It's pre-selected, and the problem was that I've updated CCCleaner so many times in the past, and it's never been on there. So this time, I clicked "Next" when the options screen came up at install and then realized something was different. I went back and de-selected it but the damage was already done -- the Yahoo toolbar was installed.
It's misleading to a lot of people, frankly, borne out by the statistics. If you look at the install stats on toolbars, almost 80% of users will install a pre-selected toolbar; whereas when they are explicitly asked, the opt-in rate is less than 20%. It's good money, too. The Piriform folks are getting about $1/install.
You're correct, a bit of light Googling and I solved the problem quickly. My irritation was that it did not appear in Programs and Features and I was concerned about doing a bad uninstall and having junk left over. At any rate, to the average user, they wouldn't have known what to do. It wasn't an obvious solution.
Fwiw, Calendar of Updates has put CCleaner on the Hall of Shame for this practice. http://www.calendarofupdates.com/updates/i...;event_id=44514
Of course, they're in good company. The money made from toolbars is unreal, actually. I refuse to do toolbars for my products, because I think it's unethical. But that's just me and I'm a bit old-fashioned and quirky that way. In my case, I'm missing out on literally millions of dollars, but I just don't care. I won't do it.
In closing, I don't really care that much Ccleaner wants to do this, my only issue is that it's buried in a long list of optional choices. It's clearly designed to get people to install the toolbar, and there should be clearer notification that a potentially unwanted program is being installed on your computer. In addition, there should be a clear way to remove it once it's on.
