CCleaner is one of the programs that many consider essential. That’s because for years, when Piriform was the creator and manager of the software, it was the best program we could find to clean and optimize any Windows PC. However, since Avast got hold of it, this software has only gotten worse in every way. From the first version that was released with the program, which hid a dangerous backdoor, until today, when this software has more malware characteristics than a reliable and recommended program.
The reasons this software fell into decline are obvious: greed. After paying a large amount of money for it, the company tried to find a way to amortize its cost in the shortest possible time. And that has led him to make decisions that have only served so that the software not only ceases to be an essential program for PC, but it is even one of those that we must uninstall as soon as possible, if we are concerned about our privacy and the performance of our PC.
Advertising, collection and sale of your data
As part of its monetization, Avast began to secretly install its antivirus along with this program, changing the security software of users without permission, an act, of course, unforgivable. And not only the antivirus, but it has also started to install other unwanted software (such as unknown browsers) alongside the optimizer. Everything can be disabled during installation, but if we trust the program, it sneaks it up on us. You also have to remember the banners that appear all the time promoting other products of this company.
In addition, for some time now, the program has been collecting a good amount of data. And it only allows you to disable such collection to paying users. The data, they say, is anonymous, despite carrying a unique identifier that can easily be used to identify us. If the data that is collected were for internal use, not much would happen. However, as released in August 2018, installing this software implies accepting terms and conditions that allow the company to share the information collected with third-party companies that are “not part of the Avast Group” , literally.
More and more features are paid in CCleaner Pro
CCleaner has never been a totally free program. Since its inception, this software has been Freemium, since it had a free version, and a “Pro” with functions specially designed for more advanced users. What happens is that this “Pro” version, for a fee, only blocked some optional functions of the program, it never affected its basic operation.
Since Avast took over the reins of this program, more and more options have become limited. If we do not pay, we cannot use the PC Health Check , or update the software installed on the PC, or perform a complete cleaning of the system. Features that should be available today make the free version of CCleaner nothing more than an incomplete “demo”.
Unnecessary background processes
If the objective of a program is to clean and optimize the PC, it is about making it as invisible as possible. After carrying out its work, it closes and is waiting for us to run it again. Unless, voluntarily, we activate a service or programming.
Version 5.74 of this program, released in November 2020, does the opposite. This version includes a process called CCleaner64.exe that is constantly running on Windows. This process is related to Avast telemetry, and consumes both memory and CPU of our computer.
There are excellent free alternatives to CCleaner
Is there a reason to install CCleaner on Windows? Absolutely none. And to delete it? Many, as we have seen. And one more that we can add to the list is the large number of alternatives to CCleaner to clean Windows that we can find on the net.
Starting with the Windows Storage Sensor . This tool comes standard with Windows 10, and allows us to analyze the system, detect junk and unnecessary files, and delete them. It is true that it only applies to the operating system and does not touch temporary files of other programs, such as browsers. But to keep the PC optimized it is, without a doubt, one of the best options.
In addition, we can also find many other programs, such as BleachBit or Glary Utilities , which will allow us to optimize and clean Windows much better.
