why doesn't piriform use virus total to see what needs to be removed and remove anything that comes up as a potential virus or malware? also, is the slim version still available for download? when i go to builds it does not seem to be available. does anyone use older builds and do they seem more effective for cleaning? it seems like the free version has been limited more and more over the years.
Slim and portable have been released.
2 hours ago, moderation said:<div class="ipsQuote_contents"> <p> why doesn't piriform use virus total to see what needs to be removed and remove anything that comes up as a potential virus or malware? also, is the slim version still available for download?... </p> </div>
Hi moderation:
VirusTotal.com is simply an aggregate web site that uses the scan engines of ~ 60 popular antivirus scan engines (e.g., McAfee, Norton, etc.) and shows the user how many antivirus programs rate the file as "suspicious" (e.g., a VirusTotal rating of 15/60 means 15 scan engines think the file is suspicious, 45 think it is safe).
Before Piriform releases any new installer they run quality assurance tests, add their digital certificate and provide the SHA-256 / MD5 hash (essentially a digital fingerprint of the file) to antivirus companies like McAfee, Norton, etc. so that they can automatically whitelist the installer as a "safe" file prior to its release. The infected 32-bit ccleaner.exe executable for v5.33 was not caught by Piriform during their quality assurance testing and was not initially flagged by any of the ~ 60 antivirus scan engines used on VirusTotal because Piriform incorrectly certified their v5.33 installer was free of malware. Once the embedded Floxif backdoor trojan was discovered the v5.33 installer was removed from the Piriform download servers and antivirus companies were notified that the installer should be blacklisted, and only then did VirusTotal begin flagging the v5.33 files as suspicious/malicious.
In the past it's always been normal for the slim build of any CCleaner installer to be posted at http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/builds about a week or so after the standard and portable builds are released, but Avast (who recently purchased Piriform) are "testing" a new policy to delay release of the portable build as well - see the discussion in Special's thread where's the portable version?. As Stephen Piriform noted <here>, both the slim and portable builds for v5.38 were just released today.
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox ESR v52.5.2 * NS Premium v22.11.2.7 * MB Premium v3.3.1 * CCleaner Free Portable v5.38.6357