Crap Cleaner Mac

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I’ve been using CCleaner for years on both my PC (HP laptop with Windows 10) and Mac (MacBook Pro with macOS 10.13 High Sierra). Above is the main screen of CCleaner on my Mac.

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization tool. That removes unused and temporary files from your system allowing it to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk. Aug 26, 2016  CCleaner for Mac scans your system to remove all kinds of files that can slow your Mac down and then removes the items you want. Through this. In the latter case it is quite necessary to clean out those junk files from your Mac for complete removal. For some novice users, they may have no idea how to remove CCleaner in a proper way. Even for the experienced users, they may also get lost when trying to uninstall a problematic, stubborn or even malicious application.

When I heard the news that the program had been hacked and more than 2 million users were at risk, I was absolutely shocked, just like you.

Mac

Am I affected? Should I continue using CCleaner? What’s the best alternative to consider? Questions like these all went through my mind.

In this post, I’ll quickly run through the issue and list a few similar cleaning tools for you to consider. Some of the alternatives are free, while others are paid. I’ll point out what each one has to offer and let you decide which is best.

Please note that you don’t have to switch because you may not be affected — but it’s always good to do the research just in case.

So, What Happened Exactly?

On September 18, 2017, researchers at Cisco Talos published a post stating that

“For a period of time, the legitimate signed version of CCleaner 5.33 being distributed by Avast also contained a multi-stage malware payload that rode on top of the installation of CCleaner.”

Two days later, those researchers posted another article with their continued research on C2 and payloads (i.e. a second payload was found that affected 64-bit Windows users).

The technical description was too complicated to understand. Simply put, the news is this: A hacker “breached CCleaner’s security to inject malware into the app and distribute it to millions of users”, as reported by The Verge.

The malware was built to steal users’ data. It did not actively harm your computer system. However, it did collect and encrypt info that might be used to do harm to your system in the future. The second payload Cisco Talos researchers discovered was a malware attack targeted against big technology organizations like Cisco, VMware, Samsung, and others.

Was I Affected by the Malware?

If you are using CCleaner for Mac, the answer is NO, you are NOT affected! Piriform also confirmed on this. See this reply on Twitter.

No, Mac is not affected 🙂

— CCleaner by Piriform (@piriform) September 22, 2017


If you’re using CCleaner on a Windows PC, then you may have been affected. More specifically, you might have the malware that affected version 5.33.6162 released on August 15th, 2017.

Only the 32-bit version of CCleaner v5.33.6162 was affected and the issue is no longer a threat. Please see here: https://t.co/HAHL12UnsK

— CCleaner by Piriform (@piriform) September 18, 2017


To check what version you have, simply open CCleaner on your computer. Under the program name, you’ll see the version number.

Should I Switch to Another Cleaning Program?

If you’re on Windows, you might want to.

Computer Cleaner Mac

Cisco Talos recommends affected users to restore Windows to a state before Aug 15. Alternatively, you might also reinstall the whole Windows operating system.

If you’re not affected by the malware, I highly recommend you run an antivirus scan with Bitdefender or MalwareBytes to make sure no malicious software.

For those who are skeptical about any future CCleaner issues, another option is to uninstall CCleaner and perhaps install another PC or Mac cleaning app which we cover below.

7 Free and Paid CCleaner Alternatives Worth Considering

For Windows PC users, you may consider:

Glary Utilities — Free. It’s an all-in-one utility for cleaning a PC, similar to what CCleaner offers. You can use it to scan and fix Windows registries, as well as clean junk files from web browsers and third-party applications.

The program also has a professional version Glary Utilities Pro (paid) which offers several advanced features for power users including enhanced system optimizing and free 24*7 technical support. The latest version is 5.8.5 (Sep. 29, 2017) and is fully compatible with Windows 10.

CleanMyPC — Free to try (500 MB limitation on removing files, and 50 registry fixes), $39.95 to buy for a single license. The program works very well for cleaning unwanted files from your PC. We compared CCleaner with CleanMyPC in this review and concluded that CleanMyPC is more user-friendly and probably a better option for less advanced users. The latest version is 1.8.8 (2 August 2017) and is compatible with Windows 7, 8 & 10.

