This is a followup on the Uninstaller benchmark: What is the best uninstaller for Windows? study I did last year and the original A Mad Journey: Comparing Windows uninstallers, getting upset and then deciding to make my own from 2023.

If  you have no idea what I’m talking about right now, it’s fine. Relax.

The premise is very simple: There are many third-party software uninstaller programs available for Windows and a lot of people have a lot of opinions about them.

You know what they say about opinions, so let me just say that opinions are great but I prefer ones that are based on facts.

An opinion without facts is like a GPS that has lost its signal. It’s still shouting ‘Turn Right!’ with absolute authority, even though you’re currently driving through a cornfield and the road ended three miles ago.

That is the purpose of this uninstaller performance comparison: I want to objectively test different Windows uninstaller programs to gather facts about their efficiency, so you can form your opinions based on facts.

I do not care what these programs say about what they do, what features they say they have, how pretty the user interfaces look or any of that. I am only focusing on the facts.

And speaking of facts, I need to again start by being very clear about the fact that I’m the developer of Uninstalr, it is one of the uninstallers being tested in this study. 

That is why, I have done these tests in a way you can validate results yourself. More on that later.

The following Windows uninstaller programs were tested:

Program	Version
Revo Uninstaller	2.6.8
Revo Uninstaller Pro	5.4.7
Geek Uninstaller	1.5.3 (build 170)
BCUninstaller	6.1.0.0
HiBit Uninstaller	4.0.10
Uninstall Tool (CrystalIDEA)	3.8.1 (build 5740)
Total Uninstall Professional Edition	7.6.2
Wise Program Uninstaller Free	3.2.8.272
Uninstalr	3.0

All of these programs were the latest versions at the time of this test being conducted (26th March 2026). They were downloaded from their official websites, except for HiBit Uninstaller which was downloaded from a third party website because its official website seemed to be offline.  

These programs were selected because they seem to represent the most popular Windows uninstallers according to my research (read: browsing Reddit and talking to ChatGPT).

Naturally, I wish I could include every single app for this type of testing, but I frankly don’t have the time. In fact, I wish I was outside in the forest right now. But here I am, indoors, typing this.

Test 1: Portable Software and Leftovers Detection Accuracy

In a VirtualBox virtual machine, a freshly installed Windows 11 was prepared with all the latest updates installed. The latest version of Notepad++ portable is downloaded from its official website and Brave Portable from https://portapps.io/app/brave-portable/

Notepad++ and Brave browsers were chosen, because they are very popular software people commonly use as portable apps.

The portable Notepad++ is prepared by unzipping its official distribution file to the system’s Downloads folder, and the Brave Portable is installed using its installer with the default settings.

After this, the latest version of CCleaner is downloaded from its official website, it is installed, opened one time and then uninstalled from the Windows Settings Installed Apps. CCleaner was chosen for this test, as it always brings me joy to uninstall CCleaner.

Each of the tested uninstaller is run one by one to see which of them are able to detect Notepad++ portable, Brave portable and the leftovers of CCleaner.

The results are as follows. Just look at that beautiful, unified wall of ‘No.’ It’s like asking a room full of teenagers to take out the trash.

Program	Detects Notepad++ Portable	Detects Brave Portable	Detects CCleaner Leftovers
Revo Uninstaller	No	No	No
Revo Uninstaller Pro	No	No	No
Geek Uninstaller	No	No	No
BCUninstaller	No	No	No
HiBit Uninstaller	No	No	No
Uninstall Tool (CrystalIDEA)	No	No	No
Total Uninstall Professional Edition	No	No	No
Wise Program Uninstaller Free	No	No	No
Uninstalr	Yes	Yes	Yes

Only Uninstalr was able to detect both of the portable software as well as the leftovers from CCleaner. 

Also, I think I need to point out that there is great irony about CCleaner’s own uninstaller leaving leftovers. You know, CCleaner, the program that was supposed to help you with leftovers, is itself leaving leftovers. Sometimes these bad jokes just write themselves. 

If you want to see this test as a video, it is available on Youtube

Test 2: Software Uninstallation Accuracy

In a VirtualBox virtual machine, a freshly installed Windows 11 was prepared with all the latest updates installed. Adobe Creative Cloud and Discord were installed from their official websites. Steam was also installed, and a Steam game called Bongo Cat.

Adobe Creative Cloud was chosen, as it was identified by ChatGPT as a software that people often struggle to uninstall. Discord was chosen because it’s popular and Bongo Cat because cats make every scientific and unscientific study inherently better.

After this, WinFindr was used with search terms:

• Adobe
• Creative
• Bongo
• Discord

For transparency, I need to again mention that WinFindr is also a software that I develop. It’s a free data search tool for Windows. I used it in this test because, obviously, I think it’s brilliant, but also because it’s the only software that I’m aware of that can do this type of search of the filesystem and the system registry using multiple search terms at the same time and with a support for exporting the results as a nice HTML report.

WinFindr found 406 matching items. That is, files, folders, registry entries and registry keys. This is a good estimate of how much data the installation of these three apps created to the system.

A system snapshot was created, each uninstaller was tested by uninstalling Adobe Creative Cloud, Discord and Bongo Cat, after which WinFindr was again used with the same search settings to find out how many leftovers remained after the uninstallation.

The results are as follows, sorted by accuracy. 

