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CCleaner Pro "Lifetime" Licence - why has it expired?


psychopomp1

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14 minutes ago, nukecad said:

Last week the faulty server was replaced with a brand new server,  - The issue has already been fixed.

It doesn't seem to be fixed to me. I bought CCleaner Professional back in 2014 with the understanding it was a lifetime license, but I received a popup just yesterday (Saturday) telling me my license was expired and I should buy it again. Doesn't seem like it's been fixed. Or do I have to use an older version of the software now if I'm to continue using it?

Edited by Hornet
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Yeah the pop ups are back as well as offers to buy again. What a cheek! Why would I pay for something that I already own, as far as I'm concerned they can stick their offer where the sun don't shine. Just keep using the version you have and don't try to update. It's when you try to update that they will shaft you.

Edited by Eagle Beak
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I've pointed the staff to these last couple of posts.

*** Out of Beer Error ->->-> Recovering Memory ***

Worried about 'Tracking Files'? Worried about why some files come back after cleaning? See this link:
https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/52668-tracking-files/?tab=comments#comment-300043

 

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I brought a LIFETIME LICENSE : 12/08/2014

 CCleaner Professional Plus 4 Products in 1! Professional versions of CCleaner, Defraggler, Recuva and Speccy. Full feature set, software updates and priority support. Instant online delivery!
 

why'd you change it to a subscription model? Why?

 

 

Edited by RSebire
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The Black Friday notice is a totally different thing to the expired license issue:

The Black Friday notification is an intended promotion - the expired licence notification was an error.

You should only have seen a maximum of 4 Black Friday adverts pop up
Aand yes you should have got one yesterday and another today as a reminder that the sale is ending, as it says in your screenshot..
They will stop when the sale ends tomorrow.

*** Out of Beer Error ->->-> Recovering Memory ***

Worried about 'Tracking Files'? Worried about why some files come back after cleaning? See this link:
https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/52668-tracking-files/?tab=comments#comment-300043

 

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Yes I know it's a different issue but it's combined on the same pop-up. I also had email messages promoting the Black Friday promotion but that's not the point. I had at least two pop-ups................one yesterday and one today that advertised the Black Friday promotion but also claimed my License has expired, which it hasn't as I haven't updated to one of the versions that is a subscribed one. I'm still using a current version license.

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Apologies, I had missed that 'expired' line on your screenshot of the pop-up.

I'll bring it to the attention of the Piriform staff.

*** Out of Beer Error ->->-> Recovering Memory ***

Worried about 'Tracking Files'? Worried about why some files come back after cleaning? See this link:
https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/52668-tracking-files/?tab=comments#comment-300043

 

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On 20/11/2019 at 15:19, moonman14 said:

Thank you all for this thread, I am not even done reading it all, but I did what one other poster mentioned, when I purchased my gaming PC in 2015, I bought malwarebytes and CCleaner, both mentioned it was for life and could be removed and placed on another PC. Well when I recently updated that old gaming pc to windows 10, my paid version of CCleaner was no more...so I am now in the same boat, arguing with them about this issue.

My personal feeling is, neither of these companies could see far enough ahead to know subscription services would become the best way to make more $ with their products, decided to screw over there long time loyal consumers and now have revisionist history...Was there ever a  resolution? I don't even mind having to update it myself...I just don't like not having the advanced features that I paid for. I say we make a concerted effort to flame these people on social media every chance we can...

I don't know if this will help all of you who seem to have gotten wrapped up in what has been referred to as a "Bait and Switch" tactic (which seems to be happening in ever increasing numbers as one company sells out to a different managing company), but I found the following while cruising the net two days ago. (URL is at the bottom of this post.) It clearly states "CCleaner Professional Plus Lifetime License" and "You also get three of Piriform's programs called Defraggler, Recuva and Speccy for free as part of the CCleaner Pro Plus Package". My question would be if no "Lifetime License" of CCleaner is available for purchase, how do they explain companies such as the one at URL below, selling their product under exactly the guise? This absolutely muddies the waters at best, and leans heavily towards false advertising. I would think that at the very least, Piriform could make a very wise business decision by contacting every single one of those who are feeling ripped-off, and offer all of them something like a free year or two of programs. It's obvious that not doing SOMETHING for you all, will lead to a hemorrhage of money many times what the bandage would cost them. I'll be watching as I'm sure many more will as well. Good Luck! 

