Ccleaner compromised to distribute malware

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Again, people are quoting me and not telling me WHY IS IT BAD?

 

[DarthDub]

Again, people are quoting me and not telling me WHY IS IT BAD?

Could you stop being offtopic please? This is about CCleaner not Avast.

 

[AbyssalMonkey]

Could you stop being offtopic please? This is about CCleaner not Avast.

Honestly, it's clearly related with the

Ccleaner was bought by Avast, amd a month after it was infected

I don't like Avast, hate it

I stopped using Avast a long time ago.

Avast lol, they suck.

Avast...I always knew this would happen ; P

Floxif... Avast... C&C... Trojan...

Your defense of "don't talk about it, it doesn't have any relation" is wholly off point. Why don't you go yelling about it to other people who made 'unrelated comments'

 

[brickmii82]

I thought Ccleaner was for registry stuff. Never used it.

 

[Byokugen]

Again, people are quoting me and not telling me WHY IS IT BAD?

It's shady business with Avast. They had a lot of controversy attached.
When they started, they logged your pc usage and send it who knows where, there was even a key logger. And virus identification, was almost none, some already stated, Avast was cleaning what ever he thought it was a virus. Had major ingame lag, i have no idea why
Oh, almost forgot "virus signature has been updated"
That speech....

 

[Futurdreamz]

Honestly at this point pretty much every third-party maintenance/security program is irrelevent, Windows 10 does a pretty good job of maintaining itself. This is actually pretty good evidence that "if it isn't broke don't fix it" is TERRIBLE advice when applied to computers. For years and years people had been advocating CCleaner and all sort of programs to maintain your system, when in reality all they do is be redundant and increase your vulnerability envelope.

 

[Localhorst86]

Oh I remember this tool from my youth where I thought it makes any difference. I have not been using the tool for almost a decade now, I have no need for useless software that pretends to do meaningfull stuff.

 

[brickmii82]

Again, what the hell was Ccleaner for?

I use Kaspersky, no issues since 09 when I learned about them.

 

[Jayro]

Is there a reason not to?

Well yeah, I got some nasty malware last week that completely locked defender behind some group policies, and nothing I did to fix it worked. Ended up reinstalling Windows because of a really nasty rootkit and some trojans.

(the risks of software downloads from dodgy Russian sites.) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Again, what the hell was Ccleaner for?

I use Kaspersky, no issues since 09 when I learned about them.

Ccleaner isn't for virus or malware removal, but disk cleanup to give you space back, and to unclutter and fix registry errors. It clears caches of Windows temp, apps, recycle bin, old windows installs (windows.old), etc.

 

[the_randomizer]

Well yeah, I got some nasty malware last week that completely locked defender behind some group policies, and nothing I did to fix it worked. Ended up reinstalling Windows because of a really nasty rootkit and some trojans.

(the risks of software downloads from dodgy Russian sites.) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Ccleaner isn't for virus or malware removal, but disk cleanup to give you space back, and to unclutter and fix registry errors. It clears caches of Windows temp, apps, recycle bin, old windows installs (windows.old), etc.

Never trusted registry cleaning, it's a potentially risky thing to have software do it for you.

 

[RY0M43CH1Z3N]

Never trusted registry cleaning, it's a potentially risky thing to have software do it for you.

Without the acknoledge that what are you doing better not use it. You can crack some in your OS or some applications.

 

[Localhorst86]

Again, what the hell was Ccleaner for?

I use Kaspersky, no issues since 09 when I learned about them.

CCleaner is nothing but snake oil.

 

[Byokugen]

CCleaner is nothing but snake oil.

Well not really. It cleans a lot of junk you dont need. Temporary files and stuff. If you are scared to touch temp files in windows, appdata folder, it's ideal for ya. Registry cleaning can be avoided if you are scared.

 

[Localhorst86]

Well not really. It cleans a lot of junk you dont need. Temporary files and stuff. If you are scared to touch temp files in windows, appdata folder, it's ideal for ya. Registry cleaning can be avoided if you are scared.

There are on-board tools that come with windows that will clear temporary data. No need for a third party tool to do that.

The claim that cleaning your registry will make your PC faster in any noticeable way can be counted as FUD which makes the registry cleaner part of CCleaner snake oil. Cleaning your registry is almost never needed unless you're using your system wrong.

 

[linuxares]

There are on-board tools that come with windows that will clear temporary data. No need for a third party tool to do that.

The claim that cleaning your registry will make your PC faster in any noticeable way can be counted as FUD which makes the registry cleaner part of CCleaner snake oil. Cleaning your registry is almost never needed unless you're using your system wrong.

