CCleaner "status" as "safe to use"?

Hi.

Not so long a go, Piriform/Avast had some serious issues with Free CCleaner (from user point of view) for e.g. forcibly running in the background, updating itself without user interaction etc. Now they seem to introduce some "Software Updater" functionality which I absodefinitely will *not* use.

My question goes, if I'd like to have CCleaner for cleaning, is it now "safe" to use ie. have those "backdoor" functionalities been disabled / removed OR should I:

1) just let Windows to maintain itself?
2) use some other tool(s) - which one(s) or
3) something else (what)?

Some interesting discussions (again) on-going on Piriform site:
https://forum.piriform.com/topic/535...ersion/?page=1

What is your "maintenance" tool / process if any?

//t

To be honest,

what is the point of these cleaners? What do they actually achieve?

For years I used CCleaner believing it would give me a faster, smoother junk free experience. I even tried a few others such as BleachBit.

But after the "problems" started with CCleaner and the whole Avast issue I got rid of it.

Since then I use the available Windows tools, either Storage Sense or Disk Cleanup.

Have I seen any quantifiable difference? Not really.

The only time I can say that I gained free space was when old system restore points were removed or old Windows Update files.

But other than that, I think it is mostly a mindset. People think these cleaners are clearing junk but in fact it is only an illusion of sorts.

Just my opinion on the matter since I cannot provide any quantifiable statistics to prove the argument one way or another.

In any event, registry cleaning is not advisable and the minimal space gained can also be done by turning on Storage Sense.

Thx for replies - I think I'll give CCleaner one more try. Yes, I think my main motivation using it is more mindset than actual "boost of performance". However, one thing were CC does a decent job, is that it executes the cleaning simple enough.

I have also utilized the registry cleaning part as some un-installers don't do that too well and leave leftovers in place. Yet I realize that I should not be worried too much on the registry (which is a mess to figure out anyhow).

One thing that I feel MSFT could do better is somehow (on Windows updates and blogsphere) tell more about these maintenance activities what they DO and why. There are millions and millions of ppl who start to have a sluggish computer. Simple maintenance could do the trick.

//T