Avast Pulls the Latest Version of CCleaner Following Privacy Controversy (betanews.com)

Piriform, the maker of CCleaner, has pulled v5.45 of its suite from the website after users expressed concerns over the privacy changes in the application, the company, which was acquired by Avast last year, said. In v5.45, the company made it impossible to disable "active monitoring", and the privacy settings had been removed for free customers. Additionally, as BetaNews reported earlier this week, Avast also made it impossible for users to quit the software. Addressing these concerns, Avast said, "Today we have removed v5.45 and reverted to v5.44 as the main download for CCleaner while we work on a new version with several key improvements." The company added: We're currently working on separating out cleaning functionality from analytics reporting and offering more user control options which will be remembered when CCleaner is closed. We're also creating a factsheet to share which will outline the data we collect, for which purposes and how it is processed. [...] As stated before, we'll split cleaning alerts (which don't send any data) from UI trend data (which is anonymous and only there to measure the user experience) and provide a separate setting for each in the user preferences. Some of these features run as a separate process from the UI: we'll restore visibility of this in the notifications area, and you'll be able to close it down from that icon menu as before. We understand the importance of this to you all. This work is our number 1 priority and we are taking the time to get it right in the next release. There are numerous changes required, so that does mean it will take weeks, not days. While we work on this, we have removed version 5.45 and reinstated version 5.44. According to stats shared by the company, CCleaner has been downloaded over two billion times. In a week, it is estimated to see five million downloads.

Comments

"We understand the importance of this to you all."

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation: "Damn, they noticed that we tried $bad_shit, quick, let's pretend it was a mistake!"

Fuck you.

People never understand

[SirAstral]

Free only 'legally' means you don't have to pay cash, but it is never actually free, you just pay for it with other currencies like privacy, control/ownership, social/political/economic standing, liberty/prison/indenture/employment, and sadly but occasionally life itself through war/crime/tyranny/accident/health.

You are going to pay one way or another, even when it is 'free'!

Re: "We understand the importance of this to you

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Millenial is a generation. Yuppie is a concept -- Young, Upwardly-Mobile (climbing the corporate ladder of power and wealth) Professionals.

That's shifted somewhat and needs a spawn for the new startup culture. Young, Avaricious Startup Spawner Hawkers of Low Expectation of Success, or Yassholes.