lmacri
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Posts posted by lmacri
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On 20/07/2019 at 14:35, Dave CCleaner said:
... The increasing user base for Speccy was overloading the server, so that got a refresh earlier this month. To confirm, updates to the client software for Defraggler, Speccy and Recuva are certainly planned. No committed dates at this point in time, but we're aiming for later this year...
Hi Dave CCleaner:
Any further news on the status of the pending update for Speccy v1.32.740 (rel. 21-May-2018) since your July 2019 reply?
The latest AskWoody PLUS Newsletter Issue 17.44.0 (09-Nov-2020) includes a review by Tracey Capen of popular system information tools like Belarc Advisor, Speccy, etc. Tracey noted a few glitches when they tested the current version of Speccy, including "Surprisingly, the SMART status section for my solid-state drive was marked as 'not supported'" and "Win10 Task Manager shows that my system's CPU virtualization is enabled; Speccy reports that it's not.".
Other users have reported this same “S.M.A.R.T. not supported” message for newer SSD drives in ZloboMiR's Feb 2020 Speccy thread No SSD NVM Info even though the free CrystalDiskInfo utility (last updated 28-Sep-2020) correctly displays their S.M.A.R.T. attributes. This includes my Toshiba NVMe SSD. I'm not sure if business products like CCleaner Cloud do a better job analyzing newer SSDs and CPUs but a Speccy update seems long overdue.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1139 * Firefox 82.0.3 * Windows Defender v4.18.2010.7 * CrystalDiskInfo (Standard Edition) Portable v8.8.9 * Speccy Portable v1.32.740
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U@1.60/1.80 GHz, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G 256 GB NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620 -
On 24/09/2020 at 03:07, GeorgeNelis said:
...I am having an issue with the combination CCleaner (CC) and Firefox (FF), both on the latest release (V5.72, 81.0)
Within FF i have deleted several search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo and within CC i have disabled their extensions using 'Tools','Bowser plugins'.
After restarting FF and starting CC, the search engines don't show in FF but do show re-enabled in CC....
Could one of the Avast / Piriform employees please provide a status update and let us know if they've been able to reproduce the issue where enabling/disabling/removal of Firefox plugins from within CCleaner at Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox does not correctly reflect the actual status of browser plugins in Firefox v81.x? My testing indicates the issues occurs with the built-in one-click search engines (Tools | Options | Search | One-Click Search Engines) as well as browser extensions downloaded from the Mozilla AMO at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ (Tools | Add-ons | Extensions) .
Avast / Piriform ignored early warnings from users that CCleaner v5.68 was wiping custom settings in Firefox extensions in Firefox v79 and higher after Mozilla made changes to the storage.sync area for extension data storage - see cccirc's 01-Jul-2020 warning in Problem with Firefox 79 [fixed in v5.70] as well as the 09-Jul-2020 Mozilla blog Changes to Storage.sync in Firefox 79, which were both posted well before the buggy CCleaner v5.69 was released on 21-Jul-2020 and almost a full month before the stable release of Firefox 79 was officially released on 28-Jul-2020. Right now my confidence in CCleaner's ability to safely manage my Firefox browser (as well as Avast / Piriform's entire quality assurance testing program) is at an all-time low, so I would appreciate if Avast / Piriform could tell us if they are investigating whether this new issue with enabling/disabling/removal of Firefox plugins is caused by another bug in CCleaner.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1082 * Firefox 81.0.2 * Windows Defender 4.18.2009.7 * Cleaner Free Portable 5.72.7994
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U@1.60/1.80 GHz, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620 -
On 29/09/2020 at 10:49, nukecad said:
Apparently Firefox also used to regard these search engines as extensions/plug-ins and they could be removed from the Add-ons manager. You can't do that for the search engines anymore, and just when Firefox stopped letting you do that I don't know.... just untick them in Firefox Settings/Options and the Firefox searchbox will only use google.
