For a long time now, we've been warning our readers to steer clear of Avast. Avast seems to want to play games with user settings, install unwanted extra software, and continually prod user to update to the paid version of the software – sometimes even resorting to popups.
CCleaner was a good program with little controversy surrounding it until Avast bought Piriform (CCleaner) and it's all been downhill since.
Bleeping Computer wrote a very interesting article about CCleaner forcing users to update to the latest version even when users turned off "automatic updates".
If you're using CCleaner or considering installing it, you'll want to read the Bleeping Computer article. We think getting rid of it is the best way to tell Avast what you think.
Reports are coming in that Piriform is forcing CCleaner to update to the latest 5.46 version even when users had configured the program to not perform automatic updates. To make matters worse, once the users were upgraded to the latest version, their privacy settings were reverted to default, which is to allow anonymous usage data to be sent to Avast/Piriform.
This was first reported on September 6th at Piriform's forum, where users stated that their installed versions of CCleaner were being updated to 5.4.6 even after disabling automatic updates. This was later confirmed in a post to our forums.
…As a test, I downloaded and installed the Slim version of CCleaner 5.37 that we host at BleepingComputer.com.
During the setup procedure, I configured the program to not automatically check for new updates. Even with that setting disabled, CCupdate.exe was automatically executed by the installer and CCleaner was updated to version 5.46 before I could even start the program.
As a matter of interest I deleted C Cleaner a couple of months ago.
Have been using Registry Organiser (Cleaner) since with no issues. Some time ago I purchased a lifetime key from Cloud Eight for this product.
In all the years I have followed and supported Cloudeight, thousands of tips and tricks from your good selves, freebies, do and don't suggestions relating to a plethora of snake-oil programs, hacks, spam, trojans, the good,the bad and the ugly of the Internet.
Advice from TC & Darcy – EB hah,never were the two of you behind the eight ball.
CloudEight, the best site on the Internet within the massive boundaries of your field.
CCleaner, Avast, years ago a massive No-No toward Incredimail from Perion in Egypt …. the memory is alive….so are the emails from one long time friend, butterflies, dolls and a swinging monkey…. YUCK !!
Now to the main subject, Privazer, free, a hard-working USA individual who produced the program many years ago, and the best tool in my tool-box to Clean Up The Massive Mess In Computers Today.
When will you promote Privazer from Goversoft.
It kills CCleaner … snake-oil fake tool.
Privazer, time to give an honest American, some accolades for a superior program.
Without prejudice you disagree with many of my comments, and, sure, I look beyond the horizon and see a different scenario compared to the CloudEight vision.
I also have the ability to assess great programs, test and use them.
A response RE: Privazer will be appreciated.
I've never been impressed with Privazer, Jon. I will give it another test when I get a chance.
I got an email for credit karma saying I had a breach. They put the word "Avast" as the breach. I have never used Avast on this computer and never referred to it. Is this a scam of sorts?
I would bet the email didn't come from Credit karma and in fact is a phishing email made to look like it came from Credit Karma. I hope you didn't click any links in that email.
I too switched from being a long-time dedicated CCleaner user to Privazer. I'm still not comfortable with the settings in Privazer yet. Everytime it ran, it cleaned things too well, e.g. I use the OneTab extension in Chrome and it erased all my Tabs, so I won't use it again, at least until I research it further. At first glance, it doesn't seem too complicated, but as you drill down there are more and more settings to review.
I got rid of Avast and just use Windows Defender. As for CCleaner which is owned by Avast and updates come with a little square (already ticked) to download Avast again if you have removed it. You will ever only leave this tick in once before they carry you away screaming. So I use CCleaner Portable 64 which does me fine.
Always use the Avast Removal tool otherwise other removers leave lots of files and registry entries.