My knees constantly crack and pop and crunch and I'm over it

Yeah, this is aging, it's gross and I'm totally against it. You may have some luck as others mentioned above with strengthening the rest of your legs to better support the joints. You'll want to work the ITB with a foam roller after workouts. Squats and deadlifts should not be making it worse unless there is something actually wrong with your joints and/or your form is suboptimal. Doing stuff that helps you find your center of gravity and balance when barefoot, like yoga, will also help to strengthen the inside and outside of your ankles, which will improve your gait and take some of the strain off your knees when walking or running. Core strength and lower back exercises will have similar results. I personally try not to do weighted squats with my knees at less than a 90 degree angle because it just feels wrong under my kneecaps. It can help to use a bench as a guide until you get used to automatically sensing the height you're aiming for.

Not your orthopedic doc, not anybody's orthopedic doc...and I suggest you go to one if you have concerns. That being said, I'm slightly familiar with ortho care and the doc in my area recommends this http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/PDFs/Rehab_Knee_6.pdf to his patients.

I saw an orthopedist and had a long stretch of PT for knee pain a few years ago. The advice was to lose weight and take up yoga. I've been struggling with the first part of that, but I did take up yoga and my knees are much, much better than they were. If I slack off and miss a few weeks, the pain starts to creep back up, so it's definitely about keeping up the stretching and strengthening.

My knees have cracked and popped my entire life with no associated pain. When I've brought it up with doctors and physical therapists they all say it's just the way I'm made. I lift heavy, run etc. If I had any associated pain I'd be concerned, but I don't. Bodies be weird, yo.

What helped me with knee pain was bike commuting; five miles each way several days a week. I think it gently strengthened the muscles around the knees so there was less pressure on the joint. Not sure if this is relevant to non-painful noisy knees.

I had a partner whose joints would creak, crack, and make crunchy noises. A few weeks after I started making him take halibut oil for his already diagnosed vitamin D deficiency that he wasn't treating, he came to me, and said - check this out! He waggled his wrists. No crunching. So yeah, halibut oil and cod liver oil are fish oils with Vitamin D, but if you don't need the D (and actually, most people do), we're back round to the fish oil craze, because Omega-3s are good for your joints. Just like the tinman. Humans need oils, and oiling. Huh. Go figure.

My PT and all of my trainers have said my sometimes crunchy knees are no big deal (they don't hurt). They are less crunchy when I am exercising a lot and on the lighter side of my normal weight range. Check with a doc or PT but it's probably normal if you aren't experiencing pain.

I also only do trap bar deadlifts as I feel this lessens my chances of overbalancing and twisting my knees, ymmv.

could just be air trapped in the joint (my hips do this all the time from a lot of martial arts, but its not due to an injury, however much the sound makes people cringe). or your cartilage is degrading, which it does gradually with age anyhow. take glucosamine chondroitin and MSM if you want to protect your cartilage. physical therapy can strengthen your VMO and quads and hips, and prevent knee injury/make the movement in the joint smoother. since you lift you may be doing some of this already. working on balance and core strength and hip stability/openness takes a load off the knees. the therapist i worked with after a knee injury had me doing unweighted squats, lots of terminal knee extensions, planks of various kinds, bridges while lying on my back, stepping down on one leg, and a sideways crabwalk thing with an elastic band around my ankles (for the hips).