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Couldn't agree more. Here is Mr. O'Callahan's original blog post: http://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/01/disable-your-antivirus-software-except.html It seems that his main justification for criticizing antivirus software is that it "poison(s) the software ecosystem because . . . invasive and poorly-implemented code makes it difficult for browser vendors and other developers to improve their own security." Mr. O'Callahan is for sure very knowledgable about such matters, and his opinion deserves great deference. But if the problem is that developers have to work around the safety mechanisms implemented by antivirus software, that's OK with me. For sure, AV softwares have false positives, and sometimes miss a bad guy, but ther track record is much better that any windows OS I know of. I don't mean to seem so negative, but it irks me when writers state opinions as fact, in ways that might cause great harm. Also, Razz, fwiw, that little set of protections I outlined above has protected win xp for years, here and for DennisD, and it will work for win 7 too. I have begun the process of migrating to win 7 because it won't be too long until xp won't work on any hardware, and the available browsers for it won't connect to many sites.

I do this: - have backup images, - run the os virtualized (like timefreeze or Shadow Defender), - run a sandboxed browser, - run a real time antivirus, and - run an on demand anitmalware checker (MBAM v.2). This cuts the chance of sustaining permanent damage to just about zero. The antivirus is there to catch any problems as they emerge. When Avast alarms, I do a restart. If they already did the dirty work on C: drive, a restart will fix it. If some unprotected partition has been affected, a restored image will fix it. If none of that works, there is no reason to think windows defender would have. Just my 2 cents. Still, for folks who are too busy or don't know how to secure their systems, it SEEMS that win 10 has improved quite a bit in security. Edit: That last line is not about you, but rather about my family members, who don't have the time nor the desire to carefully maintain their systems. For me personally, I wouldn't trust microsoft for anything.

I'm glad this got posted, thanks to all. Including Corona and his enigmatic rant. What I got from it is how to get win 10 back on its feet when necessary, and where to go for help. Very helpful to me, since i rarely use win 10. Razz, I must join the camp who advocate doing a reinstall. Just get your stuff copied somewhere safe and do it. Maybe take a sedative first. Then get your stuff put back and make an image and TRY the image. It's intimidating, I can never get rid of the idea that something will surely go wrong. But when it goes right you get that feeling of WOO HOO, that actually worked.

I don't keep MBAM installed, just install & run it from time to time as a double check. Also never have used a specialized HOSTS file here but probably should.

"For another second opinion it's good to have a checksum/hash software ... " Nirsoft's Hashmyfiles works well on win xp thru win 10. Just tried the latest version, 2.22. Unzip it to a folder just about anywhere, no installation needed. When you click the exe it opens a window, just drag the questioned file into the window and it gives you lots of information about it, uses highlighting to show which files are alike, will check any type of file I ever threw at it, and it's fast Fwiw. all the Nirsoft utilities I ever tried work as advertised. Here: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/hash_my_files.html

I have very limited experience with win 10. . . . "(4) Are there any other anti-malware programs. . ." Not exactly antimalware, but maybe get a good image backup program, and get yourself an external USB HDD big enough to store several backups of each of your machines. Something like Macrium Reflect, many members here use it. It offers a good free version which has the most important features. Or maybe Image for Windows, not much discussed here. I use Macrium paid to make regular backups of my win 7 & win 10 machines, and Acronis on this old win xp machine. Also not antimalware, but maybe get some sort of light virtualization software. There is Shadow Defender, not free, I run it on my win 7 machine. I can install all sorts of stuff, as long as it doesn't require a restart, and when I shut down the computer at the end of the day, all the built up junk is gone. Cell phone backup software, GPS backup software, free office suite trials, etc. are really bad about leaving junk behind. Spywareblaster blocks malicious ActiveX installations. It does more than just a hosts file I think. It's free and uses virtually no resources, for years has never conflicted with anything I have tried. So maybe no downside to keeping it? On the other hand, I never have really understood it and never saw it actually DO anything. Edit: MBAM 3 has drawn criticism in some circles, including their forum. Didn't read for the details. I've never used 3, but do use MBAM 2 paid and it doesn't seem to conflict with anything.

Wow, that list covers a lot of territory.

See post #33 just above here. I used the same installer you did. See also post#19 over at bleeping. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/641072/ccleaner-installs-google-chrome-with-no-warning-im-furious/page-2#entry4192843 I do not suggest that you are lying. It is possible to just be mistaken. It's only a lie if you know it is. In any case, all the checks and double checks establish that either you get: 1. an option to decline or 2. no chrome stuff.

Apologies for my silliness. These are a serious questions from the OP and later from quintas. The questions are more complicated than they seem, not amenable to yes or no answers. That's is why I tried to break them down into parts. Big picture: For me, I assume that anything on my HDD can be recovered given enough time and effort. Ccleaner and / or Recuva will do a good job of deleting and obscuring obsolete files, as described above. But . . . If the stakes are high enough, one must destroy the HDD.

Hi, rrtt. Won't help much with your present problem, but for the future consider an imaging software to keep a working backup of your OS. Many folks here like Macrium. There is a free and a paid version. There are of course other options.

All I remember for sure that it did was to open a home page with links to ebay, facebook, and some others. I don't use those. Don't even remember if I used it to visit any sites. Set about uninstalling it immediately. Your comment about privacy is right on the money. Thanks. Still, i guess i'll stick with avast for at least a while longer.

