[Update To CCleaner 5.59.7230 Installs CCleaner Browser PUP
Julieann Rohde
Well, I updated CCleaner last week, and discovered that the CCleaner browser was installed, and it was also made my default browser. I didn't see any alerts or notifications to that effect when I updated. Is that true, or did I miss something?
Update to CCleaner 5.59.7230 installs CCleaner Browser PUP
Download File ————— https://t.co/XgMUzs0k6J
The offered bundle (One of Avast, CC Browser, etc.) should appear on the first screen of the installer at the bottom, but they are small and pre-ticked and many say it is easy to miss them if you are not looking carefully.
Unwanted bundle installs have been a complaint for a number of years, usually from those who simply did not read carefully what was there and see that it was pre-ticked.
(Although there have been a few cases where the offer wasn't shown so that you could untick it but still downloaded anyway, happened to me once).
As a response to the complaints there is a new version of the installer that makes the offers much clearer by putting them on a seperate, second, page with big, clear, 'Accept' and 'Decline' buttons - but it's still being trialed and while some will see it (about 25% of offers) not everyone sees it yet.
I'm not sure when it will become the default offer screen, but it shouldn't be far away now.
I am asking. I agree with 'nnord' - I don't like anyone making decisions about the software that I am using. I am pretty sure that I have been using CCleaner (back when it was know as CrapCleaner) and not once did it ever download, install, set as default and then start the sub-routine labeled as the browser. Very upset.
I would like the procedure to neutralize the browser - whether that is a total removal of all the 1's and 0's from my computer's memory or place it in a dungeon, and then brick and concrete the doorway (That way nothing can reference it.).
As said above you can hardly miss the bundled offers these days - they have their own screen with very clear 'Decline' and 'Accept' buttons.
Here is an example showing the AVG offer (I don't have one handy for the CC Browser but it's similar with the two big blue buttons).
So if you have installed the CCleaner Browser without actively seeking it out, then you have accepted it from an offer.
Maybe you just clicked-through without reading what you were clicking?
(There is a very, very, slight possibility that you only saw the two blue buttons without the offer itself. If that is what happened to you they we would be interested to know).
To set which browser is your default browser-
Open the browser that you want to use, go to it's settings, and select 'Set as Default Browser'.
Alternatively open windows Settings, go to Apps>Default apps>Web browser, click on the browser that it shows and you will get a list to pick a different browser from.
To reset any File Associations that may have been changed then you can either right click o a file and change what app that tyoe of file opens with, or go to Settings>Apps>Default apps>"Choose default apps by file type" and set it there.
See this:
-to/how-to-change-the-default-program-to-open-a-file-with/
So about two days ago suddenly I noticed CCleaner Browser appeared on my taskbar and has set itself as the default browser. CCleaner has been installed on my machine since 18/06/20 according to the install date and never ever have I accepted nor have I actively activated it to be installed. Why does this happen? I have been using CCleaner way back since 2004, but seeing it is now sneaking in Software without my approval or knowledge is a little bit alarming to say the least.
The first is from the CCleaner download page - when, in some browsers notably Firefox, you see an arrow 'tag' bouncing up and down in the top right corner saying 'Click here to install'.
If you try to click on that arrow itself you could hit the advertising banner underneath it and get taken to the download page for the Browser.
If you weren't paying attention you could think you were still downloading CCleaner and so click the download button there.
The second way it can happen is an occasional bug in the standard installer.
The standard installer shows you an 'offer' for another Piriform/Avast product with big blue 'Accept' and 'Decline' buttons, very occasionally the image for the offer doesn't load and you just see the two buttons - if you then click 'Accept' you will get whatever should have been showing as offered. (You should click 'Decline', but of course you have to know about the bug).
I've seen it happen a few times myself, and saw it again last Friday, I've told the staff that it's still happening occasionally.
Like I have said I installed it a little over a year ago and just now the browser showed up. Actually I noticed it as I wanted to debug a project in Visual Studio, was still a bit sleepy but thought to myself this browser is not the correct one. So definitely not just installed and there is no way I cannot have seen it during that year. So you are 100% sure there is no way it could have installed it by itself?
However when investigated it's usually been one of the above two causes, or likely that the user has clicked through something on a webpage (or a pop-up?) quickly without reading and accepted the Browser as an offer that way.
It can be annoying to get something you didn't want (I once got Chrome browser installed by not paying attention to what I was clicking).
It's easy enough to reset your default browser and uninstall the CCleaner Browser.
This is the offer screen that I was refering to above.
You can see that if the graphic was missing (as it is in my screenshot above) and you just clicked 'Accept' without seeing what you were Accepting then you would get the browser, and it would set itself as default because you couldn't see that little tickbox to untick it.
CCleaner and its automatic updates absolutely do not sideload anything. For free users, there may be an large-format offer appearing after the update (for CCleaner Browser or something else) but this has to be "Accept"ed in order for anything to happen.
@nukecad's strange-looking swirly loading screen where the offer graphic doesn't appear, but only the Accept/Decline buttons, is an exceptionally rare bug, but one that QA has finally been able to reproduce after torturing some test machines. It has been confirmed that due to the different rendering methods involved, this does not impact the offers presented after an automatic update, but only for new installs and manual updates where a fresh installer is downloaded. Even though the offers display properly for 99.9% of users, that's still thousands of users every week on whom we are not making the best first impression (since in the absence of other information, malice will always be assumed) and we are looking at getting this 100% bulletproofed in an upcoming release.
By way of correction, note that the bouncing arrow on the CCleaner download page is actually pointing to the CCleaner installer that you just downloaded so that you can open it from your browser downloads status bar. In some browsers this will be pointing to bottom left of your window:
This may lead to some confusion for Firefox users as to what exactly they are being prompted to click on, but note that inadvertently clicking on that CCleaner Browser banner will not actually download anything. If you hover over it, you will see that it actually points to the CCleaner Browser product information page
Back to @unknwn and @RobLive: from your description of events, if you have been running an old version of CCleaner (sounds like CC5.67 or earlier?) without any updates that would have brought you to an offer then it sounds like CCleaner Browser may have been installed quite some time ago, never used, and then "woken up" by its own patch update system - although that would not explain why it would suddenly become the default browser.
If you go to to the three dots in the top right, Help and About CCleaner Browser > About CCleaner Browser (or just jump straight to secure://settings/help) and pull up "Diagnostic Information", and copy out the browser_version and uid information for me, we may be able to sleuth what happened for you.
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I was going from the following which I have observed in the past (I've now tested it some more):
In Firefox if you are late in clicking on the arrow tag, or click where it has just bounced from, then you actually click the Browser banner and get taken to the page to download the browser.
(You don't actually have to click the blue 'Download Free' button in that banner, it's a graphic and not an actual button and clicking anywhere on the banner will take you to the browser dowload page - maybe that could be changed to an actual button).
The unobservant may then think they are still downloading CCleaner and so click the green 'Free Download' button for the browser as well.
Admittedly though that still shouldn't install the browser, just download the installer.
@Dave CCleaner No I have uninstalled it same with ccleaner. I did make a memory dump of ccleaner with WinDbg and exported the assembly code and gonna check over the weekend if it sided loaded anything.
Sorry but it's very strange to me how an application would be dormant for over a year and suddenly pops to live. I keep my pc very clean and only have a handful of stuff installed for work. Check my installed applications on a weekly basis to track what is installed and what can be removed. For example SDK's I no longer need. Besides that I only have Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code and Chrome installed on this machine. Literally only a development machine.