Is CCleaner Safe and Legit To Be Used? [Other Facts About It]

Ccleaner is one of the most popular cleaners for a personal computer and phone. It is available in windows, mac, android, and ioS versions. It is legit software. It was developed by piriform software limited {developers of the “Defraggler”, “Recuva” and “Speccy”} now owned by Avast. The software was originally developed and published in 2004 but its mac version did not make an appearance till 2011.

Generally, the CCleaner, as the name implies, is used to “clean” up your device. It detects junk files for easy access, to be deleted, it’s newer versions check data and battery consumption for different apps to perform its function as an “optimizing” app. There are a lot of apps and software which promise to perform these features, CCleaner being one of the most popular.

Does The Cleaner slow down your computer?

Even though this particular cleaner claims to optimize and speed up your system, constant use of it might slow down your computer. Considering that this cleaner constantly deletes your browser history and cache, it means that each time a page is being reloaded the cache for the page will need to be downloaded again which could slow down your computer in the long run.

Now, to the questions presently on all our minds, “Is CCleaner safe to be used? Do you need to download a CCleaner in 2019?”

We’ll address these one at a time

IS CCLEANER SAFE TO BE USED?

In the eyes of an average user, the CCleaner might appear almost totally safe, however, there have been some problems with some versions of the Cleaner that you shouldn’t ignore if you are really concerned about the safety of your PC.

1. Forced silent updates – version 5.46 updates automatically without seeking permission. Do I really need to stress the dangers this could pose and the infringements on privacy rights? Avast has stated, however, that these updates are meant to protect the privacy of the user, isn’t that ironic?

2. Data collection and monitoring feature – The data collection option of the CCleaner is enabled by default so you would actually have to go out of your way to disable it. The newer version 5.45 comes with a monitoring feature which is also always enabled on default. this is way worse because it automatically switches back to default mode after you reboot your PC or reopen CCleaner so technically, the cleaner is sending off or probably granting access to your data.

3. Silently Runs On The Background – Version 5.45 “close” icon does not necessarily close the software, rather it minimizes it to the system tray and you might be required to use the task manager in order to close it. This means that most times the CCleaner is running in the background silently collecting data for avast.

4. Versions 5.33 and 5.34 have malware – Even though this malware, on its own, does not pose any serious dangers but it does open up the system to possibilities for hackers to remotely install possibly dangerous malware in the system. This is a major risk and who is to say that this may not happen again in newer versions of this software. Since the acquisition of piriform by Avast, it has been observed that an attempt to download a lower version of CCleaner would be met with pop-ups to update to a paid version and sometimes shows an offer to install avast. This always comes automatically checked so you would need to be sure to uncheck the box if you do not wish to download Avast.

5. The registry cleaner Nightmare –  The most understated danger of downloading a CCleaner is by far its “registry cleaner” and if you use a windows 10 you would do well to completely avoid this feature because allowing it to run on its own, may cause an accidental delete of registry necessary for the proper functioning of your windows.

That being said, it is also important to state again that the CCleaner is one of the safest software in its class but are these cleaning/optimization software even still necessary?

The latest version of CCleaner on android boasts of several new features that allow it to detect similar images and suggest a delete, perform photo quality analysis, back up files to your cloud, measure app growth, it has a notification counter, sensitive photodetection, and photo optimizer. With these features in mind, you might decide to go ahead and download your own CCleaner for android.

However, for your PC, a lot of the features of the Cleaner has been rendered redundant as upgrades to other apps, browsers and the Windows 10 can perform most of the features of the Cleaner.

For instance, the CCleaner claims to protect your privacy by effectively deleting your browser histories and browser cookies. Now most browsers, if not all, have features that enable you to conveniently delete your browser history and the presence of the “incognito tab” on most browsers ensure that some history isn’t saved at all.

Ccleaner claims to delete junk files and hence, speed up your computer but deleting junk files will reduce hard drive space but does not necessarily speed up your computer.

What is the best alternative to CCleaner?

While an alternative to a CCleaner is not necessarily essential especially since the windows 10 also comes with disk cleanup tool  which performs the same function, there are still very good alternatives for the android and mac devices including;  the Avast cleanup, clean my MacX and clean master official

The windows 10 now also comes with a “storage sense” feature which automatically deletes temporary files or recycle bin files that have not been edited or updated in 30 days. The more effective means of speeding up your computer is by reducing the number of start-up applications. Windows 10 also has this covered and you can comfortably reduce the number of start-up applications by merely by;

Clicking on your start menu,

Type “start-up tasks” under the system’s settings and from here you can enable or disable programs you wish to start when your PC boots.

See Also: Vulkan Runtime Libraries – What is it? Is it Safe? How Can I Remove it?

Bearing all these in mind I do not see the CCleaner as being necessary to you considering the risks and the fact that you can comfortably do without it especially if you use windows 10 but it is still one of the safest software in the class.