Safezone installed itself here on xp as part of an Avast program update. Tried it briefly, uninstalled it, just the browser. Didn't need it. Personally I had privacy concerns. Don't remember how it affected performance, probably not much. Since that I have set Avast to update just the definitions, not the program. This is xp after all. Some comments on the Avast forum. https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=184576.15

Another small experiment. Uninstalled ccleaner, deleted reg entries, installed ver. 5.15 then installed ver. 5.27 over the top. On the first installation, the google offer showed and I unchecked the box . No google stuff was installed. On the second installation, no google offer showed and no google stuff was installed. Soooo, the installer will either offer the option to decline, or skip the installation without comment. Always been so, afaik. Assuming every thing the OP said is true, (s)he just missed something. Not sure what or how. There may be several million other possibilities suggested by conspiracy theorists, but I am once again sure that there are no underhanded sneaky tricksey false installations going on here. Only reason I have kept after this is that the Piriformers are an honorable company, who for years have offered the best all around cleaner-upper out there. I don't mind a bit that those offers are used to generate revenue. There even people who like the chrome browser. >Gasp< But the suggestion that those installations are done against the users will is wrong and deserves rebuttal.

The problem with this and similar assertions is that I used the same installer you did. See post #19. There may be something I'm missing, but who ya gonna believe, me or your eyes? Editing the registry is dangerous, you should not do it.

It's actually much simpler than it sounds. None of the exes mentioned in this topic would have installed anything extra without a warning (offer to decline). Soooo, what about poor old nukecad's question?

Assuming everything said here is true, see post #19, the part about earlier installations. Also, it is easy to uninstall chrome or the google toolbar.

My BlueToothbrush got a virus. (back to you, Dennis)

Probably what has happened is that an earlier installation created keys in the registry that tell CCleaner not to install chrome or google. So on your last installation no offer was visible. I just did the experiment described in post #6. Again. Downloaded the file called ccsetup527.exe from every souce listed here and at Bleeping. - straight from filehippo. - from the wikisend site. - from the piriform official site. - going thru the update link in my free version. The exes are identical. The sha-256 hash is the one Andavari posted: 7F6B831129CE21153E83FC2B27C4B3236927B310C1FBDAF95755CE4EAC223431 So I uninstalled my CCleaner free and CCleaner Pro. Then went through the registry and deleted the keys which prevent installing chrome & google. Editing the registry is dangerous, you should not do it. Then I reinstalled the latest free version. Remember all those installers are identical. Immediately the installer window popped up offering to install or decline the google toolbar. It is part of that window, not a separate box that pops up later, at least that is how it works here. Finished the installation with the options shown. No Google stuff installed.

Wouldn't have to be a lie, maybe just a mistake. More later.

Many many times I have completely uninstalled CCleaner, manually cleaned out all the registry entries, then reinstalled it. Both the Pro and the free version. Always during the installation the option to install chrome or not was offered. It has been a while, and I'm not saying your situation didn't happen as you say, but it is very unlikely. Don't have time to o it again just now, but I'm quite sure that on an initial installation you get the option to decline chrome. You can uninstall chrome if it bothers you.

I don't either. I think microsoft is just trying to hold the fort together until all the old OSs disappear.

For other XP-ers, I should mention that before this lockup issue started, there was no problem waking any of my xp computers from standby. The power options are set to turn off the monitor at 5 min, turn off the HDD at 10 min, and go to standby at 15 min. Hibernation is not enabled. When it works the HDD turns off but the motherboard is still powered up. Very rarely the HDD will stay on, but always the computer wakes OK. Also, the lockup had no apparent connection to standby.

Thanks for the heads up, Hazelnut. Here on win xp I prevented avast from updating to the latest engine version but permitted the definitions to update. Avast still pops up a suggestion to update to the latest version, called Nitro. Not going to do it. Who would put Nitro on their computer anyway?

The reason I leave it on is just plain laziness. It boots up fast enough, but the time to clean out the junk, then update everything, then start Powershadow is more than I want to spend every day. Now, for what it's worth, that old Outpost firewall, recommended by Rridgely years ago I think, is still really good for win xp. Its still available at Filehippo, and I'm 99.9 percent sure that version 6.5.1 (2009) will install without a 'net connection. Agnitum, the authors, sold to Yandex, so updates are not available but they aren't needed for the standalone free firewall. For windows xp dinosaurs like me, that little bit of information may be the most useful part of this whole topic. That and the references to those hardware assessment tools. If any of these are considered competitive software, please feel free to delete any of all of this post. I don't think they are, they all do different things, but it's not my call. Those were CCleaner, Speccy, HWMonitor (temperatures), HDTune Pro (free trial), Microsoft memory tester, Cleanmem, PassMark BurnInTest (be careful gets hot), GPU-Z, GSmartControl, HWinfo32, IntelBurnTest. Also a little gem called Netpeeker, (15 day trial). Its a firewall, can be locked down pretty tight to show if anything is getting past your installed firewall. Some others were recommended but they weren't needed. After running this list hardware seemed OK. I still have the complete list if someone is interested.

Hi Dennis. Yes, locked up once, but I know why. Avast was scanning an exe before letting it run and I clicked "abort". That forced a restart. About that acs.exe file mentioned in post #66, in total I deleted 471 obsolete entries. Since that, old HAL here will run for 10 or more days with no problems. And there have been no unexplained lockups so probably that was the issue. Must eventually do those hardware cleanup tasks though. Thanks for asking.