CCleaner interface. Photo: Portal Programs | CCleaner interface. Photo: Portal Programs
Los Cleaning software They have been around for years and help us remove junk files from our devices with the aim of increasing their performance. Among all these projects, there was one thing that stood out for its effectiveness: We Talk CCleaner, an application so popular in the 2000s that it was almost mandatory to install it on your computer. What happened to her? Here we are going to tell you.
How was CCleaner born and how popular is it?
Launched in 2003 by a British company Preform, CCleaner Recognized as an 'indispensable tool' by prestigious tech websites such as CNET, Softpedia and Softmany, it quickly became the world's most popular cleaning software. Although at first it was only compatible with Windows XP and its successors, after several years, a version was released for Mac and Android devices.
CCleaner's popularity lies in the functionality its developers keep adding. In addition to cleaning up your computer's junk, this program can also delete temporary and registry files that your computer doesn't need; Likewise, there were options to remove tracking while browsing, uninstall programs, and fix system problems.
According to Migma, a YouTube channel specializing in technology, CCleaner's popularity is quite noticeable compared to other cleaners. While other programs had only thousands of downloads, the software developed by Piriform accumulated five million weekly downloads and 2.5 billion downloads worldwide.
How did CCleaner start to lose its popularity?
Piriform's growth was so good that it attracted the attention of other big companies. In 2017, the Cyber Security Institute Avast, famous for its free antivirus, decided to buy the British company and became the new owner of CCleaner and other applications. From this moment, the cleaning program underwent a change that was not well received by users. What happened?
months after purchase CCleaner, the cleaning program was discovered to have been hacked. For this reason, all people who downloaded version 5.33 are infected with a dangerous trojan called Floxif. This malware allowed cybercriminals to remotely control a computer and collect data: IP address, list of installed software, network adapters, etc.
It was later revealed that CCleaner sent the information of all users who installed the free version to Avast servers without consent. After the news broke, the security company said the data collection was done for the purpose of personalizing products and ads.
Since then, CCleaner's popularity has waned, and its number of users has dropped significantly. Currently, the program is still available and offers two versions: free with ads and premium annual subscription (costs S/125.61), which removes ads and unlocks all options for 12 months.