URL: 
[shady looking coupon site link deleted]

AK Bad Boy

Edited by Dave CCleaner
Shady-looking coupon site link deleted
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7 hours ago, AK Bad Boy said:

My question would be if no "Lifetime License" of CCleaner is available for purchase, how do they explain companies such as the one at URL below, selling their product under exactly the guise? This absolutely muddies the waters at best, and leans heavily towards false advertising.

 

To start with that company you link to is not selling anything at all, they are offering money off coupons (or not).

In this case if you click on the 'Get Coupon' in your link it doesn't even give you a coupon code, it merely takes you to a Piriform Black Friday offer page, (where you could enter a coupon code - if you had been given one and if it wasn't already at sale price).

That Piriform Page clearly states "1 Year subscription..." see below.

If a 3rd party coupon website which is nothing to do with Piriform has wrong information then you can hardly blame Piriform for that, complain to the site that has the wrong information.

 

image.png

*** Out of Beer Error ->->-> Recovering Memory ***

Worried about 'Tracking Files'? Worried about why some files come back after cleaning? See this link:
https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/52668-tracking-files/?tab=comments#comment-300043

 

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13 hours ago, AK Bad Boy said:

My question would be if no "Lifetime License" of CCleaner is available for purchase, how do they explain companies such as the one at URL below, selling their product under exactly the guise?

 

To reiterate from previous posts:

  • There is no such thing as a "lifetime licence" of any Piriform/CCleaner product
  • Piriform/CCleaner have never advertised any of its products as being a "lifetime licence"
  • Products purchased from 2011-2017 were sold under a traditional "by version" model which (depending on where you purchased your product from) may have included 12 months of free updates and priority support.  This allowed home users to continue to use the version that they purchased (and up to 12 months of updates later) indefinitely, but this service component required a renewal. Those who didn't, what they bought still worked and continues to work.

You can also buy things advertised as "lifetime licences" on eBay and other various corners of the internet at surprisingly cheap prices.  These are invariably pirated or cracked copies which tend to have a rather short "lifetime" as we disable batches of these on a regular basis.  We also work with eBay to get these listings cancelled as soon as possible after they appear to protect our customers from fake products, but some always slip through the net.  If you have bought fake software from a pirate, software developers can't give you back your money (since we don't have it) and your only remedy is to get a refund from whoever you bought it from.

The team is looking into the coupon site you linked to.  If they are operating as an affiliate then they would be promptly terminated.

Piriform Homepage - [CCleaner - CCleaner Mac - CCleaner Android - CCleaner Browser - Recuva - Speccy - Kamo] - Product Support

Looking for your licence key, expiry date or download link? Check here first: https://www.ccleaner.com/support/license-lookup
To find out how we protect your privacy - read CCleaner's Data Factsheet.
What's new? Check the latest CCleaner for Windows release notes

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Update to this.

We are informed by staff that action had been taken against the coupon site in question, and they been instructed to remove the webpage with the missleading advertisment.

*** Out of Beer Error ->->-> Recovering Memory ***

Worried about 'Tracking Files'? Worried about why some files come back after cleaning? See this link:
https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/52668-tracking-files/?tab=comments#comment-300043

 

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Thank goodness, I thought my memory had gone south. Also being plagued by renewal notices yet Piriform claim it's always been a one year license.

Bought Pro in 2014 and very strange that this has only occurred this year.

Anyone know of another cleaner?

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5 hours ago, GraUK said:

 

Anyone know of another cleaner?

Not that will be discussed here on an official company website. 

