HGVord

@Andavari: Thanks for the interesting facts. There's a very old saying: "Never change a winning team" or in computer terms "Never change a running system". I will NEVER understand why a perfect software/app/tool must be "improved" and new "features" must be added all the time, with the result that the formerly perfect product becomes partly or completely unusable (like Firefox/Mozilla when they launched Quantum). CCleaner was perfect and there was no need to change anything. Updates should only include hidden entries of new software in the registry or some minor bug fixes or speed/memory issues, but NOTHING else. Why do they always have to eff everything up? Fun fact: In 35 years of PC experience I NEVER had a virus/trojan. If something crashed my system it was always either the OS itself or the AV or some other security/performance tool. But since Win7 not even once. Maybe a too personal question but I'm curious: If you're really that concerned about privacy, why Win10? Never in my life I will install Win10 on any of my computers or laptops, literally over my dead body. When ESU for Win7 ends in 2023 I will have to install Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon (or whatever version they will have then) on 1 PC with internet access and all other PC's and laptops will stay offline with Win7. And I guess the offline PC's and laptops will still have CCleaner v5.65, he he...

@Crni: I think it's useless to debate here and we're just wasting our time. It looks like nobody cares anyway. And we're even accused of using pirated serials or being from North Korea or being dumb, just because we use firewalls. The younger generations hardly know what a firewall is and does, let alone why people use it. Anyway, for the weekly maintenance of all my computers I use [competition software] I just keep (kept) CCleaner because it cleans automatically with 7/35 passes every time I close the browser (Waterfox with add-on Click&Clean). But after my experience here in the forum, I think I will gladly do 2-3 extra clicks to launch [competition] instead of using CCleaner. Greetings from Switzerland.

@nukecad: The last part ("Fact is...") of my previous post is meant for Dave/CCleaner/Piriform/Avast, hence the vertical spacing. I thought that would be obvious even without an @. And the affected users of the delay didn't do anything themselves. They just happen to have the same configuration since before v5.66 when everything was working perfectly. And what about the users who don't even have internet access or turn it off when not needed? Are they supposed to just live with the delay or aren't even allowed to use CCleaner?

@Crni: Thanks for the link, I didn't know that. But that was exactly the time when I had to start using the slim installer (see my first post) because Malwarebytes was blocking the normal installer. @nukecad: It doesn't matter if you or the developer think it's not a bug. It's up to the users to determine what's a bug. There are a lot of people out there with that delay problem. And most of them don't know about this forum or can't find it. Since 1-2 months they suddenly have a long delay every time they launch CCleancer. Do you think they say: "Oh, that must be my fault" or "Oh, I must have done something wrong" or "Oh, my PC is too slow, I have to buy a new one"? Nope. They all think it's a BUG in CCleaner and hope that it will be fixed in a future update. And by the way, statements like "nobody is forcing you" or "if you don't like what it does" are not very professional and don't help anybody. Fact is: The "feature" that causes the delay was implemented in v5.66. Before that, nobody had any problems. So it should be easy to get rid of it again if many users have a problem with it. If you just defend it vehemently and you're not willing to get rid of it, then you risk losing customers/users. As for me, I will just use v5.65 until the problem is fixed (and NO, unblocking connections in the firewall is NOT a fix) or until I find an alternative. Thanks

Thanks a lot for all the lengthy responses. To clarify: - With "slim-version" I meant that I couldn't use the normal installer anymore because of bloatware (or whatever) which was never included before. So a product was made delibaretely worse and less safe. - As for blocking connections: I don't want any app to communicate with the outer world unless absolutely necessary. "nukecad" mentioned the latest definition files for the AV. Yes, of course, they are absolutely necessary. But ONLY them. If they're updated 4-6 times daily (or even hourly) I don't need any cloud-based service and I don't want any of my files (or infos about them) to be sent to an unknown server. And just to download definition files I don't think that an AV needs 7-8 processes to go online. - CCleaner is not Open Source. So I just have to take your word for it that it doesn't do what it shouldn't do? Sorry, that's not enough for me. I need CCleaner just for cleaning and for cleaning only. So there's no need for it to have "web service components", especially given the fact that it's supposed to be a privacy (!) tool. I don't need daily or weekly updates and I don't need "emergency" updates for a privacy tool. And by the way, I'm using the FREE version (and no, I'm not from North Korea). Why should the FREE version even check online for a serial number? And if you can block IP's from North Korea tells me that you at least collect the IP address every time CCleaner is started. That's a VERY good example of what a privacy tool should NOT do. You can see the IP address when somebody downloads the installer from your website so you can use that information for your statistics. But that's all you need to know and nothing more. To come back to the delay problem (even if it looks like you don't want to fix it anyway): Why is there no delay when the Avast URL's are blocked in the HOSTS file? That means CCleaner is CLEARLY connected to Avast and tries to get (or send) information online. That's ANOTHER good example of what a stand-alone privacy tool should NOT do.

Same here: CCleaner takes about 10-20 seconds to start (which is even more annoying because I have set it up to start and clean automatically everytime I close the browser). So I have to wait and wait every time (even if I start CCleaner directly from the start menu or the desktop icon). I'm using CCleaner for 10-12 years now. When they started a couple years ago with telemetry/data-collecting I changed to the slim-version and blocked everything in the firewall. Everything was well until about 1-2 months ago. I thought it's a bug and they would fix it soon but it looks like it's the way they want it to be because it wasn't fixed in the last updates. Spartan's solution doesn't work for me because I have Avast AV installed, too. Even if Avast is deactivated it deletes any entries in the HOSTS file concerning Avast-URL's. Adding any other entries in the HOSTS file is no problem, just the Avast-URL's get deleted right away ("self-defense", hahaha). CCleaner was one of the best tools out there until Avast bought it. And Avast was the best AV for me (after Avira messed up with telemetry and 6 processes in the firewall). But now Avast has 8 processes in the firewall too and nobody knows what they're doing. Any other suggestion to solve the problem with CCleaner? Or do we just have to get rid of all Avast data-miners?