Advanced SystemCare — Both Free and PRO versions are available. As the name indicates, it’s a PC system optimization program for cleaning the Windows registry as well as many kinds of junk files. The Free version is free to download and use with limitations, while the PRO version costs $14.77 with an annual subscription.

For Apple Mac users, you may consider:

Onyx — Free. The “Maintenance” module allows you to run miscellaneous tasks like cleaning and system maintenance, e.g. delete apps, run periodic scripts, rebuild databases, and more. The latest version is 3.3.7 and is fully compatible with High Sierra. I also covered Onyx in this best Mac cleaner list.

CleanMyMac — Free to try (500 MB limitation on removing files), $39.95 to buy for a single license. It’s one of the best Mac cleaning apps in the market, offering a number of utilities for deep cleaning those unnecessary files. You can read our detailed review here. The latest version is 3.9 and is High Sierra compatible.

Dr. Cleaner — Free version is already powerful enough to meet your Mac cleaning needs. Pro version costs $19.95 to buy. The app offers several free features totally for free, unlike many of its rivals. As I I discovered that most paid apps allow you to scan your disk but limit file removal functions unless you pay to unlock them. That’s not the case with Dr. Cleaner. You can see the differences between Dr. Cleaner and Dr. Cleaner Pro from my full review here.

MacClean — Free to try (scan allowed, but removal restricted), $29.95 to buy for a personal license. This is another great cleaning tool for macOS. What’s unique about MacClean is that it has a duplicate finder feature (similar to what Gemini offers), which can help you free up more disk space. Read our review here.

Crap

What Else Should I Do?

If you are on a Windows PC, regularly run antivirus and malware scans. For Mac users, it’s always good practice to examine the apps you have installed, as well as make sure the apps you use are up to date. Consider removing unused apps. You can easily do so with CleanMyMac in just a few clicks.

One more tip: Always backup your computer data (or backup of the backups). You never know when another “CCleaner strategy” will hit and what consequences it will cause. If you have a backup at hand, your data is secure, and you can choose to restore your computer if needed.

CCleaner
Developer(s)Piriform
Initial release23 September 2003; 16 years ago
Stable release(s)[±]
Windows5.63.7540 / 15 October 2019; 16 days ago[1]
macOS1.17.603 / 22 August 2019; 2 months ago[2]
Android4.14.3 / 30 May 2019; 5 months ago[3]
Written inC++
Operating systemWindows XP and later,[4]
Mac OS X Snow Leopard and later,[4]
Android 4.1 and later
PlatformIA-32 and x64
Available in58 languages
Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Azeri (Latin), Belarusian, Bosnian, Brazilian Portuguese (Portugues do Brasil), Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan (Catala), Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Corsican, Croatian (Hrvatski), Czech (Ceský), Danish, Dutch (Nederlands), English, Estonian (Eesti keel), Farsi, Finnish (Suomi), French (Français), Galician, Georgian, German (Deutsch), Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian (Magyar), Indonesian, Italian (Italiano), Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian (Lietuviu), Macedonian, Malaysian, Marathi, Mongolian, Norwegian, Polish (Polski), Portuguese (Portugues), Romanian (Romana), Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish (Espanol), Swedish (Svenska), Tartat, Thai, Turkish (Türkçe), Turkmen, Ukrainian, Vietnamese.[5]
TypeUtility software
LicenseFreemium for home use; commercial for use in organisations and institutions[6]
Websitewww.ccleaner.com/ccleaner

CCleaner (/ˈsiːkliːnər/, originally Crap Cleaner),[7] developed by Piriform (a company acquired by Avast in 2017), is a utility used to clean potentially unwanted files and invalid Windows Registry entries from a computer. It is one of the longest-established system cleaners, first launched in 2004.[8] It was originally developed for Microsoft Windows only,[9] but in 2012, a macOS version was released.