Hi nukecad:
I've been using Firefox as my default browser since Firefox 3.6 was released in Jan 2011 and don't recall seeing the one-click search engines display in the add-on manager as an extension or plug-in at Tools | Add-ons, but I might be wrong about that. Are you sure you aren't thinking of browser toolbars like DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, Amazon Assistant, etc. that are more like the "traditional" browser add-ons that can be downloaded and installed from the Mozilla AMO store at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/? These toolbars sometimes come bundled inside free software installers as PUPs (potentially unwanted programs) and will appear in the add-on manager as an extension.
5 hours ago, Léon said:...If we don’t want these search engines, allow us to remove them for good. Because we can‘t do this, this discussion was born. Imacri could well be right: they can’t be completely disabled at all, not even temporarily....
Hi Léon:
Instead of unchecking your one-click search engines at Tools | Options | Search | One-Click Search Engines to disable (hide) them, have you tried my suggestion <here> to use the Remove button to remove them? For example, if I want to remove the Bing search engine from my list of available search engines, I can highlight Bing and click Remove...
... and Bing disappears from the list of available search engines as well as the address and search bars. As I noted before, if you accidentally delete the wrong "default" search engine or you decide that you'd like to restore it you can add it back to the list by clicking the "Restore Default Search Engines" button, but if you delete a custom search engine (e.g., youtube.com) that isn't on your list of "default" search engines that custom search engine cannot be restored quickly using this "Restore Default Search Engines" shortcut and you will have to add it back manually again.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1016 * Firefox 81.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.72.7994 -
23 hours ago, lmacri said:
...At one point my TrafficLight extension was enabled in Firefox at Tools | Add-ons | Extensions and the icon in the browser toolbar was visible but CCleaner (Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox) showed the extension was disabled (Enabled = No) and threw an "access denied" error (sorry, I can't recall the wording of the full error message) when I clicked the Enable button....
Just an FYI for the Avast / Piriform employees that I managed to capture an image of the CCleaner error message today when I was testing with my Firefox one-click search engine settings in the CCleaner add-on manager at Tools | Browser Plugins.
At the time this happened, I had just clicked the Disable button to change the status of my Wikipedia one-click search engine in Firefox to Enabled = No as shown below (which didn't actually disable the search engine in Firefox as I demonstrated <here>), and when I highlighted the Wikipedia search engine again and clicked the Enable button just see if the status would change back to Enabled = Yes the CCleaner add-on manager threw the above error.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1016 * Firefox 81.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.72.7994 -
5 hours ago, Léon said:
The only thing that really interests me in this case is: I don’t like (to say it mildly) Bing, bol.com, DuckDuckGo, eBay, Google, Marktplaats and all their colleagues, so I don’t want them to be enabled in Firefox.
Hi Léon:
I have no problem disabling (hiding) or removing my one-click search engines from the list of available search engines in Firefox 81.0 at Tools | Options | Search | One-Click Search Engines as instructed in the Firefox tutorial Firefox support article Add or Remove a Search Engine in Firefox - see my 24-Sep-2020 reply <here>. The image below shows I've disabled / hidden the Amazon and eBay search engines so they don't appear when I search from my Firefox address or search bar (note that the check mark next to these search engines has been toggled off), and if I wanted to remove a search engine like DuckDuckGo from that list I could highlight the search engine and click the "Remove" button. Nukecad is correct that "removing" those search engines isn't permanent since you can click the "Restore Default Search Engines" button to reset that list back to its default settings, but the search engines shouldn't spontaneously re-enable themselves as long as you configure your settings from within Firefox. As far as I can tell the one-click search engine settings are working in Firefox exactly as they were designed to do.
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Problems only occur if you try and manage your Firefox one-click search engines from the CCleaner add-on manager at Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox. As I showed in my 24-Sep-2020 images <here>, my Amazon and eBay search engines are correctly disabled (hidden) in my Firefox address and search bars but CCleaner always incorrectly reports these disabled search engines are enabled (Enabled = Yes).
And as others have reported in this thread, if you disable a Firefox one-click search engine like Wikipedia from the CCleaner add-on manager at Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox (i.e., you highlight the Wikipedia search engine and click the Disable button to change the status to Enabled = No) the search engine is not actually disabled in Firefox...