Program	Leftovers remaining after	Accuracy
Uninstalr	23	94.33%
HiBit Uninstaller	41	89.90%
Total Uninstall Professional Edition	57	85.96%
Geek Uninstaller	127	68.72%
Revo Uninstaller	143	64.78%
Revo Uninstaller Pro	150	63.05%
Wise Program Uninstaller Free	151	62.81%
BCUninstaller	157	61.33%
Windows Settings	165	59.36%
Uninstall Tool (CrystalIDEA)	n/a (crashes)	0%

All the third party uninstallers were run with their most aggressive settings, asking them to delete everything they thought could be a leftover. Some of them, such as BCUninstaller warned against removing all of the potential leftovers as it could be dangerous, but it was still done nevertheless.

My opinion is that this type of testing should be performed using the default uninstallation settings, as those are clearly the recommended settings from the developers of these products. Especially since some of the software, such as Uninstalr, doesn’t offer any kind of extra aggressive cleaning functionality and this type of testing favors software that offer such features.

It was not possible to test Uninstall Tool, because it crashed every time when it was opened. I tried to run it multiple times but it failed every time.

If you want to see this test as a video, it is available on Youtube

Test 3: Damaged Software Uninstallation

A fairly common problem many users have experienced is a case where the default uninstaller of some software fails which can then prevent this software from being uninstalled. This is the type of problem that leads many people to try third party uninstallers to begin with.

This situation was simulated in a controlled manner by installing Corel PDF Fusion. This software was chosen, because its installer has a curious feature of letting you know whether it thinks the software is already installed and this check seems to be very sensitive about any leftovers from old installed versions.

In a VirtualBox virtual machine, a freshly installed Windows 11 was prepared with all the latest updates installed. Corel PDF Fusion was installed and then its setup files were removed from its installation directory. This essentially breaks the program’s ability to uninstall itself. This was done to create a situation where a software uninstallation fails.

Then, each of the third party uninstallers was run and asked to uninstall Corel PDF Fusion. After which, Corel PDF Fusion’s installer was run to see whether it detects itself still being installed on the system.

Let’s see how well our candid group of uninstallers can handle such a case. 

Program	Can uninstall Corel PDF Fusion when its own uninstaller does not work
Revo Uninstaller	No
Revo Uninstaller Pro	No
Geek Uninstaller	No
BCUninstaller	No
HiBit Uninstaller	No
Uninstall Tool (CrystallIDEA)	No
Total Uninstall Professional Edition	Yes
Wise Program Uninstaller Free	No
Uninstalr	Yes
Windows Settings	No

The results are rather disappointing with almost every single third party uninstaller failing to uninstall Corel PDF Fusion when its own uninstaller fails to run.

It seems that a lot of these uninstallers are heavily relying on the software’s own uninstaller to do most of the heavy lifting for them. It’s like hiring a premium moving company, only to have them stand in your driveway holding clipboards while watching you carry your own couch down the stairs.

If you want to see this test as a video, it is available on Youtube

Summary

With the risk of sounding like a broken record, I need to again declare for transparency that I am the developer of Uninstalr, one of the software uninstallers that was tested here. So, obviously, you should take all this with a huge pinch of salt.

In fact, I originally got interested in this niche of third party software uninstallers for Windows because I investigated how well they performed and was shocked how poorly they worked. That is why I decided to develop Uninstalr myself. That was in 2023.

Unfortunately, it seems like not a lot has changed with these uninstallers since. Their performance still leaves a lot to be desired.

And yes, I know some of these programs have a cult-like following. Emphasis on the word cult. 

Whenever you see a discussion online about Windows uninstallers, these people will be there saying things like “I have been using [program name] for years and have never had any problems with it!” – which makes sense if we consider the results of this testing: most of these programs do barely anything. If a program doesn’t do much of anything, obviously one can be using it for years without any problems!

I like to compare Uninstalr to a traditional safety razor. It’s designed for a close shave, but it requires a quite bit of respect – if you aren’t careful, you might nick yourself. That’s Uninstalr. Most other uninstallers are like the plastic toy razors you give a child. They’re perfectly ‘safe’ and fun to play with, but they’ll never actually give you a clean face because, at the end of the day, they aren’t designed to cut anything. That is why a lot of people are vocal how they have been using these for years without any problems. Of course there is a very low risk of any problems, when they barely do anything.

Since I’m the developer of Uninstalr, I’m not asking you to believe these results at face value. In fact, I’m telling you right now: Do not believe things you read online!

But look at the data, see how these tests were carried out and do your own testing. Or – even better – send this to your favorite content creator and ask them to do this type of testing and publish those results. 

Why is it that when any piece of new PC hardware gets released, there are many independent reviews and benchmarks about it, but we have nothing similar when it comes to software?

All these tests were performed with a screen recording software running the entire time, without any interruptions or cuts. All the materials, including the software themselves, my original notes from the testing and the raw screen recordings are available for anyone to view and verify from my Google Drive folder

The more we test and benchmark these programs, the better chances there are that they will improve. The more we share “i have been using diz for years and never had any problems”, the more of the same barely working plastic toy razors we are going to get. 

That is my goal and my hidden agenda with these studies: better software uninstallers for Windows users. It’s 2026. Properly uninstalling apps from Windows should not be this difficult anymore.