Microsoft has decided to roll back their decision to add CCleaner to a blacklist that would prevent the software's official site, www.ccleaner.com, from be posted in the Microsoft Community Forums.

Earlier this week, it was reported that Microsoft community moderators were given a list of sites that were blacklisted on in the community forums. When users posted links to these sites in the forums, Microsoft's software would replace them with four asterisks (****).

This blacklist included the www.ccleaner.com site as shown below.

Source: Deskmodder.de va HTNovo.net

Microsoft rolls back decision

A source familiar with the matter told BleepingComputer that CCleaner was originally banned due to Microsoft's general stance towards registry cleaners and system optimizers.

Microsoft has long held the position that they do not support Windows Registry cleaners or system optimizers as they have a history of causing issues for those who run them and many can be considered scams.

"Microsoft is not responsible for issues caused by using a registry cleaning utility. We strongly recommend that you only change values in the registry that you understand or have been instructed to change by a source you trust, and that you back up the registry before making any changes."

While CCleaner has had its own share of controversies [1, 2, 3], as both a registry cleaner and system optimizer it has always had a good reputation and been well liked by its user base.

Therefore, it was a surprise when Microsoft decided to ban its domain from being posted on the Microsoft forums.

The same source told BleepingComputer yesterday that Microsoft has decided to remove this ban and will allow CCleaner to be recommended again in the forums.

It is not known what caused them to backpedal on their decision and if it had anything to do with communication between Microsoft, Avast, or Piriform.