Emsisoft HiJackFree

What are your opinions concerning Emsisoft's HiJackFree as an aid in Malware Cleaning?

I know that there are many other similar tools such as HighjackThis, Comodo Cleaning Essentials, etc. How does Emsisoft's HiJackFree compare with the 'Alternatives'?

Today I was updating the Malware Signatures of Emsisoft Emergency Kit and noticed that some sort of update was downloaded for HiJackFree. That is what made me think about Emsisoft's HiJackFree.

Thanks in Advance.

 

From what i know HijackFree is more like a system analyzer and you really need to know about it in other to use it properly

 

Yeah, it won't clean anything. Instead, it will create a detailed log of every single corner of your system and display possible hijacks. Then you (with knowledge) can fix and correct those manually. It's one fo those tools very popular on malware cleaning forums.

 

There are sites that will analyze HiJackFree logs for you, so it's a good tool to have if you ever need help with cleanup.

 

I think it's very effective in being able to delete specific files that are running (same as deleting a process in task manager, rather than just ending), and deleting files trying to make an outbound connection.

The 'online analysis' in the top-right corner of the program, seems to be a quick general analysis of what's running in the background. Not 100 per cent, but ok.

I've personally used hijackfree to stop and delete services which wouldn't uninstall, autoruns, files running in the background, and files making unwanted outbound connections, so I definitely think it differs from many other programs.

Most similar to winpatrol I'd say, with a few additional features (online analysis, deleting files connecting outbound etc).

 

Anyone else ever see this?

I just noticed that a file in C: was updated when I used the online analysis component of HijackFree/

Originally, the file was created in March 2010, as per the first screenshot. See the following screenshot that shows the updated information for C:\index

 

I have the same file, created on the day I installed hijackfree again on a new system.

Configuration settings. Wouldn't worry about it. By deleting it (or copying and pasting to a new location if you are unsure), comes back again when you open and close down hijackfree. Noticed it use to be in the portable version of hijackfree.