This BS is why I moved to linux several years ago... no more CCleaner, no more Malwarebytes, no MCAFEE, no forced updates, no forced telemetry...

This has literally nothing to do with the OS. You're simply hijacking the thread to rant about your love for Linux.

It has something to do with the spirit of the developer community that makes its applications, though. You could argue they're close enough to be synonymous.

CCleaner isn't bundle with Windows so you could choose to not install it. It's not really needed anyway.

But you cannot really opt out from Windows telemetry.

You still have more configuration knobs than on Google's OSes.

What does Android/ChromeOS have to do with this? Mac OS X is the most comparable and it lets you disable reporting on first setup (not buried deep within one of two different control panels).

And if you really wanted to compare it to Android/ChromeOS, consider that Windows is still $120-200 for a license and still silently tracks out of the box. That just doesn't seem right. How much more do I need to pay to turn off being tracked?

The Windows licenses only matter when buying a Windows DVD without computer, they barely reflect on the whole computer price.

In fact in some stores that sell computers with FreeDos or Linux, the models tend to be more expensive than those with Windows.

ChromeOS by being a browser based OS, means all applications run in someone else's computer, no way to turn tracking off other than not using ChromeOS at all.

Likewise, what each Android model allows to turn off and what gets tracked depends pretty much on how each OEM has customized their Android version.

Is there something malicious about Malwarebytes now?

something shallow but a few machines became unusable due to MWB cpu usage

You forgot no more desktop software, and no more games.

I just checked my games libraries. 16/27 (59%) itch.io games and 75/146 (51%) on Steam support Linux. It's not exactly a niche platform anymore.

Edit: Humble Bundle, 84 Linux games. I don't know how to filter to only "games" to get a total though.

All that shows is that your library consists of mainly indie games. I agree it's making strides, but big name games are just not supported in any reasonable percentage. Why would they? The Linux gaming user base is minuscule.

Ah, the famous indie games like CS:GO, Crusader Kings 2, Borderlands 2, Dota 2, Total War: Warhammer and Tomb Raider 2013.

To be clear, there's a bunch of great games which don't support Linux, but a good amount of non-indie games actually do.

You can cherry pick all you want, the fact of the matter is that Linux is not what anyone on this planet installs for a gaming platform. CounterStrike was also originally an indie game.

You do realize that 2 out of the 3 major gaming console runs on some form of UNIX kernels right? Not to mention the success of mobile games like Fortnite and player unknown battlegrounds that run on Linux. There is also SteamOS and the work put into platform agnostic graphics APIs like Vulkan.

10 years ago you might have been right, but you are dead wrong today.

Only one of the major consoles runs a member of the Unix family, unfortunately.

PlayStation 4 runs a Unix (BSD derivative), Xbox One runs Windows, and Switch runs a proprietary OS (Horizon, a microkernel OS heavily based off that of the 3DS).

We're not talking about consoles.

So I pick games that support Linux, and honestly don’t feel like I’m missing out on much. Big Name Shooter 2018 just doesn’t interest everybody. That doesn’t mean “games don’t exist” - it means the games that you specifically enjoy don’t exist.

My favorite indy publisher on linux is 2k games. Bioshock infinite, xcom 2 and civ 5/6 were such an unappreciated gems. Just because it didn't come from a big company man, sucks.

Not sure any of those games were under appreciated. Those series of games got tons of critical praise. Bioshock is one of my favorites for sure!

My favorite indy publisher is Valve

Half of the games you mentioned released in 2012, two in 2013, and one in 2016. I like playing recent games, too. This is mostly not possible on Linux.

I consider the fact that Call of Duty 9001, Madden <insert current year here>, and Far Cry Whatever are not available on Linux a feature, not a detriment.

Well nobody tell craftyguy, but Far Cry (the GoG version), Far Cry 2, Far Cry 3, and Far Cry Blood Dragon (the Uplay non-Steam version), Call of Duty, CoD 2, CoD 4 Modern Warfare, and MW 2 have Platinum ratings on Wine at least.

Really? In what way is fewer options at all feature. It's not like it "leaves room for the little guys". It just proves theres no market for anyone.

> It just proves theres no market for anyone

No, it just proves there's no market for people who obsess over shitty games. There are plenty of good games with native linux support (e.g. Civ 5, Mount & Blade, Crusader Kings 2, etc etc).

...there's also plenty of good games that'll never see linux, and even more that'll never see the PC. good taste has never been part of the market, except at extreme niches (far more extreme than linux); even linux gaming is mostly dominated by poor/simple taste. I mean hell, they embraced steam, an application whose primary goal is to turn the PC into a console.

M-x snake

What are you talking about?!? I have to say that is a pretty poor argument. No the gaming industry has not moved to adopt Linux as a platform but that is largely in the AAA games which barely seem to give Windows the time of day as well. No more desktop software?!? What are you looking for in desktop software? The open source alternatives to Microsoft Office are not as nice to put it lightly but there is still enough desktop applications that aren't trapped in the terminal. Yes I still would more so recommend Linux to people that are comfortable with the idea of running things in the terminal and expecting more text based interfaces, but the software does exist.

