For our April “Staff Pick” Project of the Month, we selected Bulk Crap Uninstaller, a free and open source program uninstaller that excels at removing large amounts of applications with minimal user input. We asked developer Marcin Szeniak to share some thoughts about the project’s history, purpose, and direction.
SourceForge (SF): What made you start this project?
Marcin Szeniak (MS): For quite a while I was fixing and upgrading PCs. Clients often didn’t want me to reinstall the OS, just remove any junk and malware. Needless to say it was a huge time sink. Since there was no free solution to this, and the commercial programs were either lackluster or bloated and expensive, I decided to write my own.
SF: Has the original vision been achieved?
MS: Yes. The ability to make a single list of common junk, load it up on client’s PC, and uninstall everything semi-automatically was a huge time saver – it allowed me to work on multiple machines at the same time (up to six or so, IIRC), and overall sped-up the process.
SF: Who can benefit the most from your project?
MS: PC fixers, administrators (I know of multiple classroom admins using BCU), and power users.
SF: What core need does BCU fulfill?
MS: Removal of large amounts of unwanted applications quickly and safely.
SF: What’s the best way to get the most out of using BCU?
MS: Read the readme 🙂
Uninstall lists are a big one. Many parts of BCU can also be used in batch scripts (e.g. Steam App and Windows Store App managers).
SF: Have you found that more frequent releases helps build up your community of users?
MS: Yes.
SF: What was the first big thing that happened for your project?
MS: Gaining a sizable user-base.
SF: What helped make that happen?
MS: Releasing BCU as open-source.
SF: How has SourceForge and its tools helped your project reach that success?
MS: I originally released BCU on SourceForge, and it helped (and continues to help) to reach large amounts of people.
SF: What is the next big thing for BCU?
MS: New community features, including an ability to comment on applications and to report undetected apps/leftovers, greatly speeding up the detection rate improvements.
SF: How long do you think that will take?
MS: Less than infinity.
SF: Do you have the resources you need to make that happen?
MS: At the moment I am low on time, so the progress is slow. Sadly the project is not getting many donations, which makes it hard to justify spending a lot of time on it.
SF: If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently for BCU?
MS: Write the GUI in WPF for better speed and looks.
AWESOME APP btw….
Pls have a list of donations on your site as to WHO have donated