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This post is sorely lacking tons of information and the few that are in it are wrong.
CCleaner is NOT a malware cleaning app. It's a registry and regular file cleaner software.
Furthermore, let's dig into the case:

- This ONLY affects the 32-bit version of CCleaner and CCleaner Cloud, which accounts for some 3% of Piriform users. If you are using 64-bit version, you are probably safe. From Piriform’s website: “This compromise only affected customers with the 32-bit version of the v5.33.6162 of CCleaner and the v1.07.3191 of CCleaner Cloud. No other Piriform or CCleaner products were affected.”;

- From Piriform’s accessment, here’s the actual danger: “The compromise could cause the transmission of non-sensitive data (computer name, IP address, list of installed software, list of active software, list of network adapters) to a 3rd party computer server in the USA. We have no indications that any other data has been sent to the server. Working with US law enforcement, we caused this server to be shut down on the 15th of September before any known harm was done.”

- The investigation is still ongoing, but Piriform is saying that the issue has been solved, that no harm was done, and what seems like it didn’t originate from official CCleaner/Piriform sources. Which is to say, it could be embedded code that was inserted on 3rd party download websites. There is further explanation on Talos' post how it was a sofisticated attack because whoever did it managed to put up a valid cert on the infected version of Ccleaner though, so there should be more information coming out as the investigation proceeds.

If you wanna dig more into the whole thing, here's Piriform's official statement:
https://www.piriform.com/news/...

And here's Talos security accessment of the case:
http://blog.talosintelligence....

If he's lucky, he may not have over-written the clusters containing the lost files. He can use an un-delete utility such as this one. Even if he doesn't recover all 5000 of his files, he will at least have recovered some of them.

"Avast just announced that the company has acquired the software company Piriform, best known for the software program CCleaner for Windows.

Piriform's flagship product is CCleaner, a temporary file cleaner and traces remover for Windows. The company has created other respectable programs such as Speccy, a hardware inventory software, Defraggler, a file defragmentation program, and Recuva, a file recovery application." - via Ghacks!

"Avast just announced that the company has acquired the software company Piriform, best known for the software program CCleaner for Windows.

Piriform's flagship product is CCleaner, a temporary file cleaner and traces remover for Windows. The company has created other respectable programs such as Speccy, a hardware inventory software, Defraggler, a file defragmentation program, and Recuva, a file recovery application." - via Ghacks!

"Avast just announced that the company has acquired the software company Piriform, best known for the software program CCleaner for Windows.

Piriform's flagship product is CCleaner, a temporary file cleaner and traces remover for Windows. The company has created other respectable programs such as Speccy, a hardware inventory software, Defraggler, a file defragmentation program, and Recuva, a file recovery application." - via Ghacks!

"Avast just announced that the company has acquired the software company Piriform, best known for the software program CCleaner for Windows.

Piriform's flagship product is CCleaner, a temporary file cleaner and traces remover for Windows. The company has created other respectable programs such as Speccy, a hardware inventory software, Defraggler, a file defragmentation program, and Recuva, a file recovery application." - via Ghacks!

"Avast just announced that the company has acquired the software company Piriform, best known for the software program CCleaner for Windows.

Piriform's flagship product is CCleaner, a temporary file cleaner and traces remover for Windows. The company has created other respectable programs such as Speccy, a hardware inventory software, Defraggler, a file defragmentation program, and Recuva, a file recovery application." - via Ghacks!

"Avast just announced that the company has acquired the software company Piriform, best known for the software program CCleaner for Windows.

Piriform's flagship product is CCleaner, a temporary file cleaner and traces remover for Windows. The company has created other respectable programs such as Speccy, a hardware inventory software, Defraggler, a file defragmentation program, and Recuva, a file recovery application." - via Ghacks!

Avast acquires Piriform, makers of CCleaner

"Avast just announced that the company has acquired the software company Piriform, best known for the software program CCleaner for Windows.

