CCleaner provokes fury over Active Monitoring, user data collection

I added an outbound rule to Windows Firewall to block all outbound connections from "C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner64.exe".
Now I don't get prompted to upgrade and there are no attempts to connect outbound.

@Ztruker - I think blocking all by default and whitelisting is a much better approach. And you should probably use Windows Firewall Control 5.3.1.0 to lock the rules so that Windows or other software don't change them as they please.

After booting up this morning I can confirm that ccleaner has honoured my choice to disable monitoring.

So what's the consensus - is CCleaner ok to use again, or is boycott still in effect?

It's OK if you use a firewall to block the outbound traffic. Otherwise I wouldn't recommend it as it's going to transfer data to 3rd party servers.

swarfega said:

After booting up this morning I can confirm that ccleaner has honoured my choice to disable monitoring.

Same here. Behaving nicely.

JohnBurns said:

So what's the consensus - is CCleaner ok to use again, or is boycott still in effect?

I think it's just fine to use, along with a good dose of common sense. Firewall, maybe, and good practices using it (i.e. - stay away from the registry stuff!)

lolnothankyou said:

It's OK if you use a firewall to block the outbound traffic. Otherwise I wouldn't recommend it as it's going to transfer data to 3rd party servers.

eLPuSHeR said:

I have created an outbound rule within Windows Firewall but when I click "check for updates" Firefox browser opens up.

To a blank page? or what?

lolnothankyou said:

It's OK if you use a firewall to block the outbound traffic. Otherwise I wouldn't recommend it as it's going to transfer data to 3rd party servers.

Your decision, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna jump thru hoops,


to make sure a software, that should only run on demand, and not in the background, respects my settings.

Also this is the third aw' sh!t from piriform in less than a year, I'm done with them.

By the way, with HDCleaner, you can update it by clicking here² and it updates directly, and doesn't open your browser to their homepage like Avast Adder, I mean Ccleaner, does:
²