CCleaner- Virtually Unstoppable!!

[Dynamic Mike]

I've been using CCleaner as long as I can remember. However since it was aquired by Avast it's gone steadily downhill & become increasingly invasive. The little pop-up didn't bother me unduly as it was mildly irritating but harmless adware. But the two latest releases have included 'active monitoring' which runs all the time & sends data back to Avast. So no big deal I thought, just untick 'active monitoring' in settings and it'll be business as usual. Except it isn't. Task Manager shows it's still running in the background, and Avast admit that stopping it in Task Manager is the only way to stop it running & that you'll need to do this everytime you run it! Not only that but it re-installs itself in the start-up list each time you reboot.

Avast's 'justification' for adding active monitoring is that users pleaded with them to incude it as apparently giving them all your data & the condition of your PC allows them to improve the next release. Just something you might want to be aware of next time you share your browsing data with Avast.

[The Elf]

I use CCleaner and have switched off its active monitoring. I don't see anything running in background?

[Dynamic Mike]

Avast's response is here https://tinyurl.com/yaktlazv if you're not affected I'd suggest not upgrading for a while. I get a little CC icon above the ^ icon on the taskbar & it says 'active monitoring' if you hover over it . The only way to clear it is in task manager. Until the next time.

https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/ne ... n-ccleaner

Edit: I've just clicked on 'check for upgrades' & it seems to take me back a few versions??? I'll try it out tomorrow.

[ef37a]

I have version 5.41.6446 and get the reminder every time I use it. I use I rarely these days however, the occasional Registry sweep if I feel there is a problem, been handy to uninstall things that don't show in Revo (why BTW?)

I have read that Registry cleaners do no good and can do harm? All I can say is that Cc has fixed things once in a bluey and never seems to do any harm. I always make a backup of the Registry data.

It is, IMHO a shame now that we only learn of these problems as they pop up on forums and if it is NOT SoS forum I take no action from anyone else!

Dave.

[Folderol]

During my (brief) use of Widows95 I discovered there was a command line program for fixing Windows registry issues. It came on a floppy, which auto-booted at power on. It not only did a very thorough scan of the registry and filebase, but also finished up with a defrag. Sorry, I can't remember what it was called, and don't know if anything like that still exists.

[mick.n]

Same thing happening here . Another problem that has just appeared a few days ago is a conflict with Kaspersky. Ccleaner crashes when loading unless I disable Kaspersky.

Looking for a replacement for Ccleaner.

[Dynamic Mike]

Brief update. I've updated v5.45.6611 using 'check for updates' & now have v5.44.6575 which suggests it's more of a downdate than an update!

As suggested on another forum I unticked 'automatically check for updates' when installing and hey presto, unticking 'active monitoring' seems to actually turn it off, and it appears to stay turned off when you re-open it. It's also removed itself from the start-up menu, although I haven't rebooted yet.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I trust it yet, but it's promising.

[Martin Walker]

Brief update. I've updated v5.45.6611 using 'check for updates' & now have v5.44.6575 which suggests it's more of a downdate than an update!

As suggested on another forum I unticked 'automatically check for updates' when installing and hey presto, unticking 'active monitoring' seems to actually turn it off, and it appears to stay turned off when you re-open it. It's also removed itself from the start-up menu, although I haven't rebooted yet.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I trust it yet, but it's promising.

I found exactly the same thing - I was on 5.45.6611 until this morning, and having to remove it via Task Manager after each use, but as you say, the web site now suggests an upgrade to an earlier 5.44.6575 version, which arrives with monitoring inactive, and politely removes itself properly when you exit the utility.

Sometimes software companies DO bow to public pressure!

Martin

[OneWorld]

Seems like it needs monitoring itself for any nosey parkering it does.

When I did the update and found it had changed somewhat, I rolled back an image and that image has the older version on

One thing that puzzles me is that I use 2 cleaners - cCleaner and System Ninja, and both seem to find different results. I don't think there's any cleaner that purges the PC of junk and bungs it in a black hole never to be seen again

[Dynamic Mike]

Sometimes software companies DO bow to public pressure!

Martin

So it seems! And all credit to them for listening & doing the decent thing. There are probably people who think active monitoring is a good idea & will leave it switched on.

