Trackers found for unused Internet Explorer

[DivBy0]

I'm running CCleaner Pro in Windows 10. I almost exclusively use Firefox, and occasionally Edge, but NEVER Internet Explorer. However, CCleaner ALWAYS finds trackers for Internet Explorer, and I can't figure out why. In earlier versions of Windows, IE was part of the OS, so I can see how IE may have taken some action on behalf of the OS, but as far as I know, that's not the case with Windows 10, where Edge is the default browser. Even if you made another browser your default, Windows (web) searches will use Edge regardless. But how does IE fit into this picture, and why does CC find trackers for it?

[TwistedMetal]

Windows automatically recreates the files once they are deleted. They will be empty though...

[nukecad]

Ohter things such as Skype, and the start menu 'live tiles' use IE temporary storage, Edge will also use some of the same storage as IE.

And as TwistedMetal says some files get automatically generated.
eg. Windows always recreates a 'Depricated cookie' for IE if you delete it. (It simply contains a note saying  that cookies are no longer stored at that location).
So that IE 'tracking file' will always be found anytime you run CCleaner.

These are not what you or I would call 'tracking files', they are simply cookies.
See the link in my signature below this post.

[DivBy0]

Thanks for your explanations, which makes sense. However, I decided to take another look, and without any doing on my part, I had received another set of cookies. I ran a custom clean so I could actually look at them, and sure enough, one of them was called deprecated.cookie, which contained "Cookies are no longer stored in files.  Please use Internet*Cookie* APIs to access cookies."

Another was placed by CyberGhost VPN located in C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\DOMStore\KTO8TC80 called cg6-content.cyberghostvpn[1].xml. It only contained <root></root>, but I'll contact the vendor to find out why CyberGhost 7 places a CyberGhost 6 cookie.

But then CCleaner also found 48 Temporary Internet Files totaling 394 KB which includes several images which =may= have come from Microsoft News like a C-MEN Dark Phoenix banner, an Insider News image to watch the cast of IT Chapter 2, etc. And a bunch of "popup*.htm" files, where I found among the contents the string "https://advertiser.cyberghostvpn.com...". I really do have questions for that vendor!

But interestingly enough, there also was a file called update[1].htm, which ends in:

Document Moved
Object Moved
This document may be found <a HREF="http://license.piriform.com/update/?p=ccpro...">here

So apparently, Piriform is still placing temporary IE internet files (C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\IE\...)?

[nukecad]

I don't know about that Piriform one, but like I said a lot of things use IE temporary locations for their ephemeral files.

It's just a convenience, why create your own new AppData temp folders when MS already provides one? And of course anything you put in there will be cleaned when you clear IE temp files, no need to go looking for other temp locations.

As for the news stuff then it could be 'preloading' of webages/content (you should be able to turn that off in your browser). Alternatively If your browser has a default Front Page then delete the links from that and then those should not preload.

Another way they may be getting there is if you have any Live Tiles on your start menu. Those will use IE/Edge to fetch the live content.