A new version of an app comes out, you update. No brainer. Except in the case of CCleaner, which has been all over the place in terms of privacy and security in recent times. Fortunately, it looks like the system maintenance app is back on track as of version 5.46.
Back in August, CCleaner 5.45 was released, along with a couple of nasty surprises, including the opt-out for the app’s anonymous data collection being non-obvious, and a penchant for staying active and starting at boot when you didn’t want it to.
All of these issues have been addressed in 5.46, which came out on August 30. Here are the relevant points from the changelog:
- The Monitoring feature and reporting of anonymous usage data can now be controlled separately (previously both were controlled by the ‘Active Monitoring’ checkbox)
- Added a separate control for the reporting of anonymous usage data
- Added a link to a Data Factsheet, which explains the data reported from CCleaner, why it’s reported, and what it’s used for
- If Smart Cleaning is disabled, CCleaner’s background process will close and the feature will not run on startup (same behavior as in v5.44)
Hopefully, Avast (which took over from previous developer Piriform) has learned an important lesson when it comes to data collection — and basic good practise when it comes to app behaviour.
[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/05/wise-disk-cleaner-is-like-ccleaner-but-better/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/05/wiseclean-768×432.jpg” title=”Wise Disk Cleaner Is Like CCleaner, But Better” excerpt=”For many — myself included — CCleaner has been the go-to tool for freeing up drive space for years. And while it does the job well, it never hurts to be on the lookout for better programs.”]
CCleaner v5.46.6652 [CCleaner]
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