HijackThis Review
Version 1.99.1by Coenraad de Beer (Webmaster & Founder of Cyber Top Cops)
HijackThis is not intended for novice users because the tool does not distinguish between legitimate and illegal activities on your system. You need some advanced knowledge about the objects it detects as suspicious activity. HijackThis is a tool used by experts to disinfect computer systems plagued by hard to remove infections. The developer recommends that you ask an expert if you are unsure about certain items.
Installation
As strange as it may sound, HijackThis does not require installation. It automatically installs itself the first time you run it.
Automatic Updating
None. You have to update HijackThis manually by running the Update Check under Misc Tools.
Real-time Protection
None. HijackThis is a scanner not a real-time shield
Resource Usage
You won't even know when HijackThis is running. It is very gentle on system resources.
Isolation of Threats
None. The only isolation occurs during the fixing process. See also Real-time protection.
Interface
Even though it is an advanced tool, it does have a pretty straightforward interface. HijackThis is heavily used on technical forums where users normally seek for help removing malicious software. Advanced users can analyse an infected system by simply looking at the log generated by HijackThis. Creating such a log is not too difficult and novice users can get help from experts by posting their HijackThis log on these forums, or by e-mailing it to an expert.
Scanning & Healing
HijackThis is super fast when it comes to scanning. The reason for this is because it searches for specific activities and certain areas of your system and not every file on your PC.
- Fast-scan function: No
- Scanning of Single objects: No
- Customisable scanning: No
- Boot sector scanning: No
- Memory scanning: No
- Registry scanning: Yes
- System Area scanning: No
Scans normally completes in less than a minute. You can add harmless items to an ignore list. HijackThis will only report an ignored object again if something about it changes. Due to security reasons you have to check each detected object one by one, but this is for one specific reason. By following this route, HijackThis forces you to inspect each object carefully and ensures that you do not delete important objects accidentally. We encountered a couple of errors during the fixing process and recorded a 96.30% success rate in the fixing of objects. HijackThis makes encrypted backups of every healed object and allows you to restore them if necessary. We liked the handy "Delete a file on reboot..." function under the Misc Tools section of HijackThis. This function helps with the removal of stubborn spyware by deleting them on the next reboot just before Windows starts.
Un-installation
As easy as the single click of a button.
HijackThis:
| Installation: | 10 |
| Automatic Updating: | 5 |
| Real-time Protection: | 0 |
| Resource Usage: | 0 |
| Isolation of Threats: | 2 |
| Interface: | 7 |
| Scanning & Healing: | 8 |
| Un-installation: | 10 |
| Overall: | 5.25 |
HijackThis is a good addition to your current anti-spyware protection, it should never be used as the only protection for your system.