5 hours ago, GraUK said:

Bought Pro in 2014 and very strange that this has only occurred this year

Please read the thread, it's been answered as to why it only occurred this year.

 

ADVICE FOR USING CCleaner'S REGISTRY INTEGRITY SECTION

DON'T JUST CLEAN EVERYTHING THAT'S CHECKED OFF.

Do your Registry Cleaning in small bits (at the very least Check-mark by Check-mark)

ALWAYS BACKUP THE ENTRY, YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU'LL BREAK IF YOU DON'T.

Support at https://support.ccleaner.com/s/?language=en_US

Pro users file a PRIORITY SUPPORT via email support@ccleaner.com

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  • 4 weeks later...

Wow, this is truly disappointing. Malwarebytes honors their lifetime (i.e., pre-SaaS) licenses. What's the deal with Piriform suddenly deciding to turn my lifetime license into an expiring license? I only registered for the auto-updates and have no need for support. It wouldn't hurt Piriform one iota to grandfather their existing lifetime licenses, but given this little money grab, I'll never recommend that anyone pay Piriform for the product ever again. Thanks a bunch for the misleading licensing and lies.

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Well the only change I get is my Life Time CCleaner Professional still works like it always has and it still updates to the newest version all by itself only change is it know says I have expired on the same day I purchased it six years ago..... But everything works and yes every now and then I get a notice on my desk top to update which I encore cause I have a life time License

Mr. Fixit  

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Just joined this forum as I feel the need to chime in.

Not only did Cleverbridge think the product had a lifetime license, so did newegg.com. I have been purchasing from newegg for 10 years, I've always read their Q&A about products and I've never known of their support to give out incorrect info. On Sept. 24, 2015, Newegg Support answered the licensing question stating, "This is a one time payment."  (See screenshot.) 

I contacted Ccleaner support in December 2019 regarding this issue, sent them the link to the Q&A page on newegg and sent a screenshot. The response (which took almost 3 weeks) from Ccleaner was; 

"I'm really sorry but Newegg didn't provide the correct info to you prior to your purchase.

Unfortunately we cannot be responsible for other sellers wrong info to their customers. Please try to buy your license from now on straight from their manufacturer so you can be sure about the state of your license."

Cute, huh?!! I have never heard of a response like that regarding newegg. Anyone in the tech industry knows newegg is one of the best retailers for tech products in the world and has been for years. I have read the entire 8 pages of this thread (and many other threads) and I'm fully aware the current owners of Ccleaner do not care about honoring Piriform's business model, do not care about blatantly (with no shame) displaying their lack of ethics and lack of 'business sense and do not care about their name being trashed, however I DO care that Avast is bad mouthing newegg. In my opinion, newegg does not provide invalid info, and for whatever reason, in 2015 Newegg Support was also under the impression a lifetime license was provided with the purchase of the "Professional" version. I too used this product for 4+ years without ever receiving the nag screen. Now the nag screen will not go away. That's o.k.; I wasn't even aware that Avast had bought Piriform until after emailing customer support with this issue. Now that I'm aware of Avast being behind this, it makes much more sense as to why this is even an issue. I've uninstalled the product, and physically deleted every reference to this product on my hard drive and in my registry. Why? Because in the last 15 years, I've repaired dozens of computers with various versions (free and subscription) of Avast antivirus and, well, if anyone is curious about their MO, just read the review on Tom's guide (safe site). https://www.tomsguide.com/us/avast-free-antivirus,review-2208.html  Also, reddit has some interesting comments about Avast. https://www.reddit.com/r/antivirus/comments/9by31d/is_avast_antivirus_still_safe/

I have just contacted newegg about Avast's response to me and informed them of Ccleaner's statement of "didn't provide correct info" and will update this if necessary re newegg. As with the Malwarebytes business model, it would have been nice if the new owners of Ccleaner were more like Piriform and not only honored the "non-lifetime" license as lifetime, but also not insult so many of us with this issue by just stating in their nag screen, "We will no longer recognize the non-lifetime version as lifetime, therefore you will constantly see this nag screen until you purchase our new version (of which it appears they don't even tell you is a yearly subscription). Just as in this thread, it took what? 4 or 5 pages for the issue to be somewhat explained; so much for customer service; so much for transparency.