... and the next time you open CCleaner the status will have reverted from disabled (Enabled = No) back to enabled (Enabled = Yes).
I don't think the issue is that the Firefox one-click search engines are spontaneously re-enabling themselves after being disabled in CCleaner. I simply can't see any evidence that they were ever disabled by CCleaner in the first place.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1016 * Firefox 81.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.72.7994 -
1 hour ago, Léon said:
Because my TrafficLight icon is always hidden from the toolbar (if a warning comes, it comes anyway), I only looked at the add-on manager. If you insist I will do the test again with the icon in the toolbar.
Hi Léon:
I'll leave it to you to decide if you want to do more testing. The latest test results I posted <above> were really for the benefit of any Avast / Piriform employee following this thread who agrees that they need to open a formal bug report. I only wanted to confirm that the behaviour I see on my computer was consistent for both CCleaner Portable v5.71.7971 (rel. 14-Sep-2020) and v5.72.7994 (rel. 23 Sep 2020) so they know this isn't a new bug that was introduced in v5.72.
At the end of the day, I never use the CCleaner add-on manager at Tools | Browser Plugins to manage my Firefox add-ons. I only posted in this thread to show I could reproduce the problem the OP GeorgeNelis reported in this thread where one-click search engines hidden / disabled in Firefox v81.0 have a status of Enabled = Yes in CCleaner.
According to the releases notes <here>, CCleaner v5.70.7909 (rel. 06 Aug 2020) "Fixed a bug where CCleaner could wipe extension settings in Firefox if using a Firefox account" but I know several Firefox users who don't use a Firefox Account and had their custom settings wiped in multiple Firefox browser extensions the first time they ran CCleaner v5.69 - see Krusty13's comments in the Norton Tech Outpost thread Firefox 79.0 to be Released July 28 for one example. After reading the 09-Jul-2020 Mozilla blog Changes to storage.sync in Firefox 79 I suspect that CCleaner v5.72 still has a few bugs related to Firefox's new storage.sync area for extension data that we're just discovering now.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1016 * Firefox 81.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.72.7994 -
8 hours ago, Léon said:
After closing and re-opening Firefox three times (3 times!) Bitdefender TrafficLight was still disabled. Windows 10, CCleaner and Firefox all latest versions. Windows 10 Home edition, 2004, Build 19041.508.
Hi Léon:
I updated to CCleaner Free Portable v5.72 today and repeated the same steps described <above> and my results were the same (i.e., my Bitdefender TrafficLight icon re-appeared in my browser toolbar after a second re-start of my browser). However, I checked my Firefox add-on manager during today's test and noticed it reported extension was disabled, even though the TrafficLight icon re-appeared in my browser toolbar and was functioning normally.
From today's test after the update to CCleaner Free Portable v5.72:
1. Open Firefox. Confirm Bitdefender TrafficLight is working normally in Firefox v81.0 (i.e., add-on manager at Tools | Add-ons | Extensions shows extension is enabled and the icon appears in the browser toolbar). Close Firefox.
2. Open CCleaner. Disable Bitdefender TrafficLight for Firefox v3.1.3 extension from the CCleaner add-on manager at Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox (i.e., select the TrafficLight extension and click the Disable button. Close CCleaner.
3. Open Firefox. Go to the Firefox add-on manager (Tools | Add-ons | Extensions). As expected, the add-on manager shows TrafficLight is disabled and the extension icon (a green circle with white check mark on "safe" sites) has disappeared from the browser toolbar in the top-right corner of the browser.
4. Close and re-open Firefox. Go to the Firefox add-on manager (Tools | Add-ons | Extensions). The add-on manager still shows TrafficLight is disabled but the TrafficLight icon (green circle with white checkmark) reappears in the browser toolbar. TrafficLight seems to behave normally [e.g., the TrafficLight status icon (green/yellow/red) appears in Google search results]. Open and close Firefox multiple times to confirm the TrafficLight icon loads into the browser toolbar at every browser launch. Close Firefox.
5. Open CCleaner. CCleaner add-on manager at Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox still shows TrafficLight is disabled (Enabled = No, see image in Step # 2) even though the TrafficLight extension loads in the browser toolbar as shown in Step # 4 and behaves normally.
