CCleaner might be under attack. Not working! First time ever!

[Stephen Minnich]

Ccleaner has been amazing over the years. As every time I go on line, excrement piles up exponentially, MORE THAN EVER THESE DAYS, until I have to shut the browser (or have CC do it) and I can start back up CLEAN AND FAST. I run CC CONSTANTLY!  IT'S WONDERFUL!  Until today.  CC itself became infected. First time ever that I have seen this.  Without CC, it's useless to surf the net on my old gear.

It would not even uninstall.   I went in deep and deleted ALL the program files, downloaded OLD VERSIONS of CC. Finally got it to run in windows Safe Mode. It ejected a huge pile of excrement then, but can STILL not function normally in full windows mode.  I am convinced that CC itself is under a brutal attack!

It could be that unscrupulous entities have realized how vital CC is to keeping untold millions of poor folks like me able to use the net. In today's fish eat fish collapsing economy even you guys could be doing it, (but I don't think so).

ANYWAY, the ALARM IS OUT, and the mountainous amount of posts on these new threads shows that it is a BIG problem already.

I HOPE HOPE HOPE YOU CAN FIX IT!  

[mta]

g'day Stephen and welcome to the forum.

what is your OS and CC version?
where did you get CC from?

yes, almost all the versions of CC released this year have had their (fair) share of criticism.
the most recent release, v5.45 was pulled due to negative user feedback and v5.44 is the official 'latest' release.
although it has issues with the /auto switch and browser cleaning (or something like that), and v5.43 had Kaspersky and MalwareBytes problems (again - something like that) and v5.41 suddenly increased in file size without any new features announced and v5.42 I think was the European privacy settings which no one liked.

basically, v5.40 seems to be a version most seem to like the best (or hate the least - whichever way you want to spin it)
but no, CC isn't under attack (no need - Piriform are doing all the work in killing the product)

[Andavari]

It is possible to get malware on a system that will specifically remove certain things like remove CCleaner by either deleting or uninstalling it. While CCleaner is not an anti-malware tool in of itself it does have the potential of deleting non-locked files stored in Temporary Internet Files and other Temp folders that some malware may use.

However I'm not stating that's the issue you're having since CCleaner is in a buggy state.

[Guest Stephen CCleaner]

This behaviour is not coming from CCleaner.

I suggest that you run a thorough scan of your system to identify any malware. First off, if you are on Windows 10, open the Windows Defender Security Center and check for any problems. You should double-check the Virus & threat protection section to ensure that you have either Windows Defender or another antivirus actively protecting your system. If you have a third-party antivirus solution, you should open the interface and check that it is running in active mode (not silent, sleep or gaming mode).

If you do this there's a good chance that the source of your troubles will be detected and removed. If you have any ongoing issues I'm sure members of the forums will be able to offer more advice.