I tried to download, with no success. (I have always waited for the "Slim Build" in the past.) Diversions and ads were very bad.

I strongly suggest waiting for the "Slim build".

Danger, Will Robinson, danger...!

I used the link at lower right corner of ccleaner's start page to update to the latest version yesterday. That seemed to work as it had always done in the past, but when I cold booted this morning I unexpectedly had Avast installed on my Win 7 PC. (I use MSE.)

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see any options to select/unselect installing Avast.  And needless to say, Avast made it very difficult to uninstall it. Almost everything I tried gave "Access Denied".

I finally got it uninstalled but their built-in uninstaller left 309 registry keys and 130 files and folders on my hard drive. What a mess!

And worse, all my previous system restore points were deleted, so I couldn't simply use one of them to get rid of Avast. Even the restore point automatically set earlier yesterday by MSE when it installed its latest update was deleted.

What kind of nonsense is that..?  :Angry:

(Apologies to Ron:   I tried posting this a few days ago, but it "vanished" into the realm of Dell's "Twilight Zone".... and I wasn't in the mood to "recreate" it, until reading your post here.)

Some remarks:

- Where appropriate, CCleaner Free may recommend improvements to your system’s antivirus protection

Note that CCleaner is now owned by avast (which also owns AVG), so presumably CCleaner's recommend[ed] improvements to your system’s antivirus protection may simply be a "plug"/nag to use avast and its various features.  Proceed with caution.

On a related note, installing/updating avast is now automatically updating "older" versions of CCleaner to the latest version:

We [Avast] have decided to upgrade all outdated CCleaner versions (v1.xx - v5.20) to the latest version. Portable versions were excluded. The reason is that old CCleaner version may not work as expected for for the latest software (your CCleaner is old, but users expect it will work perfectly also for e.g. latest Chrome which is updated every 6 weeks), maintenance of the latest version is much more easier for both developers and support and also from possible security issues.

==================

New comment:   As Ron just documented, it seems that the opposite is also happening --- that some people, upon installing CCleaner, are finding that avast came bundled with it... DISGRACEFUL :-(   I don't know if there was an opt-out that you missed, or if was actually forced on you.   I'm assuming you used the regular build, and that (hopefully) the SLIM build, if/when available, wouldn't be culpable.

Yes, the magical mysteries of this forum's "twilight zone", which are almost as good as the ones from Microsoft.  :Stickouttongue:

I understand ccleaner is now owned by Avast, but I never saw any nags to improve my antiviral status from ccleaner. I clicked the link to check for updates that's on ccleaner's main page and it opened this web page.

I clicked No Thanks on that page and it took me here.  I clicked Download under the "Free" column and went here where I clicked the green Download Latest Version button at top of that page. Nowhere is there a single mention of AVG being included.

I launched the setup .exe that downloaded and selected the Customize option to choose my preferences, but -again- not a single mention of AVG anywhere.

Bottom line, this is becoming malware that installs unwanted/unnecessary stuff without permission. So I'll be removing ccleaner from all 3 of my PCs and never installing it ever again.

Maybe the link you posted doesn't secretly install AVG on systems that don't already have it, but the link on the ccleaner start page led me down that path, so this is a warning to other users who don't have or want AVG...

And what gave them the right to delete my System Restore points, which I know were there beforehand???

EDIT: And yes, I know the links I followed took me to a download from filehippo.com but that's no excuse since the trail started from inside ccleaner.

Ron, if I had experienced your foistware, I also would delete everything Avast/CCleaner.

I just now successfully downloaded the latest version of CCleaner, starting at their website, but redirected to download.com (not filehippo). During the installation process I did a custom install, and unchecked the usual pre-checked garbage add-ons (Google Chrome and Google toolbar).

No mention of my AV or security improvements was seen, and my real-time Panda Dome AV and Malwarebytes 3 remain intact after a reboot of my Win 10 system.

I still recommend that folks wait for the Slim version. I only jumped the gun this time to see if I could replicate your experience.

And I just noticed that CCleaner updated "itself" 2 days ago --- AGAIN --- to the version 5.41... I had been keeping 5.08 on this particular system... and it's (at least) the second time I've experienced a non-approved update :-(   I had unchecked all related options I could find in both CCleaner and in avast.

EDIT:   Looking around my system, I found a new "Scheduled Task", CCleaner Update, to run the CCUpdate.exe every time I boot my system.   I know that task was NOT present the last time I checked there.   I have DISabled the task, and deleted the associated file (which I had already done a while back).

Whether this is somehow being done through CCleaner itself --- or (in my case) more likely via avast --- this behavior is repulsive.

@joe53 - Thanks for your comments. I don't think you replicated my route to update ccleaner starting with the link in ccleaner itself. It's possible the update coming via filehippo automatically includes AVG but versions from elsewhere don't. I'm NOT  recommending anyone try that route because it might get you/them into the mess I was in yesterday.

And it was an even bigger mess than I thought. I ran Avast's own cleaner tool, but about a dozen files and folders were not removed. And I couldn't just delete them because they were owned exclusively by Trusted Installer.  I had to find a way to take ownership of them by my Admin account. That wasn't as easy as it sounds because most attempts were greeted with "Access Denied". Finally figured out the multi-step process to take ownership from Trusted Installer and get rid of those pesky things. But...I was only able to find leftovers that have "avast" in their name. If some other leftovers are named differently, I'd have no way to identify them. And not having any system restore points.... 

@ky331- I noticed the free ccleaner v5.36 was secretly setting a Scheduled Task to check for updates, even though I changed the program's settings to stop automatic updates. So they're getting really sneaky about these things and that makes removal of everything from ccleaner and avast even more appropriate, at least for me...

Then I have no idea how Avast got installed here....   :TongueTied:

Out of curiosity, I just downloaded CCleaner, both from the Piriform site, as well as from FileHippo.   Both executables were identical.   So that's not a factor.

I opened the installer, and on the first page saw pre-checked options to 1) install Google Chrome, and make it my default browser, and 2) to also include Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer.   I did not see any reference to avast here.   At that point, i exited the installer rather than risk taking things any further.

Ron,

I stopped at the first screen... perhaps, if I dared risk it, there might have been additional prompts/options, but I didn't want to take a chance here.