CCleaner


CCleaner, developed by Piriform, is a utility used to clean potentially unwanted files and invalid Windows Registry entries from a computer. It is one of the longest-established system cleaners, first launched in 2004. It was originally developed for Microsoft Windows only, but in 2012, a macOS version was released.
CCleaner has been reviewed by Chip.de, TechRadar, PC Magazine, and TechRepublic.

Features

CCleaner can delete potentially unwanted files left by certain programs, including Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Windows Media Player, eMule, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Microsoft Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, McAfee, Adobe Flash Player, Sun Java, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and GIMP along with browsing history, cookies, recycle bin, memory dumps, file fragments, log files, system caches, application data, autocomplete form history, and various other data. The program includes a registry cleaner to locate and correct problems in the Windows registry, such as missing references to shared DLLs, unused registration entries for file extensions, and missing references to application paths. CCleaner 2.27 and later can wipe the MFT free space of a drive, or the entire drive.
CCleaner can uninstall programs or modify the list of programs that execute on startup. Since version 2.19, CCleaner can delete Windows System Restore points.

History

CCleaner was first launched in 2004 for Microsoft Windows. It remained a Windows-only utility until 2012. On 2 June 2011, Piriform announced a public beta test program for CCleaner for Mac. The Mac version graduated to the test stage on 30 January 2012.
A commercial Network Edition was also introduced. Piriform released CCleaner for Android in 2014.

Critical reception

editors gave the application a rating of 5/5 stars, calling it a 'must-have tool'. It was awarded Editor's Choice Award in April 2009 by CNET. In 2016 Piriform announced 2 billion CCleaner downloads worldwide In January 2014 it had been the most popular software on FileHippo for more than a year, and had a 5-star editor's rating on Softpedia. Softmany select as featured App and give 5 star to it is an outstanding utility to free up hard disk space from unnecessary data. CCleaner has been reviewed by Chip.de, TechRadar, PC Magazine and TechRepublic.

Data collection

Upon its release, the Active Monitoring component of CCleaner 5.45 incorporated a data collection module that collected information from computers without the consent of their owners. Piriform claims that it did not collect personally identifiable information. After criticism later versions allowed data collection to be controlled separately by the user, although data collection is still on by default.

Bundled software

In December 2018, it was reported that users installing CCleaner would also have Avast antivirus installed without their permission, with TechSpot claiming this arguably made CCleaner no better than the malware it was supposed to defend against. Piriform denied this.

Malware infection

After Piriform was acquired by Avast, in September 2017, CCleaner 5.33 was compromised by the incorporation into the distributed program of the Floxif trojan horse that could install a backdoor, enabling remote access to 2.27 million infected machines. Forty of the infected machines received a second-stage payload that appears to have targeted technology companies Samsung, Sony, Asus, Intel, VMWare, O2, Singtel, Gauselmann, Dyn, Chunghwa and Fujitsu. On 13 September, Piriform released CCleaner 5.34 and CCleaner Cloud 1.07.3191, without the malicious code.
On 21 October 2019, Avast disclosed a second security breach during which hackers tried again to insert malware inside CCleaner releases. This attempt was unsuccessful.