I'm looking for Capture One for editing photos, Final Cut Pro for editing video, Unibox for Mail, Office Applications, 1profiler for color management(i don't want to use displaycal), the vast majority of games. AMD video card support. Those are some off the top of my head.

I use every OS under the sun for various aspects of my life. Linux is not a desktop OS.

> AMD video card support.

Please pick stuff that is actually not available on Linux if you do those kind of lists. AMD is providing FLOSS drivers to the Linux kernel and mesa for years now.

I think you mean to say "Valve has been paying developers to fix the AMD drivers for years now, since AMD can't be bothered."

Yes and the new drivers let the owners of older cards start wondering to buy NVidia instead.

Alright fair I'll admit I barely touch any editing tools and I only have a laptop to run Linux on right now so I personally enjoy it tremendously. Apologies for letting emotions boil over.

It depends on perspective and expectations. I'm a macOS and Linux user for 10+ years. From multimedia editing perspective Linux is a little behind, however in photography field there are tools which can provide terrific results.

For RAW conversion, RAW therapee is available, which is considered superior to many proprietary converters, demosaicers. While it cannot compete with C1 or LR, there's darktable (and I like its RAW conversion more). I have not tried the HDR tools yet, but I think they're promising.

I'm not knowledgable in video editing, and don't work in a color-managed environment, so I'm skipping these.

For office applications, Using Office is your choice. I'm using LibreOffice for a long time on Mac and Linux, even for professional situations. It served me well, and serving well. It's also playing fairly well with latest Office formats, at least with the files I encounter.

There were times when ATI/AMD support was bad, really bad, hardware damaging bad. I personally experienced some of those and reported directly them to ATI. There were times ATI/AMD literally had no video playback support via official drivers, but they're stories of past. AMD is a company which re-designed its silicon to provide better and more complete Linux support. ATI/AMD is not a company which is ignorant of Linux anymore.

Lol, AMD GPU support is great under Linux.

Not when using a Brazos APU.

All proprietary tools whose developers have chosen not to support Linux and you have chosen to become dependent on.

Also tools that linux developers don't care enough to make good.

I am happy for everyone who is enjoying Linux but can we give windows the credit it is due? If anyone ever makes an OS that has the game and driver support Windows has I will jump ship in a heartbeat.

Case in point ccleaner: there are many alternatives. Try winutilities.

http://www.pcclean.io/winutilities-pro/

> AAA games which barely seem to give Windows the time of day

This was briefly true in the mid-2000s, but this is no longer the case. PC is resurgent and pretty much every non-Japanese, non-first party Sony/Nintendo game comes to Windows now, and it usually plays pretty well. Even the Japanese publishers are starting to release more and more on PC (see Sega).

It's 2018. Not sure if it's really necessary to use something like CCleaner on Windows 10. The built in disk cleanup and defrag tools have been perfectly sufficient.

I've found CCleaner convenient for clearing multiple browser histories and other caches all in one place, even if individually there is a native way to do so. I also don't usually find a pressing need to upgrade based on the change log. [0]

Perhaps the negative response will encourage the developers to add a working option to disable the telemetry. For now, the previous version without data collection (v5.44) is still available on the file hosting site FileHippo. [1]

[0] https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/version-history

[1] https://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/85770

Bleachbit can do the same things, and is free software with no spying.

I agree, and so is the built in data collection.

I've had one running as a nightly scheduled task on my Windows 7 laptop for about ten years. Its primary purpose was to securely erase all the stuff in my Recycle Bin as well as wipe search history, application history, etc.

More of a privacy thing than a space-saving thing, really.

There was no need for this malware since Win2k. Windows installer manages pretty well and 3rd party ones too. On win7 I uninstalled amd video driver, installed nvidia driver using their own intallers and stuff simply worked, without any "cleaning". Same with other big applications, e.g. MSVS, MSOffice etc.

Yes, Windows (7, 8, 10) have some curious folders that tend to fill up with something, like winsxs and Installers, but you can't just delete stuff there anyway, it is needed by OS, so malware like CCleaner won't help there.

Does this mean ccleaner will remove itself as it is now crap? (IIRC the original name was 'crap cleaner')

Well it is on Microsoft Windows, so users are already accustomed to a corporation collecting their data without the possibility to opt out. CCleaner is just adding to the pile..

It's not terribly surprising to see CCleaner decided to make last year's accidental malware part of the core product.

What a bad move..

The version of CCleaner currently on my Windows 7 PC is easily five years old at this point. I keep thinking I need to update it, but then another scandal like this happens and I just leave it alone once more.

Any recommendation for alternatives?

An older vesion of CCleaner* &/or BleachBit.

*Unsure of versioning, one that came before Avast bought Piriform. Additionally, all Piriform products will most likely follow suit... Defraggler, Recuva, Speccy etc.

I'm not sure exactly what your needs are, but Bleachbit seems be pretty similar in features.

I use both on my one remaining windows machine. Both tools wipe additional data that the other misses. Bleachbit gets more logs and old installers. CrapCleaner gets more registry cruft. BCWipe clears file slacks and does a better job with swap / pagefiles and old volume shadow copy snapshots.

Certainly use older versions of CrapCleaner, prior to them getting malicious code installed. I don't have links to that incident, but you can find it.