CCleaner has been reviewed by Chip.de,[10]TechRadar,[11]PC Magazine,[12] and TechRepublic.[13]

  • 3Critical reception

Features[edit]

CCleaner can delete potentially unwanted files left by certain programs, including Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Windows Media Player, eMule, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Microsoft Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, McAfee, Adobe Flash Player, Sun Java, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and GIMP[14] along with browsing history, cookies, recycle bin, memory dumps, file fragments, log files, system caches, application data, autocomplete form history, and various other data.[15] The program includes a registry cleaner to locate and correct problems in the Windows registry, such as missing references to shared DLLs, unused registration entries for file extensions, and missing references to application paths.[14] CCleaner 2.27 and later can wipe the MFT free space of a drive, or the entire drive.

CCleaner can uninstall programs or modify the list of programs that execute on startup.[16] Since version 2.19, CCleaner can delete Windows System Restore points.[17][18]

History[edit]

CCleaner was first launched in 2004 for Microsoft Windows.[8] It remained a Windows-only utility until 2012. On 2 June 2011, Piriform announced a public beta test program for CCleaner for Mac.[19] The Mac version graduated the test stage on 30 January 2012.[20]

Ccleaner

A commercial Network Edition was also introduced. Piriform released CCleaner for Android in 2014.[21]

Critical reception[edit]

Crap Cleaner For Macbook Pro

CNET editors gave the application a rating of 5/5 stars, calling it a 'must-have tool'. It was awarded Editor's Choice Award in April 2009 by CNET.[22] In 2016 Piriform announced 2 billion CCleaner downloads worldwide [23] In January 2014 it had been the most popular software on FileHippo for more than a year, and had a 5-star editor's rating on Softpedia.[24] CCleaner has been reviewed by Chip.de,[10]TechRadar,[25]PC Magazine[26] and TechRepublic.[27]

Data collection[edit]

Upon its release, the Active Monitoring component of CCleaner 5.45 incorporated a data collection module that collected information from computers without the consent of their owners. Piriform claim that it did not collect personally identifiable information. After criticism, however, later versions allowed data collection to be controlled separately by the user, although data collection is still on by default.[28][29][30][31]

Bundled software[edit]

In December 2018, it was reported that users installing CCleaner would also have Avast antivirus installed without their permission, with TechSpot claiming this arguably made CCleaner no better than the malware it was supposed to defend against. Piriform denied this.[32]

Malware infection[edit]

After Piriform was acquired by Avast, in September 2017, CCleaner 5.33 was compromised by the incorporation into the distributed program of the Floxif trojan horse that could install a backdoor, enabling remote access to 2.27 million[33] infected machines.[34][35] Forty of the infected machines received a second-stage payload that appears to have targeted technology companies Samsung, Sony, Asus, Intel, VMWare, O2, Singtel, Gauselmann, Dyn, Chunghwa and Fujitsu.[36][37] On 13 September, Piriform released CCleaner 5.34 and CCleaner Cloud 1.07.3191, without the malicious code.[38]

Ccleaner For Mac

On October 21, 2019, Avast disclosed a second security breach during which hackers tried again to insert malware inside CCleaner releases. This attempt was unsuccessful.[39]

Crap Cleaner For Mac Piriform

References[edit]

