If you use CCleaner, beware! The app is no longer the one you knew. Recent reports on the internet accuse Piriform (a subsidiary of Avast) of adding “malware,” ads, and more.
The CCleaner app is available in free and paid versions across all Windows, Mac, and mobile platforms.
For those who don’t know, CCleaner is a utility used to clean up junk files (temporary files stored from the internet) and invalid entries in the Windows registry.
But with the release of the latest version 5.45, CCleaner states in the changelog that it has added a feature that will send Piriform “more detailed reports for bug fixes and product improvement.”
Apparently, those who read the changelog are not at all satisfied with the change that allows data collection.
In May, the CCleaner application had stated that it would only collect anonymous data from users who have installed the free version, giving users the ability to disable the feature.
However, the latest update (v5.45) of the free version of the application, the feature is impossible to stop working. CCleaner’s AMH (from Active Monitoring and heartbeat) and privacy settings have been removed from the options of the free version of the program.
What is quite worrying is that through Active Monitoring, the company added data interception software (spyware) to the application to anonymously monitor usage analytics, in order to notify users when unwanted files are detected!
According to the app's developer, heartbeat sends "completely non-personal, non-identifiable usage information to improve CCleaner."
The paradox? You can still disable "Enable system monitoring" and "Enable active monitoring" in Options > Monitoring. But after a program restart or after your system reboots, the features are re-enabled.
Also, if you click the x icon to close CCleaner, the software does not close. The app continues to run continuously in the background for most users and regularly sends its reports to Piriform.
___________________________
- Document Foundation: The response to the iGuRu.gr publication
- Hashcat 4.2.0: The Fastest Password Cracker