I fiddled around and eventually got the two add-on managers synced so that the enabled / disabled status of my TrafficLight extension is correct in both Firefox (Tools | Add-ons | Extensions) and CCleaner (Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox) but it took a bit of work. At one point my TrafficLight extension was enabled in Firefox at Tools | Add-ons | Extensions and the icon in the browser toolbar was visible but CCleaner (Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox) showed the extension was disabled (Enabled = No) and threw an "access denied" error (sorry, I can't recall the wording of the full error message) when I clicked the Enable button.
I use the portable version of CCleaner downloaded from https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/builds (i.e., CCleaner is not an installed program on my computer and the ccleaner.ini file resides on a USB thumb drive) so perhaps that's why it took me a while to get both add-on managers in sync. I don't think the fact that I still use Win 10 Pro v1909 (not v2004) would be a factor.
Regardless, this still doesn't address CCleaner's wonky behaviour with "special" Firefox extensions like the one-click search engines where Firefox will automatically re-enable one-click search engines if they are disabled in CCleaner. I suspect Andavari's suggestion <here> that Firefox has a built-in protection mechanism to prevent outside sources (including malicious browser hijackers) from modifying the user's search engines is the most likely explanation.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1016 * Firefox 81.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.72.7994 -
On 25/09/2020 at 06:52, lmacri said:
...If I disable my Bitdefender TrafficLight for Firefox extension from my CCleaner add-on manager (Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox, highlight the extension and click the Disable button) the extension re-enables itself after a second re-start of the browser ...
1 hour ago, Léon said:When I disable Bitdefender Trafficlight in CCleaner it is still disabled after opening Firefox.
Hi Léon :
What is your Windows OS (if Win 10 let us know your version and build - see the TechSmith article How to Check Windows 10 Build), and what versions of Firefox and CCleaner are you using?
If you disable Bitdefender TrafficLight in CCleaner does it remain disabled in Firefox if you open and close your browser a few times? Note that I had to close and re-start Firefox twice before Bitdefender TrafficLight re-appeared in my browser toolbar.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1016 * Firefox 81.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.71.7971 -
8 hours ago, lmacri said:
I disabled my Bitdefender TrafficLight for Firefox extension from within CCleaner v5.71 at Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox (my image <here> shows CCleaner detects the Publisher as BitDefender Labs) and CCleaner initially disabled this extension in Firefox, but the when I closed and relaunched Firefox a second time the Bitdefender TrafficLight extension automatically re-enabled itself. ..
7 hours ago, nukecad said:Not really a bug - CCleaner is doing what is is expected to do and disabling the extensions - but Firefox is then re-enabling them again as soon as you launch Firefox. So it's more of a pointless excercise disabling the 'special' Firefox extensions, rather than being a bug. It wouldn't matter how, or what, you used to disable them, Firefox will always put them back/re-enable them....
Hi nukecad:
Perhaps it's a matter of semantics. What you call a "pointless exercise" is what I would call a bug.
If I disable my Bitdefender TrafficLight for Firefox extension from my CCleaner add-on manager (Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox, highlight the extension and click the Disable button) the extension re-enables itself after a second re-start of the browser (i.e., the icon reappears in my browser toolbar and the extension is fully functional). There's nothing "special" about this extension - it's just a typical browser add-on downloaded from the Mozilla AMO store at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions/.
If I disable my Bitdefender TrafficLight for Firefox extension from my Firefox add-on manager (Tools | Add-ons | Extensions ) as shown below the extension remains disabled through multiple re-boots (i.e., the icon disappears from my browser toolbar until I re-enable it in the Firefox add-on manager).
If the CCleaner add-on manager for Firefox at Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox doesn't work correctly and Avast / Piriform has no plans (or doesn't know how) to fix it, then they should remove this feature from CCleaner.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1016 * Firefox 81.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.71.7971 -
1 hour ago, nukecad said:
... So CCleaner is disabling them, but then Firefox is re-enabling them next time you start it. ...