 

ccleaner qA.JPG

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It's a turd sandwich for sure.  The so-called "lack of correct information" that Newegg and Cleverbridge provided (or should I say didn't provide) can be blamed squarely on Piriform for electing not to enforce their software terms of use.  The years subscription model has always "been there", it just wasn't enforced.  By choosing not to enforce it (and advertise it properly), Piriform created a false sense of permanency in the form of a lifetime license.  Everyone was quite happy with the scenario until Avast came on scene and started driving the "We're Just Here For The Money" bus all over Piriform's customers.

So, it's a combination of bad software curating (Piriform), sour grapes (Customers), and careless management (Avast).  I too would think the situation called for an exception to the subscription model for customers that bought in when we did under those unclear purchase agreements, but apparently Peter Turner (SVP Chief $$$Revenue$$$ Officer Consumer Products) and Gagan Singh (SVP Consumers Products) doesn't see it that way.  Obviously they don't care (if they even know about this issue in the first place.)

Going through Avast's web pages, you won't see squat about providing 'world class customer service or support' - you only see stuff like "At Avast, we work every day to keep the world safe online" and "Avast is dedicated to creating a world that provides safety and privacy for all, no matter who you are, where you are, or how you connect."

All they do is stroke their ego over 'immense cloud-based faster, smarter artificial intelligence' and '400+ million users'.  Clearly, customer service ain't important enough to mention - and I blame Gagan Singh for that, since this product should fall into his purview of responsibility.  Alas, they obviously have other priorities, and customer retention isn't one of them.  Everyone on the Avast Leadership Team needs to be reminded that they need our business more than we need theirs.  I've successfully expunged anything Avast out of my infrastructure, and I'm certain I've cost them more business than a hundred lifetime licenses of CCleaner would have cost - and that is the only part about this that makes me smile.  Beyond that, at this point, all I can do is...

VOTE WITH MY FEET...

Turner.jpg

Singh.jpg

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bought  Ccleaner bundle professional plus around Oct 30, 2014.. cost 42.75 USD   I bought direct from  https://www.ccleaner.com/
last 10 days ago , it turn into  " EXPIRED " license.    i don't know why , but i saw a promotion LIFETIME LICENSE ONE TIME PAYMENT ON CCLEANER OFFICIAL WEBSITE that time..  I bought because someone at TECH shop gave a review for it,  show me the website that day , buy this one lifetime , no need renew forever.. I decide to buy since it said LIFETIME , on the very official website..  before i bought the software I also read all the full T&C in the website also in the PDF.. There no listed about 1 year or any complicated stuff.. everything was very simple to know its a lifetime license LEGAL by permanent CONTRACT.. and in my receipt it didnt listed 1 year or lifetime..  just  CCLEANER PROFESSIONAL BUNDLE PLUS .. NOW I want ask ,, Now I want upgrade my computer , the old one i want to sell in ebay..  does the LIFETIME LICENSE can be use in new fresh 2020 year motherboard computer?      If can't should I support piracy now?  because everything in my computer softwares are ORIGINAL LICENSE LIFETIME all cost around 2K USD.. thanks for the best answer.. waiting for reply from anyone at here..   your answer will decide fate of my future..