Piriform's flagship product is CCleaner, a temporary file cleaner and traces remover for Windows. The company has created other respectable programs such as Speccy, a hardware inventory software, Defraggler, a file defragmentation program, and Recuva, a file recovery application." - via Ghacks

Avast acquires Piriform, makers of CCleaner

"Avast just announced that the company has acquired the software company Piriform, best known for the software program CCleaner for Windows.

Piriform's flagship product is CCleaner, a temporary file cleaner and traces remover for Windows. The company has created other respectable programs such as Speccy, a hardware inventory software, Defraggler, a file defragmentation program, and Recuva, a file recovery application." - via Ghacks

Avast acquires Piriform, makers of CCleaner

"Avast just announced that the company has acquired the software company Piriform, best known for the software program CCleaner for Windows.

Piriform's flagship product is CCleaner, a temporary file cleaner and traces remover for Windows. The company has created other respectable programs such as Speccy, a hardware inventory software, Defraggler, a file defragmentation program, and Recuva, a file recovery application." - via Ghacks

Avast acquires Piriform, makers of CCleaner

"Avast just announced that the company has acquired the software company Piriform, best known for the software program CCleaner for Windows.

Piriform's flagship product is CCleaner, a temporary file cleaner and traces remover for Windows. The company has created other respectable programs such as Speccy, a hardware inventory software, Defraggler, a file defragmentation program, and Recuva, a file recovery application." - via Ghacks

Avast acquires Piriform, makers of CCleaner

"Avast just announced that the company has acquired the software company Piriform, best known for the software program CCleaner for Windows.

Piriform's flagship product is CCleaner, a temporary file cleaner and traces remover for Windows. The company has created other respectable programs such as Speccy, a hardware inventory software, Defraggler, a file defragmentation program, and Recuva, a file recovery application." - via Ghacks

Quick! Download the latest CCleaner, Recuva, and Defraggler versions before craziness happens:

Ccleaner Portable

Defraggler Portable

Recuva Portable

CCleaner was originally named Crap Cleaner, another example of programmers not choosing sensible names.

Quick! Download the latest CCleaner, Recuva, and Defraggler versions before craziness happens:

Ccleaner Portable

Defraggler Portable

Recuva Portable

CCleaner was originally named Crap Cleaner, another example of programmers not choosing sensible names.

Quick! Download the latest CCleaner, Recuva, and Defraggler versions before craziness happens:

Ccleaner Portable

Defraggler Portable

Recuva Portable

CCleaner was originally named Crap Cleaner, another example of programmers not choosing sensible names.

I took the plunge and upgraded my last and more important PC this weekend, 'cause I don't want to be on the hook to pay $199 for a new Pro license when something forces me off 7.

I swear I'm not a shill; I bitch regularly about Microsoft because my job forces me to bear with it. But I was pleasantly surprised how well the in-place upgrade went. Nothing broke, even my old copy of Office 2003 (from my cold, dead hands...) The only thing the upgrade removed without asking were a couple of 3d-party diagnostic utilities like speccy, which doesn't bother me in the slightest. Even Steam fired back up without a hitch.

Now, about that ugliness. You don't have Aero transparency or rounded edges, but with Classic Shell and WinAero Tweeker, you can do a lot to make 10 more livable. A right-click on the taskbar can make Cortana go away, and ClassicShell separates Windows programs from Metro Apps in separate sub-menus, so you never have to look at them if you don't want to. Also, you do NOT have to use a Microsoft/Outlook cloud account. With this kind of setup, it's pretty much the same Windows as before.

Finally, I haven't tried this yet, but there's Spybot Anti-Beacon to address the "phone-home" issues that might be nagging you.

So, here's an idea to grab Windows 10 while its still free with the least risk. Shop for an SSD upgrade, like a 1TB Samsung Evo because damn it's gotten cheap. Clone your precious Windows 7/8/8.1 drive to the new SSD, remove it, set it aside. Then, perform an in-place upgrade as described here on the clone. Try it out. Something go wrong? Hate it? Swap back your old drive; clone again, do what you like. Your old build is safe and sound.

