Problem with CCleaner: Delete Firefox Extensions Data

Not a week has passed and CCleaner is back in the news , and not for the better. A few days ago we told you that Windows cleaning and optimization software had been blacklisted by Microsoft and that Windows Defender had begun to identify it as malware. And today, this Windows optimizer is back to talk about deleting user configuration files that should not be deleted, specifically from Firefox.

The new Firefox 79 introduced a new function that allows users to synchronize the data of the extensions (for example, the configurations) using the synchronization services of the browser itself. This feature has been expected for a long time, and has finally come from the hand of Mozilla.

Problem with CCleaner: Delete Firefox Extensions Data

To do this, Mozilla has created a new database file, in which all the extension data is stored: Storage-sync-v2 . This file will be created automatically when an extension tries to access the stored data, and all data from all extensions will be migrated to it.

Specifically, to make this new synchronization system work , Mozilla has created 3 new files inside the profile folder:

  • Storage-sync-v2.sqlite
  • Storage-sync-v2-sqlite-shm
  • storage-sync-v2.sqlite-wal

CCleaner

What about CCleaner? The cleaning software considers shm and wal files to be cache files, junk files that can be removed. Therefore, when executed, it will delete these new files. And all Firefox users will have problems with their extensions to the point of not being able to use them or save their settings again.

Avast knew it, but did nothing

This ruling has not caught the company by surprise. Users have been warning since last July 1 , when the first beta version of CCleaner came to light. However, the company did nothing, demonstrating the type of support it provides to the program.

Last week, Firefox 79 dropped the “beta” branch and became the stable version of the browser. And this is where this problem began to affect users in a massive way.

Without a doubt, CCleaner is no longer what it was. Cleaning software, which years ago became a must-have, has lately behaved more like unwanted software than a useful program. In addition to trying to install adware on the PC, and spy on users by collecting all kinds of data (data that is also used for commercial purposes), this program is now detected by antivirus as malware and removes personal configuration files from Firefox users. The truth is that it is a program that we must avoid installing. It is much better to search for any alternative program to optimize Windows than to choose this Avast software.

How to fix the problem by configuring CCleaner

While Avast whitelists these files to avoid deleting them (something we don’t know when it will happen), Firefox users who are experiencing these problems should think about deleting this cleaner and looking for another alternative that does not cause so many problems or be so controversy.

However, if we do not want to delete this program, we can go to the “CCleaner> Options> Exclude> Add” section of the software, and add the following exclusion :

Exclude1=PATH|RUTA_AL_PERFIL_DE_FIREFOX |*.sqlite-shm;*.sqlite-wal||0|0|24

In this way, when cleaning, these files will be ignored.