Security design philosophy

[dir]

I've searched the help files for ccleaner and this forum but couldn't readily find anything that explains what the design philosophy is for ccleaner.  To whit, does Piriform market ccleaner as a security tool of any type, and if so, why is the default setting of ccleaner to NOT wipe data?

 

I originally sought out an app that would remove/delete/erase/wipe/eliminate stuff from my PC, and found ccleaner and started using it.  Several weeks later I discovered that all the things ccleaner finds to wipe (temp files, cache, etc.) aren't actually being wiped, they're simply insecurely deleted.  Any recovery or forensics tool would instantly find all the things that ccleaner claims to have removed.

 

Of course, I found the setting to tell it to securely wipe stuff instead of just delete it, and changed it to 1-pass secure wipe.  But I was really surprised to find that this is not the default.

 

I understand that this increases the time required substantially, but it seems counter-intuitive to sell a product that purports to remove/eliminate things but, by default, does only the most superficial removal.

 

I'm sure that a large portion of ccleaner's users do not realise that they are not in fact securely removing the things they think are being removed.  I would have thought that users would be given the open during setup, or a very large blaring pop-up that explains the options available and the consequences:

 

"WARNING:  By default, items removed by ccleaner can be easily recovered or found by undelete or forensics tools, unless 'Secure Wipe" is enabled.  Do you want to enable this (which will increase the time required but will result in a far more secure elimination"      Or something like that.

 

So I guess I'm wondering what the design philosophy of this product is, and why the default is so contrary to the implied intent of the product?

[mta]

I have understood CCleaner (originally called Crap Cleaner) to simply be a 'remove junk from my PC' tool.  (hence the name)

I believe this is what most people would use it for.

Over the years it has morphed into much more - but always taking the softly-softly approach.

 

If you thought it a tool to forensically clean your surfing habits, then has you have discovered, you would indeed be surprised by how easily the nice fellows that emerged from the back of the Flowers By Irene van were able to follow your browsing history.

 

 

CCleaner is the number-one tool for cleaning your Windows PC. It protects your privacy online and makes your computer faster and more secure. Easy to use and a small, fast download.

 

That quote is straight off the Piriform website for the CCleaner page.  Even under the CCleaner title it states "Optimisation and Cleaning".

 

You simply got the bull by the horns in thinking CC was set to do what you wanted by default.

That is not its design 'off the shelf' - too aggressive for the average user.

[Derek891]

I think to put things in perspective I'll offer an example: my older brother. To put it kindly, he is not as technically sophisticated as we are. He used his laptop for about two years before I installed CCleaner for him. The first time it ran, it came up with about 2.1 gigabytes of junk files to be removed. Now imagine having disk wiping being enabled as a part of file cleaning by default. Someone like him would be sitting there wondering "why is it taking so long?" , or "what did I do wrong?", or maybe "this CCleaner program is a piece of junk!". I think the default settings are geared more towards people like him, and the option to change them is left to the more technical users, like us. That being said, I do agree with you dir: Users should be made aware of the fact that their files are being deleted but not overwritten using the default settings.

[Andavari]

In the end: Wipe Free Space done when you wish to use it is way faster than always having Secure Deletion on all the time.