But here's the thing: according to the article, you have effectively retrieved/reserved your free Windows 10 license to use... whenever. If you want to try again in a few months, you can take a blank SSD and download/build Windows 10 from scratch, Microsoft will recognize your PC signature (assuming you haven't changed you mobo) and license you (just skip the part where it asks for a key). In the mean time, however, your old Windows will still work for as long as you want to keep it.

There. Assuming Microsoft doesn't wimp out and extend the deadline, you've just pocketed a $150-200 license for free to use any time you want.

I've been using MalwareBytes (as suggested above) then installing Comodo Internet Security http://comodo.com/ (free for personal use) if needed, and finally CCleaner from Piriform http://piriform.com/ to rescue peoples PCs after disaster has struck.
I'm thinking of making it a standard "pack" of software for anyone who asks at the Library where I volunteer.

every Windows installation slows down with usage, to the point of requiring to be formatted

Not neccessarily. I made a maintenance procedure clearing temporary files and registry with ccleaner and MyDefrag to organize files on disk for our customers and it solves most slowdown by far (excluding the usual malware toolbars etc.)
That eliminated most re-installs and uneccesary expenses. Not to mention losing preferences.

It looks like I have my own test going on. I have 4 different manufacturers.
I used Speccy to tell me what I have. http://www.piriform.com/speccy

Two of the drives are internal.
931GB Western Digital WDC WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0 ATA Device (SATA)
931GB Seagate ST1000DM003-1CH162 ATA Device (SATA)
931GB SAMSUNG HD103SI USB Device (USB (SATA))
931GB Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 USB Device (USB)

If you want a little bit of that nostalgia back you can install Piriform's Defraggler, which retains the sorting-blocks interface. And, it's free.

The Winapp2 people post in the CCleaner forums too, maybe all 3 are connected and are very bored/hate themselves.

winapp.ini is the internal file CCleaner uses to store it's cleaning rules. It follows the basic standard Windows INI file syntax. The entries in each section are specific to CCleaner, but appear to be fairly obvious just looking at the file without any further documentation.

winapp2.ini is an external file read by CCleaner to import additional (non-Piriform) cleaning rules. It's intended use is to let people other than Piriform add rules to CCleaner. The full documentation on it's syntax is available (without needing to agree to any terms) at http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=32310. This file uses the exact same syntax as winapp.ini.

So from what I can tell from this, the contents of winapp2.ini are by definition not the property of Piriform and Piriform wouldn't have any legal right to dictate who can use them. That right would rest with the authors of the entries. Piriform's contention here is that mere use of the syntax is a violation of terms, and as I noted I can get the documentation without needing to agree to any terms. So while I'd be consulting a lawyer, my first reaction would be to respond "Please identify the date on which you believe I agreed to your terms of service, and the documentation you believe supports this contention." as that's probably the first question my lawyer's going to want answered anyway. Frankly to me the demand smacks of "Your product's taking business away from CCleaner, and we don't like it and want you to stop it.". Which is fine, but falls short of the legal basis needed to force someone else to shut down their business.

I am not a Toshiba fan either, but just for future reference if you ever need to know what kind of hardware is in a machine, run PC Wizard or Speccy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCleaner

http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

I have used it on multiple TB machines, both in a home and work settings. I have used it for special projects targeting file repositories.

It is flexible enough that you can configure it pretty much any way you wish. With a little imigination you should be able to do whatever you need to do with this. I have used in conjunction with SyncToy to backup, move, etc... using contribute (which can generate duplicates).

It is fast, or at least I never had any problems. Some of the larger seaches I did take awhile, but that is to be expected. It also has a pretty flexible output, you can delete, move, just about anything you want.