...PS. Testing a bit more it seems to be any Firefox plugin that does not show a 'Publisher' or shows Mozilla as the publisher that will get re-enabled in this way at Firefox launch.
Hi nukecad:
Then that sounds like the CCleaner browser add-on manager for at Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox isn't working as expected if the changes made in CCleaner to enable/disable Firefox browser add-ons aren't permanent. Doesn't that qualify as a bug?
I did some more testing and it's not just the one-click search engines in Firefox that are a problem. I disabled my Bitdefender TrafficLight for Firefox extension from within CCleaner v5.71 at Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox (my image <here> shows CCleaner detects the Publisher as BitDefender Labs) and CCleaner initially disabled this extension in Firefox, but the when I closed and relaunched Firefox a second time the Bitdefender TrafficLight extension automatically re-enabled itself. CCleaner v5.71 is still reporting that that Bitdefender TrafficLight is disabled even though I can see it's re-enabled in Firefox.
Thanks for splitting this off as a separate topic.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1016 * Firefox 81.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.71.7971 -
4 hours ago, nukecad said:
Confirmed that I can do the same and they come back. They are obviously being background loaded/enabled by Firefox itself when you launch it; so that they would be instantly available if you selected them in Firefox. I'm not sure how to stop that, there is probably something in Firefox 'About:Config' that would do it.....
Hi nukecad:
According to the Firefox Support article Add or Remove a Search Engine in Firefox, search engines that are removed from the list of available search engines at Tools | Options | One-Click Search Engines with the Remove button can be added back by clicking the Restore Default Search Engines button, so that implies they aren't permanently deleted from the user's default Firefox profile by design. However, I'd still expect search engines that were hidden or removed in the Firefox settings to be shown as Disabled in CCleaner at Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox.
If the behaviour GeorgeNelis noticed with CCleaner v5.72 is caused by a bug then the problem must have started before CCleaner v5.72 was released since I see the same thing with the previous CCleaner v 5.71 (rel. 14-Sep-2020) and the latest Firefox v81.0 browser. My Amazon.ca and eBay search engines are always hidden / disabled (i.e., the check mark is toggled OFF) in my Firefox browser at Tools | Options | Search | One-Click Search Engines as shown below (note that GeorgeNelis might have gone one step further and actually used the Remove button to remove DuckDuckGo and Bing from their list of available search engines) ...
... when I search from the Firefox address bar or search bar my hidden / disabled Amazon and eBay search engines are not offered ...
...but when I go Tools | Browser Plugins | Firefox in CCleaner v5.71 the Amazon and eBay search engines are both listed as Enabled. I also have no idea why CCleaner lists my Amazon search engine for their Australian site at Amazon.com.au when it's listed as Amazon.ca (I live in Canada) in my Firefox browser.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the changes in Firefox 79 described in the Mozilla blog Changes to Storage.sync in Firefox 79 (i.e., the same changes that caused the buggy CCleaner v5.69 to incorrectly wipe custom settings in Firefox browser extensions) is the same reason why CCleaner can no longer detect the correct status of custom settings for the Firefox one-click search engines.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1016 * Firefox 81.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.71.7971 -
On 06/08/2020 at 15:13, lmacri said:
Just an FYI that CCleaner 5.70 has added new settings at Options | Privacy | Offers that are not mentioned in the change log at https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/version-history. Note that the option to "See possible upgrades and offers for our other products by sharing app-usage with us" is enabled by default.,,,
According to the change log at https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/version-history for v5.71.7971 (released today, 14-Sep-2020), the privacy settings that were incorrectly displayed (but inactive) in the previous v5.70 are now active and "All users can now opt out of offers for other products".
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1016 * Firefox 80.0.1 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.71.7971 -
Just an FYI that CCleaner 5.70 has added new settings at Options | Privacy | Offers that are not mentioned in the change log at https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/version-history. Note that the option to "See possible upgrades and offers for our other products by sharing app-usage with us" is enabled by default.