I currently have 32 background processes running & 74 windows processes. Some of these I know I don't need running (eg Xperia companion service) but most of them I have no idea how they got there or what they do. They use about 13% of memory but the CPU is flat-lining at 0% so I'm guessing I should leave well alone?

[Martin Walker]

I currently have 32 background processes running & 74 windows processes. Some of these I know I don't need running (eg Xperia companion service) but most of them I have no idea how they got there or what they do. They use about 13% of memory but the CPU is flat-lining at 0% so I'm guessing I should leave well alone?

I suspect it's safer to leave them active unless you know exactly what they are doing, in which case it's probably safe to remove them if you don't need the function they were performing.

I started doing this many years ago when I discovered that the printer I was using at the time ran a service simply to check printer ink levels. Given that I only plugged in and switched on the printer once every few weeks this seemed a totally unneccesary routine!

Martin

[Folderol]

The trouble with unknown background processes is that they might simply decide to do something just as your CPU uses is peaking.

That applies on any OS of course.

[Martin Walker]

I was on 5.45.6611 until this morning, and having to remove it via Task Manager after each use, but as you say, the web site now suggests an upgrade to an earlier 5.44.6575 version, which arrives with monitoring inactive, and politely removes itself properly when you exit the utility.

Sometimes software companies DO bow to public pressure!

So it's sad to report that CCleaner 5.44.6575 now seems to have a 50/50 chance of crashing on my PC when you click on its Run Cleaner button, hanging with 'Internet Explorer History' displayed in its main area (even though I never use Internet Explorer)

Martin

[Dynamic Mike]

Have you tried unticking Internet Explorer in the CCleaner options?

[Martin Walker]

Have you tried unticking Internet Explorer in the CCleaner options?

Yep - then it tends to lock up on the next named browser

Correction: it does eventually continue on its merry way after four or five seconds, but the more recent versions simply do the job properly without any waits (but we abandoned that one because of its behind-the-scenes activity )

Martin

[IvanSC]

Alternative solution to this is to dump Avast entirely. I briefly moved to it when AVG started getting a little too interruption-prone, only to find that Avast slowly but surely got worse.

[ramthelinefeed]

Windows 10 auto-uninstalls CCleaner as crap ware,
and these days, Windows' own 'Drive Cleaner' has improved so much that I don't think CCleaner is necessary any more.

[Drew Stephenson]

Odd, it doesn't on either of my machines.

[Dynamic Mike]

Windows 10 auto-uninstalls CCleaner as crap ware

It doesn't for me. But I'm suprised it doesn't because CCleaner lets you uninstall Windows own crapware that Windows only lets you 'suspend' or hide & then often temporarily.

[OneWorld]

Windows 10 auto-uninstalls CCleaner as crap ware,
and these days, Windows' own 'Drive Cleaner' has improved so much that I don't think CCleaner is necessary any more.

I'm tending to find the same, I hardly use CC now, it was good while it lasted but like so many wheel makers, once you've had the concept, realised it designed and built it, what else do you do with it, put pink furry hubcaps on it and have the user report back every time it does a revolution?

[The Elf]

I've just set up my new laptop and installed CCleaner. I just set it to not use active monitoring and I stopped it running on start-up. Job done. Nothing seems to have changed from what I can see.

[Martin Walker]

Hi The Elf!

The offending version was 5.45.6611, with me having to remove it via Task Manager after each use, but the web site then suggested 'upgrading' to an earlier 5.44.6575 version, which arrives with monitoring inactive, and politely removes itself properly when you exit the utility.

I've just downloaded, installed and run the latest freeware 5.47.6716 version, and this also behaves properly as you say.

Result!

Martin

[The Elf]

Phew! Glad I dodged that version then!

I did notice that CCleaner tried to sneak Avast in as part of the installation. Hmmm...

[Martin Walker]

I did notice that CCleaner tried to sneak Avast in as part of the installation. Hmmm...

Yep, it's been having a sly go at installing 3rd party stuff for a while now - you have to keep your eyes peeled

Martin

[ef37a]

Son has not had his new lappy five minutes but he says the HDD is getting stuffed already!

I understand Cc has a duplicate file finder but I am loathe to put it on his W10 machine, any other safe solutions please?

Dave.