You are both in the wrong and the right!

Today, no. You're harddrives are SSD and blazing fast. What mostly can cause issues today with a registry is uninstalled junk left in the registry. It's not a major issue, but doesn't hurt to clean it sometime, most of the time you will wipe your harddrive before this even being an issue.

But in the past, with XP and below. Yes, a registry cleaner was a very useful tool. Those windows versions where terrible with their registry setups and could actually slow down your computer a lot because there can be loads of junk left in the start etc. that haven't been removed properly. Mechnical drives was the biggest factor.

 

[FAST6191]

Again, people are quoting me and not telling me WHY IS IT BAD?

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/08/bofh_2014_episode_11/
Covers how antivirus goes in the real world. All brands, all types.

By and large if you get a virus on your machine you have failed long before then, and anti virus is mainly there as it might sort of help, maybe and your machine should hopefully be powerful enough that you don't notice it running in the background. It was quite useful in the 90s before we all got networked machines and things transferred on floppy discs, once the internet started rising it was almost essential, ever since the virus writers got better at their trade (if you get someone writing one virus it was OK, polymorphic code, virus generation kits and compiler level obfuscation gets invented and they had no hope of keeping up any more) the AV companies were fighting a losing battle even if they were vaguely competent (a big ask in that world).

 

[Localhorst86]

You are both in the wrong and the right!

Today, no. You're harddrives are SSD and blazing fast. What mostly can cause issues today with a registry is uninstalled junk left in the registry. It's not a major issue, but doesn't hurt to clean it sometime, most of the time you will wipe your harddrive before this even being an issue.

But in the past, with XP and below. Yes, a registry cleaner was a very useful tool. Those windows versions where terrible with their registry setups and could actually slow down your computer a lot because there can be loads of junk left in the start etc. that haven't been removed properly. Mechnical drives was the biggest factor.

Again, the claim that the registry needs to be cleaned at some point is a myth. SSD or HDD performance doesn't matter at all here.

If it wasn't snake oil there would be serious benchmark tests and objective results. Fact is, there aren't. All "benchmarks" comparing startup times between registry cleaners are almost universaly done by companies providing these cleaners. And always *their* cleaner will perform better than <insertcompetitorhere>. Just see here: https://www.macecraft.com/registry-cleaner-benchmark-study/. Of course their benchmark results will tell you that suddenly Windows boots 50% faster whereas their competitor, CCleaner only shaves off a few seconds, if at all.

Your registry is a database containing hundreds of thousands of key entries, yet it will only clock in at a few dozen Megabytes (mine is now 5 years old, never cleaned and 135Mb in size). Even if your registry contained lots of orphaned keys. You won't be able to make a dent by reducing it's volume by a few dozen entries.
You will certainly not be able to fix any crashes by using a registry cleaner.

furhter reading (results obtained by googling for "registry cleaning benchmark")
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/registry-cleaner-difference/
https://www.howtogeek.com/171633/why-using-a-registry-cleaner-wont-speed-up-your-pc-or-fix-crashes/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registry_cleaner#Metrics_of_performance_benefit
https://bitsum.com/regcleanerfacts.php

 

[Futurdreamz]

You are both in the wrong and the right!

Today, no. You're harddrives are SSD and blazing fast. What mostly can cause issues today with a registry is uninstalled junk left in the registry. It's not a major issue, but doesn't hurt to clean it sometime, most of the time you will wipe your harddrive before this even being an issue.

But in the past, with XP and below. Yes, a registry cleaner was a very useful tool. Those windows versions where terrible with their registry setups and could actually slow down your computer a lot because there can be loads of junk left in the start etc. that haven't been removed properly. Mechnical drives was the biggest factor.

No. the biggest factor was that Windows XP allowed free access to the registry for all third-party programs. Windows 10 no longer allows that level of access.

Maybe long ago in the distant past CCleaner made some benefit, but nowadays it is nothing more then snake oil

 

[Byokugen]

I have never stated that registry cleaning will speed up pc...

 

[the_randomizer]

Well not really. It cleans a lot of junk you dont need. Temporary files and stuff. If you are scared to touch temp files in windows, appdata folder, it's ideal for ya. Registry cleaning can be avoided if you are scared.

I'd rather trust manual cleaning than some program cleaning it for me and removing something that's vital and forcing a complete reinstall. And yes CCleaner did do that to me once a long time ago. Very rarely do you have to clean the registry and even then, benefits are minimal at best.