Piriform Software Ltd is a British

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

company based in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, owned since 2017 by

Avast Avast Software s.r.o. is a Czech Multinational corporation, multinational Computer security, cybersecurity software company headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic that Research and development, researches and develops computer security softwa ...

which itself become part of NortonLifeLock (now

Gen Digital Gen Digital Inc. (formerly Symantec Corporation and NortonLifeLock) is a multinational software company co-headquartered in Tempe, Arizona and Prague, Czech Republic. The company provides cybersecurity software and services. Gen is a Fortune 5 ...

) in 2022. The company develops cleaning and optimisation tools for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

and Android

operating systems An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also inc ...

, including

CCleaner CCleaner (, originally Crap Cleaner), developed by Piriform Software, is a utility used to clean potentially unwanted files and invalid Windows Registry entries from a computer. It is one of the longest-established system cleaners, first launc ...

, CCleaner Browser, Defraggler,

Recuva Recuva () is an undeletion program for Windows, developed by Piriform Software. It is able to undelete files that have been marked as deleted; the operating system marks the areas of the disk in which they were stored as free space. Recuva can ...

and

Speccy Speccy, developed by Piriform Software, is a freeware utility software and runs under Microsoft Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista and XP for both IA-32 and x64 versions of these operating systems, which shows the user information about ...

. On 22 September 2015, Piriform launched CCleaner Cloud, a tool to maintain computers remotely.

History

The name Piriform means "shaped like a

pear Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in the Northern Hemisphere in late summer into October. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the family Rosaceae, bearing the p ...

," possibly referring to the British slang " to go pear-shaped". CCleaner was launched in 2004 by founders Guy Saner and Lindsey Whelan. In July 2017, Piriform Ltd was acquired by

. In September 2017, researchers discovered that CCleaner was compromised by hackers who inserted a

backdoor A back door is a door in the rear of a building. Back door may also refer to: Arts and media * Back Door (jazz trio), a British group * Porta dos Fundos (literally “Back Door” in Portuguese) Brazilian comedy YouTube channel. * Works so title ...

into the software, enabling remote access to infected machines. The

malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depri ...

was in version 5.33 of CCleaner, prior to the acquisition by Avast. Avast quickly fixed the vulnerability and required version 5.33 users to update immediately.

CCleaner

CCleaner is a computer cleaning software featuring MacOS and Windows versions. CCleaner has the option to clean computer browser software including

Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...

, and

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...

as well as a computer system's temporary files. It has a separate tab to clean the

registry Registry may refer to: Computing * Container registry, an operating-system-level virtualization registry * Domain name registry, a database of top-level internet domain names * Local Internet registry * Metadata registry, information system for re ...

. (A potential backup of regedit is available.) CCleaner's other tools include editing and uninstalling programs, editing the operating system's startup apps and editing browser plugins. It can analyse

hard disks A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magneti ...

individually to determine which files are taking the most space. It can search for duplicate files to help reduce drive storage space. It allows one to quickly access system restore points, and it can wipe clean the free space on individual drives to completely remove deleted files. In addition, CCleaner can automatically update computer software and drivers. CCleaner has its own

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

called CCleaner Browser. CCleaner Browser is included to optionally install in the CCleaner installer, but it can also be installed from it
website
CCleaner Browser blocks online advertisements, avoids

tracking Tracking may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Tracking, in computer graphics, in match moving (insertion of graphics into footage) * Tracking, composing music with music tracker software * Eye tracking, measuring the position of t ...

, has built-in security against

phishing Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwar ...

, malicious

downloads In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote ...

, and also avoids potentially unwanted elements like pop-ups or excessive browser

cache Cache, caching, or caché may refer to: Places United States * Cache, Idaho, an unincorporated community * Cache, Illinois, an unincorporated community * Cache, Oklahoma, a city in Comanche County * Cache, Utah, Cache County, Utah * Cache Count ...

. The browser is only available for

. CCleaner also develops a tool called Kamo, which feeds trackers fake information to help stop a ' digital fingerprint' (a unique fingerprint that can be used to identify and track people) from being created. It supposedly makes websites and advertisers less able to show targeted ads, recommendations and price increases.

References

{{Gen Digital Software companies of England Companies based in the London Borough of Camden 2004 establishments in the United Kingdom 2017 mergers and acquisitions Software companies established in 2004 Companies established in 2004 British subsidiaries of foreign companies Avast Gen Digital acquisitions