Kudos to bjm_ for alerting other CCleaner users about this new Privacy setting <here> in the Norton Tech Outpost.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.959 * Firefox ESR v68.11.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.70.7909 -
On 31/07/2020 at 00:03, Dave CCleaner said:
...Their description of the Chrome precheck is accurate. It's been that way since 2010 and most people are used to it by now, but as mentioned in previous posts here it has been on our "to-do" list for a while to try and get that into the same accept/decline presentation as well.
Hi Dave CCleaner:
Sorry, but I have to take issue with that comment. I might be "used to" Avast pre-checking check boxes in their installers to install bundled software but I'm not happy about it, and I'm not sure why bundled Google products like the Chrome browser are the exception unless your third-party partnership agreement stipulates that Avast won't be paid a commission unless the check box for the Google product is pre-checked. Customers are still smarting from the latest fiasco that forced Avast to disband their Jumpshot subsidiary in January 2020 (see the PC World article Update: Avast Kills Jumpshot Data-Collection Business After Privacy Concerns Mount as well as Reuter's Avast Pulls Plug on Jumpshot After Data Privacy Scandal) and were hoping these questionable business practices would be a thing of the past.
Perhaps it's a good thing that Microsoft started flagging Avast / Piriform installers bundled with bloatware as PUAs if this serves as an incentive for Avast to finally finish their 10-year-old "to-do" list.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.900 * Windows Defender v4.18.2006.10 * Firefox ESR v68.11.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.69.7865 -
1 hour ago, nukecad said:
...PS. If you don't have your Firefox synced with a Firefox account then you don't need this workaround.
Just an FYI that multiple users who do not use Firefox Sync have reported that CCleaner v5.69 wiped the custom settings of NoScript and other Firefox extensions in the Norton Tech Outpost thread Firefox 79.0 to be Released July 28.I use Firefox ESR v68.11.0 (the extended support release of Firefox) so I haven't been affected by this CCleaner bug, but I've disabled all Firefox cleaning in my CCleaner settings and will only use Firefox's built-in browser history cleaning (Tools | Options | Privacy & Security | History |Clear history when Firefox closes | Settings) until a bug fix is released. It's unfortunate that someone from Avast/Piriform didn't investigate sooner when the OP circcc first reported this issue back on 01-Jul-2020 with an early beta release of FF 79. Kudos to them for at least trying to get someone's attention.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.900 * Firefox ESR v68.11.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.69.7865 -
On 22/10/2019 at 04:21, Dave CCleaner said:
We've got a couple of broken links as a result of moving recently to a new download server. These will all be reestablished shortly.
Hi Dave CCleaner:
It's been nine months now. Any update since your October 2019 post?
This might be a good time for Avast to finally re-post the Portable (and Slim) builds of Speccy / Defraggler / Recuva on their download servers, given your 26-Jul-2020 comment in the thread Windows Defender Reports CCleaner as "Potentially Unwanted App" that "The stand-alone Defraggler, Recuva and Speccy may still ping Defender for the time being."
According to Venkat's 30-Jul-2020 Techdows article Microsoft Explains Why Windows Defender Classifying CCleaner Installer as PUA:
Quote... As of now, we can confirm CCleaner can be installed without any issues on Windows 10, but you’ll still see it being marked as PUA in Protection History.
On the other side, Windows Defender acts more aggressively on other products of Avast. If you download Speccy, Recuva, and Defraggler, their setup files will be locked but not removed, and you’ll receive an error:
” Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have appropriate permission to access them”.
Microsoft said “bundling of software, especially products from other providers, can result in unexpected software activity that can negatively impact the user experiences. To protect Windows users, Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects CCleaner installers that exhibit this behavior as potentially unwanted applications (PUA)”...
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2 hours ago, nukecad said:
...That also seems an odd location to be downloading .exe files to. (But I guess some browsers may put '.part' files there?)
Just what 'WQchxgI+.exe' is I don't know, and can't find anything on google.
So why ESET thinks that file is CCleaner is also an odd one?An in-progress CCleaner installer download would be called 'ccsetup569.exe.part'...
Hi nukecad:
I have no idea, but the File.org article at https://file.org/extension/part states:
Quote...Certain download managers will break large downloads up into smaller downloads, giving each portion of the download the .part extension. The download manager will then combine all of the .part files into the complete file after the download has finished. At this time, the combined .part files will be renamed with the proper file extension...
