CCleaner storing cookies on machine, without consent.

[Phil#2]

After using CCleaner for some years, I've recently discovered that there are some cookies CCleaner are putting on the 'Cookies to Keep,' list.  

Amongst them are Google, Microsoft and Facebook.  Looking through the articles on piriform, I came across this.  

"CCleaner Free users may sometimes be shown contextual offers. (For example, to install Google Chrome or Avast antivirus). So that only relevant offers are displayed, a cookie is stored on the user’s machine. CCleaner will always try to keep or replace these cookies..."
https://support.piriform.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047828672-Select-cookies-to-clean-with-CCleaner-for-Windows#how-to-use-intelligent-cookie-scan--0-12

So if I've got this correct, CCleaner will PUT cookies on your device, from three of the most notorious data gatherers on the net.  And even if you delete them, CCleaner will replace them.

Basically, that means that I have had less privacy protection from CCleaner, than if I manually deleted cookies from my browser.  

This is a bit of a shock.  I can't be the only person that has discovered this.  I've written to CCleaner asking what these cookies have been doing, and what information about my browsing history has been passed on.  I'm guessing they'll tell me that I have to check with the relevant companies.

If anyone could share some light on this, that would be much appreciated.

[nukecad]

Simply move them out of the cookies to keep list. (I did it years ago).
Have 'Save all settings to INI file' enabled in Options>Advanced and they won't get put back after an update.

However:
As that article says the cookies store if a user of CCleaner Free has been shown a particular offer, and if they have then it won't show it again for a number of months.
So if you delete those cookies you will get shown more offers in Free because it won't know that you've already seen them.

There are many posts on this forum from people complaining they see too many offers, when checked it's almost always because they are removing cookies (and sometimes registry entries for the Pro version) that would prevent the offers being shown again (and again).

In the end it's your choice, but be aware that if you do remove them then you may see pop up offers more frequently.

[Phil#2]

Cheers for the reply.  I'm not too concerned about the pop ups really, more so what the cookies that have been placed in my machine for so long mean to my privacy.

Would they be sharing my browser history with the likes of google, facebook or where they purely for pop ups?

[nukecad]

AFAIK just for the offers.

Not all cookies are 'bad', in fact most are harmless and helpful, and some you do want - hence the 'cookies to keep' option.

But many have got used to throwing all the good cookies away just in case there may be a 'bad' one lurking somewhere.
It's a bit like throwing out perfectly good food (cookies maybe?) just because it's reached a 'best before' date.
Either one is an easy option 'just in case', although when you stop and think about it then its overkill - but people still do it anyway.

[Andavari]

In some software (not referring specifically to CCleaner on this):
Some of the cookies are like settings, so the user isn't constantly/consistently being bugged by certain things, delete the specific cookie and the software doesn't know to no bother/bug about something like a certain upgrade offer for example.