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34 minutes ago, konjohn said:

bought  Ccleaner bundle professional plus around Oct 30, 2014.. cost 42.75 USD   I bought direct from  https://www.ccleaner.com/
last 10 days ago , it turn into  " EXPIRED " license.    i don't know why , but i saw a promotion LIFETIME LICENSE ONE TIME PAYMENT ON CCLEANER OFFICIAL WEBSITE that time..  I bought because someone at TECH shop gave a review for it,  show me the website that day , buy this one lifetime , no need renew forever.. I decide to buy since it said LIFETIME , on the very official website..  before i bought the software I also read all the full T&C in the website also in the PDF.. There no listed about 1 year or any complicated stuff.. everything was very simple to know its a lifetime license LEGAL by permanent CONTRACT.. and in my receipt it didnt listed 1 year or lifetime..  just  CCLEANER PROFESSIONAL BUNDLE PLUS .. NOW I want ask ,, Now I want upgrade my computer , the old one i want to sell in ebay..  does the LIFETIME LICENSE can be use in new fresh 2020 year motherboard computer?      If can't should I support piracy now?  because everything in my computer softwares are ORIGINAL LICENSE LIFETIME all cost around 2K USD.. thanks for the best answer.. waiting for reply from anyone at here..   your answer will decide fate of my future..

You can install this on your new pc so long as you wipe the old one (never sell a used pc with your old windows still on it, in fact i would keep back the hard drive but that is just me). as for the lifetime  updates, there isn't one as has been mentioned in this thread, whether the company has backtracked or not is unknown . I believe the nag screen was introduced a little after Ccleaner was bought out but i could be wrong on that,  So long as you use the same registration name and number you can install this on your new pc , i have done so many times on my computers without issue.

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Sonartech; 100% agree w/your sandwich comment. 

(So 'turd' is acceptable on this forum rather than the alternative?! Good to know! 💩)

Totally agree with all you mention. Matter of fact, the info you have provided throughout this thread has been invaluable, i.e., you were the one who pretty much interpreted the much awaited/anticipated explanation given by one of the mods regarding this 'sandwich'. 

Thanks for sharing your research and comments. 

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15 hours ago, Bluetac said:

You can install this on your new pc so long as you wipe the old one (never sell a used pc with your old windows still on it, in fact i would keep back the hard drive but that is just me). as for the lifetime  updates, there isn't one as has been mentioned in this thread, whether the company has backtracked or not is unknown . I believe the nag screen was introduced a little after Ccleaner was bought out but i could be wrong on that,  So long as you use the same registration name and number you can install this on your new pc , i have done so many times on my computers without issue.

I guess I just found my answer.. ok  i decide to support original license until fowards to future...   so it would be no problem if im using  old lifetime license to new pc  ...  ok the old pc , i just hard format wipe clean..  yes the HDD/ SSD  i dont sell it.. cuz its quite expansive to buy new one .. only the basic component like mobo / psu /etc etc for sale..  thank you for the reply...   case closed..   have a good day to all of you.. happy new year..~

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I was going to write the following:

"Be aware you cannot download and install the latest version from the CCleaner website and register it as the Professional version using your original serial number though. The latest versions are subscription type. You can install your original installation file if you still have it and register that, or you can go to https://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/history/ and download a newer version that should still accept your original serial number. As I have posted previously, in my experience you're OK up to version 5.58.7209 which was published on June 6th last year but be sure to turn off automatic updates as soon as it's installed. Anything newer than that will disable certain Professional features such as automatic cleaning".

However, I just checked my own copy which was  version 5.58.7209 installed last year and has been working OK with smart cleaning prompting me to run the cleaning function every few days to save x amount of wasted space until just a couple of days ago and find it has mysteriously updated itself to the latest version despite ignoring getting several spurious messages about the licence expiring over the Christmas/New Year period. This should not have happened. I have automatic updates turned off, CCleaner and Piriform have been blocked from incoming connections in Windows Firewall since last year. I last got the prompt to clean the PC just a couple of days ago but had to ignore it because I was in the middle of running some app or other. I did run it manually afterwards though so I'm wondering whether that triggered something. I can't see anything has changed in the settings when I opened CCleaner a few minutes ago to check the version, whereas when I was automatically updated to a newer version last time certain key functions were disabled hence why I got involved in this discussion in the first place.

I'll have to see whether I still get the automatic prompts to clean my PC in the next couple of days. If I don't, I wont be happy as that is the key reason I use the product.

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