  1. ^'CCleaner 5.63.7540'. piriform.com. Piriform. 15 October 2019. Retrieved 24 October 2019.
  2. ^'CCleaner for Mac v1.17.603'. piriform.com. Piriform. 22 August 2019. Retrieved 22 August 2019.
  3. ^'CCleaner: Memory Cleaner, Phone Booster, Optimizer - Apps on Google Play'. Google Play. 30 May 2019. Retrieved 8 June 2019.
  4. ^ ab'What operating systems does CCleaner support?'. CCleaner - FAQ. Piriform. Retrieved 5 November 2010.
  5. ^'Changing the language CCleaner uses'. CCleaner Documentation. Piriform Ltd. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  6. ^'Why do I see a message that says 'CCleaner Free is for home use only' or 'CCleaner Free is not free for commercial use?''. Piriform. Retrieved 17 October 2019.
  7. ^'Wayback Machine'. 6 June 2004. Archived from the original on 6 June 2004. Retrieved 22 September 2017.
  8. ^ abNakodari. '10 Lessons Software Developers Should Learn From CCleaner's Success'. Addictive Tips. Retrieved 25 May 2016.
  9. ^'CCleaner - Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download'. Ccleaner.com. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  10. ^ ab'CCleaner'. chip.de. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  11. ^'Download of the Day: CCleaner'. techradar.com. Archived from the original on 2 March 2016. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  12. ^'CCleaner (for Mac) Review & Rating'. pcmag.com. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  13. ^'Five Tips For Using CCleaner To Degunk Your System'. techrepublic.com. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  14. ^ ab'CCleaner - Features'. Official web site. Piriform. Retrieved 3 June 2010.
  15. ^'Tuning Windows: Less Bull, More Speed'. 20 May 2009. Retrieved 2 June 2009.
  16. ^'Screenshot #5: The Startup Tool'. Official web site. Piriform. Archived from the original on 29 October 2010. Retrieved 5 November 2010.
  17. ^'CCleaner Version History'. Official web site. Piriform. 26 March 2013. Retrieved 26 March 2013.
  18. ^'Screenshot #6: The System Restore tool'. Official web site. Piriform. Archived from the original on 2 November 2010. Retrieved 5 November 2010.
  19. ^'CCleaner for Mac [Beta] Released'. ccleaner.com. 2 June 2011.
  20. ^'CCleaner for Mac v1.01'. ccleaner.com. 30 January 2012.
  21. ^Ferri-Benedetti, Fabrizio (18 April 2014). 'CCleaner for Android: too little, too late?'. Softonic. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  22. ^Rosenblatt, Seth (28 October 2010). 'CCleaner'. Download.com. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 15 May 2011.
  23. ^Piriform, Software (3 November 2016). 'Piriform Announces 2 Billion CCleaner Downloads Worldwide'. prnewswire.com. PR Newswire. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  24. ^Opris, Elena (7 January 2014). 'CCleaner 4 Review'. Softpedia.com. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  25. ^'Download of the Day: CCleaner'. techradar.com. Archived from the original on 2 March 2016. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  26. ^'CCleaner (for Mac ) Review & Rating'. pcmag.com. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  27. ^'Five Tips For Using CCleaner To Degunk Your System'. techrepublic.com. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  28. ^Milena Dimitrova (3 August 2018). 'CCleaner v5.45 Introduces Data Collection with No Way to Opt-Out'. Sensors Tech Forum. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
  29. ^'CCleaner v5.46.6652'. CCleaner.com. 30 August 2018. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
  30. ^Osborne, Charlie. 'CCleaner provokes fury over Active Monitoring, user data collection'. ZDNet. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  31. ^'I'm using CCleaner v5.45. Why is Active Monitoring still on when I have switched it off?'. Piriform Support. 8 October 2018. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
  32. ^David Matthews (19 December 2018). 'CCleaner may be installing Avast anti-virus without your permission'. TechSpot. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  33. ^Warren, Tom (18 September 2017). 'Hackers hid malware in CCleaner software'. The Verge.
  34. ^'CCleanup: A Vast Number of Machines at Risk'. blog.talosintelligence.com. Retrieved 21 September 2017.
  35. ^'Hackers compromised free CCleaner software, Avast's Piriform says'. 18 September 2017. Retrieved 22 September 2017 – via Reuters.
  36. ^Dan Goodin (25 September 2017). 'CCleaner backdoor infecting millions delivered mystery payload to 40 PCs'. Ars Technica.
  37. ^'Foreign Economic Espionage in Cyberspace'(PDF). CIA. 24 July 2018.
  38. ^Rubenking, By Jeffrey L. Wilson and Neil J.; September 19, 2017 3:15PM EST; September 19, 2017. 'CCleaner Professional Plus'. PCMAG.
  39. ^Cimpanu, Catalin. 'Avast says hackers breached internal network through compromised VPN profile'. ZDNet. Retrieved 21 October 2019.

Crap Cleaner For Macbook Pro

External links[edit]

Crap Cleaner Mac
  • Media related to CCleaner at Wikimedia Commons
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CCleaner&oldid=922402420'