Perhaps the CCleaner installer OP sotiris downloaded was bundled with bloatware (e.g., Avast Free Antivirus, Chrome browser, etc) that triggered Firefox to break the download into multiple .part files with seemingly random filenames before the partial downloads were recombined. Perhaps ESET threw a false positive detection because the ESET virus definition set was out of date and hadn't whitelisted the CCleaner installer yet (OP sotiris notes they saw that detection "a while ago" and the image <here> shows the Reputation was "Discovered 1 week ago").
It's even possible OP sotiris downloaded the CCleaner installer from a third-party download site (e.g., CNET's download.com) that bundled the installer with suspicious software. See bjm_'s example in the Norton thread False Norton "Threat" PUA.Drivereasy Uninstalls Legitimate Windows Program !! where a DriverEasy installer downloaded directly from the DriverEasy site was not flagged as a PUA. However, the DriverEasy installer downloaded from a third-party download site (the download link in that thread was removed by a Norton Forum Mod as being potentially dangerous) had one of these odd file names (qfflb92n.exe.part) and SHA-2 hash that did not match the "safe" installer and was flagged as a PUA.
This is all speculation on my part, and why Firefox would begin the download of a CCleaner installer into a folder called C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Temp (I also thought that path looked odd - I don't have a C:\Users\User folder on my own machine, hidden or otherwise) and assign that odd WQchxgI name to the partial .exe.part file will probably remain a mystery unless the OP sotiris can recreate that PUA detection with a fresh download.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.900 * Windows Defender v4.18.2006.10 * Firefox ESR v68.11.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.69.7865 -
21 hours ago, sotiris said:
I run win7 64 ultimate and I got the following message from ESET Internet Security a little while ago (see attachment)....Any ideas ?
Hi sotiris:
See the FileInfo description of .PART files at https://fileinfo.com/extension/part, which states "A PART file is a partially downloaded file from the Internet used for downloads that are in progress or have been stopped. Some PART files can be resumed at a later time using the same program that started the download. PART files are typically used by Mozilla Firefox...".
Just a guess, but that .exe.part file extension could indicate that Firefox was interrupted while downloading the CCleaner installer, and now ESET doesn't recognize the partial file that was saved in AppData\Local\Temp (i.e., the SHA-256 hash of the partial file doesn't match the expected SHA-256 hash of the full installer). If you use CCleaner or Windows Disk Cleanup to clear the temporary system files on your hard drive that partial file (and the ESET detection) might simply disappear. If not, click the blue CLEAN button shown <here> in the your image of the ESET detection (or try clearing your Firefox Browsing & Download history - press Ctrl-Shift-Delete while Firefox is open) and that should remove that partial file from your hard drive.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.900 * Windows Defender v4.18.2006.10 * Firefox ESR v68.11.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.69.7865 -
On 29/07/2020 at 07:29, Dave CCleaner said:
Indeed. The paid versions and slim builds are not a problem. At this point it would seem that Microsoft is not flagging CCleaner, as such, but the presence of an offer for a browser that competes with Edge....
Microsoft has updated the description of the PUA:Win32/CCleaner detection at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/threats/malware-encyclopedia-description?Name=PUA:Win32/CCleaner&ThreatID=277099 and they now confirm that the installer will be flagged by Windows Defender as a PUA/PUP (potentially unwanted application/program) if the installer is bundled with unnecessary software (e.g., Avast Free Antivirus, AVG Antivirus Free, etc.).
QuoteSummary
Certain installers for free and 14-day trial versions of CCleaner come with bundled applications, including applications that are not required by CCleaner or produced by the same publisher Piriform. While the bundled applications themselves are legitimate, bundling of software, especially products from other providers, can result in unexpected software activity that can negatively impact user experiences. To protect Windows users, Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects CCleaner installers that exhibit this behavior as potentially unwanted applications (PUA). ...
