Utility Software Legitimacy
Covers: Anti-Virus, Malware Removal, Disk Scan, Registry Fix, and related utilities offered by 3rd parties for the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems.
Purpose: Some of the utilities are legitimate and useful, some are of little use if not completely useless, some actually do harm, some create false problems and claim to repair, and some are outright malware that will harm or hijack your PC. Known utilities are listed here with a brief rating.
These are not online services like those discussed in Online Security, AntiVirus, and System Performance Boost Scams. Listed below is software that installs to the PC.
A-Fast
- A-Fast (China)
Ransomware that claims to be antivirus software. It infests your system and then you have to pay a fee to have the virus removed. Do not be a victim of the A-Fast Antivirus Scam. See also Internet Security 2012 Virus.
Rating: Harmful.
CCleaner
- ccleaner by piriform
As of (CCleaner v4.13) which is a utility for Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 32 and 64bit. CCleaner is a registry "cleaning" tool. CCleaner will remove registry keys and registry values that point to programs and files that no longer exist in Windows.
Rating: Legitimate and relatively harmless. It is recommended you make a full backup of the Windows registry prior to using.
Tricky licensing. CCleaner is free, however, the developer web site uses a system which can give the perception they need to pay.
