We surmise the issue appears to be around bundling, and we believe we have addressed this so that our product is now no longer flagged.” Often, these matters are down to the way the options to opt out are presented.Īt any rate, according to a statement just released by CCleaner, the firm believes that the issue has been resolved.Ī CCleaner spokesperson told us: “We are in the process of engaging with Microsoft to understand why CCleaner was recently detected as PUA. The company observes that while the CCleaner installation process does provide a way to opt out of putting these extras on your PC, as you would expect, the judgment is that “some users can easily inadvertently install these bundled applications”. Microsoft further stresses that those bundled apps are perfectly fine and not in any way malicious, of course, but it’s the way that they are offered for installation which is problematic.

At one point in time it was something in everyone's toolkit, and now it's something best left alone.Those bundled apps include Google Chrome browser, Google Toolbar, and Avast Free Antivirus plus AVG Antivirus Free (note that Piriform is now owned by Avast, which also owns AVG too). I wouldn't recommend using the current stuff, a legacy version with no updater is your best bet if you wish to use CCleaner, or one of their competitors. Ignore this guy, this type of software is fine, and necessary for a whole lot of fixes, but this particular version? Not great.

It's padded with bloatware, likes to ignore permissions to spam you with their own browser and run at start up (Why would anyone need it always running lol), and hits you with passive aggressive spam ads.ĪND it's been infected numerous times on their host, both before and after their acquisition by Avast by malware, meaning their autoupdate has literally sent malware straight to people's PCs, AND the run at startup bullshit and high level access the software requires make that ridiculously dangerous. The problem with CCleaner is that it's a shit version of that software.

There are some botched uninstalls that are only possible with registry editing, and for most people that's going to be simpler with software, of course there are risks editting the registry, but nothing a reinstall of that program won't fix, and they are uncommon. Registry cleaning is in general a good process, as manually keeping track of and fixing registry issues is an enormous pain.

It will slow anything that requires recreating those temp files, but that is a normal part of computer operation. temp files are always being deleted and recreated.

Ccleaner safe reddit