help translate BleachBit? It's easy.

Screenshots

BleachBit 0.6.3 in Korean:

Web site changes

I am testing a new content management system at bleachbit.sourceforge.net. If notice errors or slowness on the web site, please let me know.

The new web new site has a nice forum system. Anonymous posting is allowed, but user registration does not work yet (the email cannot be delivered) but user registration is encouraged.

Download

Download BleachBit now. Installation packages are ready for 20 platforms including CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, openSUSE, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Windows.

BleachBit 0.6.1 released

BleachBit 0.6.1 overwrites free disk space, cleans Nautilus and gPodder, cleans more of Yum, fixes bugs,and includes improved translations.

UPDATE

August 28, 2009: BleachBit 0.6.3 has been released.

Changes

The following changes are included since 0.6.0:

• Overwrite free disk space. Files are deleted "insecurely" in four typical situations: in BleachBit with shredding disabled, with certain BleachBit operations that don't support shredding, with filesystems that don't support shredding, and most deletions outside of BleachBit. These files can often be undeleted. Even if you use the Linux ext3 filesystem, for example, which doesn't support undelete, the file contents can sometimes still be recovered with only moderate technical skill. The new BleachBit option overwrites all the free space to prevent recovery.

  Besides privacy, a popular use for wiping free space is dramatically increasing compression ratios for archiving whole disk images ("ghost" backups) and virtual machines.

  Before using the option, check its settings in the preferences menu. This option is slow: each gigabyte of free takes 15 seconds on my machine.

• When shredding files manually (from the file menu), show a preview and a list of those that were actually deleted.
• When confirming delete, treat closing the confirmation dialog the same as cancelling.

• Cleanup code.
• Specific to Linux
  • Vacuum the gPodder SQLite database and delete the cache thanks to shane.fox.
  • Erase Nautilus usage history thanks to MixCool. Specifically, this cleaner deletes the saved session files and "metafiles." Besides taking a fair amount of space, these XML files record usage activity as a side effect of tracking Nautilus window positions and emblems. You may be surprised what this cleaner uncovers.
  • Work around a bug in GNOME 2.26, so the recent documents list can be deleted.
  • Vacuum the Yum SQLite databases (for Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS).
  • When running yum clean all enable all repositories.
  • Require package python-xml on OpenSUSE 11.1 (reported by rvpittman).
• Specific to Windows
  • Include a much rendition of the application logo.

Translations

Attention translators: Please read the news on the translations page regarding upcoming changes.

• Add Croatian thanks to Miro Glavić.
• Add Korean thanks to Yonghyuk Jang and bundo.
• Add Ukrainian thanks to S. Matrunchyk aka SkyMan.
• Add Thai thanks to shane.fox.
• Update Arabic thanks to MaXeR.
• Update Brazilian Portuguese thanks to Alex B. Oliveira.
• Update Bulgarian thanks to Svetoslav Stefanov.
• Update Catalan thanks to Oriol Gonzalez.
• Update Croatian thanks to Miro Glavić.
• Update Czech thanks to Roman Horník.
• Update Dutch thanks to Rob.
• Update French thanks to Christophe CATARINA and Pierre Slamich.
• Update German thanks to MixCool.
• Update Hebrew thanks to Yaron.
• Update Hungarian thanks to Gergely Szarka.
• Update Italian thanks to Luca Falavigna.
• Update Portuguese thanks to Carlos Geadas.
• Update Russian thanks to Ilia Lilov aka lilovip and S. Matrunchyk aka SkyMan.
• Update Simplified Chinese thanks to yuane.
• Update Spanish thanks to juancarlospaco.
• Update Swedish thanks to Jens Stääf.
• Update Polish thanks to Dariusz Jakoniuk.

Want to help translate BleachBit? It's easy.

Screenshots

This screenshot shows the new preferences page for selecting a path for each drive for which to shred space. A typical Linux system includes the home directory and temporary directory unless they are the same partition, in which case only one should be listed. In Windows, typically only C:\ is listed. BleachBit guesses the most appropriate settings.

BleachBit on PCLinuxOS under KDE 3.5 showing the delete confirmation dialog:

BleachBit in Croatian on Ubuntu:

See more screenshots.

Web site changes

I am testing a new content management system at bleachbit.sourceforge.net. If notice errors or slowness on the web site, please let me know.

Download

Download BleachBit now. Installation packages are ready for 20 platforms including CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, openSUSE, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Windows.

'sudo yum install bleachbit' for Fedora and Red Hat

I was particularly glad a few weeks ago when Red Hat community engineer Rahul Sundaram wrote me:

Just a heads up that I have imported Bleachbit into the Fedora (rawhide- fedora development branch, Fedora 11, Fedora 10) and EPEL 5 repository

https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/packages/name/bleachbit

EPEL is a add-on repository for RHEL/Centos et all

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL

For about five years I myself have been using Fedora as my primary operating system (since switching from Mandrake before it became Mandriva), and BleachBit is my second software package in Fedora.

Anyway, Rahul wrote me weeks ago, but finally today BleachBit 0.5.4 (a little old) finally worked its way from the testing area to the standard repository, so installing is as easy as:

sudo yum install bleachbit

If you prefer the graphical interface, it works just as well:

To install the latest version (0.6.0), download it from BleachBit Downloads. It seems Fedora and Ubuntu have similar policies regarding freezing versions of software. This policy generally makes sense, though it has left an ancient version of BleachBit (0.3.1) in Ubuntu 9.04 because BleachBit has rapidly matured this year.