A very useful utility.

i usually use this to clear cache, cookies and temporary files. It also does registry check and i havent had it fail after a wipe one single time so far. It's capable of wiping free space in how many passes you like but as someone above already mentioned from everything i read three should be more than enough if not overkill already. The thing is you get a lot of stuff floating around in folders like .appdata that doesnt get deleted, usually stuff created when installing software. I'd do a manual check there if you got access but i wouldnt know how to make it 100% clean and safe for sure unless you erase the whole partition and wipe it clean before installing (but i'm not the security expert either)
and it's free- or donateware or whatever its called these days

ccleaner for Windows http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER has an option for overwriting free space. So you could delete all your files, profile, user registry, temp files. Empty waste bin, then use the ccleaner wipe free space option. And hope you remembered everything that needed deleting.

I wouldn't fret about your personal data. If your company's IT department wanted to steal your data they would have done it by now, assuming they have root access to your machine. For that matter, if you leave the machine at work at night any of your coworkers could have stolen it. That said, here's what I'd do:

1. Download and install CCleaner.
2. Configure it to delete all files associated with web browsers, flash, Java, PDF readers, etc. in addition to its defaults.
3. Configure it to write zero bytes over the files it deletes.
4. Run it and let it do its magic.
5. Uninstall any personal apps you've installed, including non-IE browsers, Java, PDF readers, etc. Instruct uninstallers to delete user profiles and personal data.
6. Run CCleaner again. This time run its registry cleanup tool as well.
7a. If you have access to the Administrator account, log out of your user account then log in as Administrator and delete your user account along w/ all its data,
7b If you don't have access to the Administrator account but your user account has Admin access, create a new account with Admin access, then log out of your user account, log into the new account, and delete your original account along w/ all its data.

That's pretty much it.

CCleaner does pretty good. It also has secure delete for the tinfoil hat people. Chances are you'll forget about storing something important.

If you find something like that... delete it, run CCleaner on the empty space with multiple passes, then install a free IDS/Firewall solution on a spare PC like SmoothWall to possibly catch future attempts.

Hey, it worked for disk defragmenter in Vista. I'm sure Pririform agrees.

If it was clearly presented as an option, I would agree. Alas, all too often, it is not.

[citation needed] ?

The ones I'm used to seeing are like that in Piriform's Defraggler:
http://download.piriform.com/dfsetup206.exe

Its typical flow is a little like this:
1. Select installer language
2. Welcome page. Action button: "Next"
3. EULA
4. Options (Desktop / Start Menu shortcuts, context menu entry, replace windows defrag, automatically check for updates. All checked by default)
5. FREE! Google Chrome, a faster way to browse the web. Options: Include Google Chrome (checked by default), Make Google Chrome my default browser (checked by default). Action button is now "Install". *
6. Installation progress
7. Finish page. Option: Run defraggler (Checked by default). Action button is now "Finish".

* Screenshot of step 5, which is the Google browser inclusion thing:
http://i.imgur.com/qvdhp.png

Rather, it is presented in a fashion that can only be described, charitably, as sneaky, and that is bullshit.

So I'm guessing that you wouldn't qualify the above as 'sneaky'. It's pretty darn obvious for anybody who doesn't just try pressing the 'next' button like a brainless monkey.

So what's a more sneaky example?

Providing Microsoft Bing on Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 devices is pathetic? you're absolutely right.

By the way, would you like to install Google Chrome and make it your default browser when you install Google Earth?
http://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/agree.html

How about installing Google Chrome when you install Adobe Flash?
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Perhaps installing Google Chrome when you install Piriform CCleaner?
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/standard

I don't think there's anything particularly 'pathetic' about it. They could have made it possible (without dev unlocking and mucking about) to change the default search engine when pressing the hardware search button within the IE environment, though, I agree. Then again, there's plenty of Android devices that are locked to Google / Bing / Yahoo and also can't be changed as the cell provider locked that down.

On the up side, all of the devices let you put a shortcut to Google right on the home screen, and Google even made a WP7 google search app that does pretty much the same thing but provides a nicer icon - just as Microsoft offer a Bing search app for Android.

Another huge culprit is the dynamic sizing of the page file. Not only does this fragment the hard drive terribly, you end up with a badly fragmented page file that can't be defragmented using Window's own built-in defraggfer (as it can't defrag files that are in use). Best thing to do with the page file is to set it to some large fixed size and leave it there. And download a boot-time defragmenter like Defraggler to get your page file back into one continuous chunk. You can also try Page Defrag but that apparently doesn't work on anything newer than XP.