Kudos to bjm_ for posting about this updated description of the PUA:Win32/CCleaner detection <here> in the Norton Tech Outpost board.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.900 * Windows Defender v4.18.2006.10 * Firefox ESR v68.11.0 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.69.7865 -
On 01/05/2020 at 14:50, lmacri said:
...I was looking for the CCleaner Portable v5.64 for XP/Vista (i.e., something like ccsetup564.zip or ccsetup564_xp-vista.zip) that I can run from a USB thumb drive without installation...
3 hours ago, Sandra CCleaner said:Hi, please try using this: https://download.ccleaner.com/portable/ccsetup564.zip
Hi Sandra CCleaner:Thank you for posting that link to the v5.64 Portable build for Win XP/Vista.
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6 hours ago, hazelnut said:
Here you go
https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/download/portable?os=5.1w3Link taken from here (last paragraph)
https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/5739-solution-when-ccleaner-wont-install-or-download-windows/?tab=comments#comment-3038833 hours ago, Sandra CCleaner said:....The link provided by Hazelnut is the correct slim download for v5.64
Hi hazelnut / Sandra CCleaner:
I was looking for the CCleaner Portable v5.64 for XP/Vista (i.e., something like ccsetup564.zip or ccsetup564_xp-vista.zip) that I can run from a USB thumb drive without installation.
As Sandra CCleaner noted, the download link at https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/download/portable?os=5.1w3 currently appears to be offering the Slim installer for v5.64 (ccsetup564_xp-vista.exe) in spite of the fact that the URL includes the word "portable" in the URL.
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On 24/04/2020 at 10:25, Sandra CCleaner said:
Hi, the Windows XP and Vista build can be downloaded from here: https://download.ccleaner.com/sunset/ccsetup564_xp-vista.exe
CCleaner v5.64 is the last version that you will be able to use on XP and Vista...
Hi Sandra CCleaner:
Thank you for that direct download link. Is that the installer for the slim build, and is there a download link for the portable (.ZIP) version of CCleaner v5.64?
Please note that the download link for CCleaner v5.64 in the CCleaner support article Which versions of CCleaner work with Windows XP or Vista? simply redirects users to https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/builds, which is currently offering the latest CCleaner v5.66.7716. From that support article as of today:
Quote"If you are on Windows XP or Vista, you can safely use CCleaner version 5.64, please download our slim build here. This version will only ever receive critical security updates...."
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I have the same issue with Speccy v1.32.740 which reports "S.M.A.R.T. not available" for the Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G NVMe SSD in my Dell Inspiron 15 5584 (purchased August 2019), even though CrystalDiskInfo has no problem displaying the SMART attributes. See my 22-Apr-2020 images in ZloboMiR's 19-Feb-2020 thread No SSD NVM Info.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.720 * Firefox ESR v68.7.0 * Windows Defender v4.18.2003.8 * Speccy Portable v1.32.740
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U@1.60/1.80 GHz, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620 -
I have the same problem with the Toshiba NVMe SSD in my Dell Inspiron 15 5584 (purchased August 2019). Speccy v1.32.740 reports "S.M.A.R.T. not supported" (see my system snaphot at http://speccy.piriform.com/results/jsOPIebHMX08p7q8vLXeBhg) ...
... while the WMIC diskdrive get status command reports "Status OK"...
.. and CrystalDiskInfo v8.4.2 is able to display the SMART attributes and reports the status is "Good".
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.720 * Firefox ESR v68.7.0 * Windows Defender v4.18.2003.8 * Speccy Portable v1.32.740
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U@1.60/1.80 GHz, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620
Can't Find Speccy Portable v1.32 Download Link on Builds Page
in Speccy
Posted
Bump.
Would appreciate if someone from Avast / Piriform could provide a status update on when the Slim and Portable builds of Speccy will be re-posted at https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy/builds.
Dave CCleaner's 22-Oct-2019 post <here> in the the Defraggler board said the broken download links for Slim and Portable builds of Speccy, Defraggler and Recuva would be "reestablished shortly".
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.1139 * Firefox 82.0.3 * Windows Defender v4.18.2010.7 * Malwarebytes Free v4.2.3.96-1.0.1104 * Speccy Portable v1.32.740
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U@1.60/1.80 GHz, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G 256 GB NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620