The Crap Cleaner app can vacuum Firefox SQLite databases during its cleanup phase. It also works on Chrome databases too. It also does lots of nice Windows cleanup tasks; makes a nice addition to your standard toolkit.

Cleans out everything you might want.

http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

It wasn't officers. It was forensic experts. And it took them a year to pull the data off? WTF, was the drive encrypted or something, or were they just that dumb?

Any fool with a drive formatted in FAT32 or NTFS can recover data with Recuva.... fucking morons!

Oh ya, linky to the utility in questions. http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Well, Recuva from Piriorm (those guys from Ccleaner) has worked for me a couple of times. It's free http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download Hope it helps.

No question with TestDisk as an excellent open source/free recovery option.

It was the only thing I found (freeware or pay) that relatively easily restored a couple of NTFS logical partitions--and all data--after they were destroyed by an older version (8.0) of Diskeeper's "boot optimization" defragging. The last time I used Diskeeper or recommended it. I continue to use and recommend TestDisk. The author of TestDisk was also responsive to emails when I encountered a unique issue with the drives I ended up needing help with.

Note that TestDisk is only for recovering lost partitions and making non-bootable partitions bootable again. For those functions, there is no better program out there.

Its sister program included in its download--PhotoRec--can do file recovery. Its designed mainly for recovery of photos off all media, but it supports many different file formats. So the TestDisk/PhotoRec package may be all you need.

Other freeware/non-open source file recovery alternatives that are reliable and work well:

--PC INSPECTOR File Recovery. 100% free & full featured, many options. Been using it for years.

--Recuva. 100% free, by Piriform, the maker of the very popular CCleaner/Crap Cleaner system cleaner.

Somewhat less elegant than the above one. But the only freeware option I've studied that can do a "deep scan" of your drives for lost files. Which can take hours, but may turn up more missing data than the other non-PhotoRec options here.

--EASEUS Deleted File Recovery. A more limited version of their $70 "EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard", but very well designed for basic file recovery.

There are other freeware file recovery options I've studied, but they are all more limited than the above. Would recommend TestDisk (for partitions) and PhotoRec (for files) first, then the other three (for files) in the order given.

In all honesty, shelling out for a payware solution is very unlikely to "find" more deleted files on a NTFS partition than the above freeware solutions, unless you have special needs they don't cover. Which is rare. And again, there is nothing better than TestDisk--free or payware--for recovering partitions.

[...continued from previous message. AG]
LSoft Technologies - Active@ Boot Disk, Active@ File Recovery and Active-Undelete
Micware Software - Encopy
Naltech - Multi Data Rescue (optical discs only?)
Nucleus Tecnologies - Kernel Recovery for FAT+NTFS
Ontrack Data Recovery - Easy Recovery Professional
Paragon Software Group - Paragon Rescue Kit
Partition Support - FindPart (and other utilities)
Phelps, Eric - Uncheck (for .CHK files)'
Piriform - Recuva
Phoenix Technologies Undelete+
ProSoft Engineering - Data Rescue PC
Quetek Consulting Corp. - File Scavenger
R-Tools Technology - R-Studio Data Recovery
Recover Data - Windows Data Recovery
Regall LLC (dba Object Rescue) - File Rescue and Data Rescue and Any Reader
Runtime Software - GetDataBack
Smart PC Solutions - Smart FAT Recovery
SoftLogica - Handy Recovery
Stellar Information Systems - Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery
SysTech Software - RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk FAT32 /16 /12 v3.0 Release 3 (floppy diskttes and hard disks <2GB)
TOKIWA - DataRecovery (erased files only?)
Zero Assumption Recovery - ZAR32 for Windows

Programs that I have personally used and had good experiences with are Acronis' Recovery Expert, DataRescue's Photo Rescue, Naltech's Data Rescue line and Runtime Software's GetDataBack line.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky