Hitman Pro 2

[The Ponzzz]

Man i got a nasty virus tonight and I was trying everything to get rid of it. I came across this beauty and I swear I never seen such an awesome program!

http://www.hitmanpro.nl/

Use it if you never have!

[Numbers]

Did the chef from the Muppets make it?

[Rowi]

Very good program!! I'd recommend it to my mother!

[The Ponzzz]

BUMP! Don't forget your Holiday Virus and Spyware checks!

[Numbers]

I tried it out...

It just seems like a consolidation and automation of a bunch of different spyware and antivirus programs.

[The Ponzzz]

Yes, but it doesn't use automatic settings either... It's a beauty...

[Numbers]

One of the problems, though, is when it goes to update the definitions for a specific program, and if the server is down, the entire program hangs.

Spybot has notoriously crappy servers. Hitman Pro has been trying to update the definitions for it for the past half hour. Instead of realizing that the server is down and moving onto the next program, it's just trying to brute-force it.

And yeah, I unchecked Spybot on the configuration part of the program, but it's still trying to use Spybot.

Plus, the antivirus support is very limited.

It's a nice program, sure, but it'd probably be easier to download the various programs separately and use them.

[The Ponzzz]

Hmmm, I just blew through spybot here... Not sure what the problem is for you... But yea, it's not the BEST anti virus stuff out there, but it's pretty damn good and you can run it, go to the store and come back and DONE!

[HarmNone]

I found it to be a comprehensive and highly intuitive program. I already have good virus protection, so I wasn't really concerned with that. This program combines a number of programs that I'd otherwise have to use separately. I really like it! Thanks for posting it. :)

[Nieninque]

http://www.surfing-safe.com/spyware/hitmanpro.php

Just to add the other perspective on Hitman Pro...

[quote]Hitman Pro

This program is very controversial I'll discuss the program in this article so you can draw your own conclusions. Use the search option to find info about Hitman Pro, both negative and positive.

Update: This ASO-release says it all

Hitman Pro is a collection of existing removal tools (click to download)

* Ad-Aware SE Personal(freeware by Lavasoft) and Plus and Pro
* Spy Sweeper (trial)
* Spybot Search and Destroy (freeware)
* Spyware doctor (lite edition)
* CWShredder (freeware)
* Spyware Blaster (freeware)
* Spyware block List (freeware)
* Sysclean (freeware)
* Superdat VirusScan (you need to have McAfee primesupport license)
* NOD32 (trial)

The advantages/pro's:

* A lot of quality tools bundled in one program
* One click and your system is checked thoroughly
* Hitman Pro changes your default security settings, usefull when you don't know what to do (and don't read the tutorials on this site), useless when you can't access specific site due to these HMP actions and don't know what caused it (now you do)

The disadvantages/con's

* The creator of Hitman doesn't tell which programs are used in his bundle
* The creator didn't make any of the bundled software
* The creator removed all donate banners from the freeware programs and asks for a donation himself, thus no credit for the real creators of the programs
* The trial versions will expire and cease to work
* When you run the program all files and registry values found are immediatly removed. No harm is done, most of the time, but sometimes essential values are deleted or non-malware is deleted which will cause your programs to crash or even windows to become inaccesible.
* Programs which are included, like CwShredder, made to remove certain CoolWebSearch infections, can damage your system when you're not infected with a Coolweb variant it can remove
* The included McAfee Superdat virusscan doesn't remove all viruses so in no way is HMP to be used, I advice not to use it at all, as a virusscan substitute
* Hitman Pro changes your default security settings, usefull when you don't know what to do (and don't read the tutorials on this site), useless when you can't access specific site due to these HMP actions and don't know what caused it (now you do)
* Hitman Pro still conatins bugs causing a program crash, windows crash or even a crash during the deletion of registyry files (ouch)
* When uninstalling HMP most of the time not all programs installed with hitman pro are removed so you have to manually uninstall those programs using the software menu or, even worse, you need to use a regcleaner to remvoe all entries....

As you can see I'm not a fan of Hitman Pro for obvious reasons. I could have left out this program from my listing but since it's quite popular I included it to inform people about the risks and, in my opinion, unethical way the creator is getting all the credit for programs created by others.

Download Hitman Pro (be carefull, allways make a backup before cleaning)

When you're so unfortunate to use HitmanPro and something went wrong (what can't) go here

Advice: Take a look at the range of programs/tools and utilities discussed on this site. Those programs are a lot safer to use, don't take credit for something the programmer didn't make and they are usually better compared to hitmanpro

Update: The link above used to point to a multilingual forum but they stopped support for HPM. Offical forum message/source (30-11-05): dutch english (short version)translated version below:

-----------------------Offical ASO Forum HMP Message, translated to English---------------------------

The managers of the ASO forum have decided to immediately stop supporting HMP.

We have several reasons for this decision.

For starters: the ASO-forum is, wrongly, seen as THE official HMP-forum which it isn’t. As a result visitors seem to think our crewmembers support HMP or even developed the program. This way crewmembers are held responsible for everything related to HMP, which they are not.

We hoped the visitors could distinguish the ASO-forum as a whole and the HMP-section but that didn’t happen.

Secondly, experience has shown using HMP will cause a lot of problems. All programs contain bugs, but the problems Hitman Pro causes, especially those created by the heuristic scanning, are too serious to be ignored. Legitimate files and even necessary system files are removed because they are in the ‘wrong’ folder, according to the creator of HMP. People panic when Alternate Data Streams are found while most of them are harmless, such as the thumbs.db file.

As a result of these problems the malware-experts of the ASO-forums in the Hijackthissection were spending most of their time solving problems not caused by malware but by HMP.

Thirdly, the malware-experts ranked ‘Qualified helpers’ are getting more and more frustrated when confronted with the problems and malfunction of HMP. A growing number of ‘clean’ Hijackthis logs are posted just because HMP ‘thinks’ it found something. Unfortunately HMP doesn’t report where the file is located and what should be the problem. Running all available tools, scanners etc. results in no malware found, sow e can conclude HMP is wrong. The Helpers are losing all their time solving problems created by HMP. This way they cannot dedicate their time to real infections.

As a fourth, crewmembers and qualified helpers, at least, some of them, disagree with HMP. Especially the removal of donation banners of implemented freeware and asking for a donation himself. It never ahs become clear to what extent the creator of HMP has been given permission by the companies whose products he bundled. He’s been asked many times but no satisfactory answer has been provided as yet.

Also, internationally, HMP has been heavily criticized for the same reason as above, taking credit others should get.

Fifthly, there is no cooperation possible between our helpers and the creator of HMP and cooperation in the future is hardly possible because an agreement could not be reached.

Both parties agreed on ‘departing’. Hopefully the official site www.hitmanpro.com will come up with a support forum ASAP.

This is not an intention to blacklist HMP, it’s a fact here have been differences between HMP and the crew of this forum. These have grown to big so it’s time to depart.

-----------------------Offical ASO Forum HMP Message, translated to English---------------------------

[The Ponzzz]

LIES!! Hahahaha, naw... I would suggest Hitman PRO if you can't find another fix out there. But man, it did better than my paid for Norton's, my free 90 days of PC Chillin and Adaware by itself...

[Numbers]

Well... that's the thing.

"It" didn't do anything. The programs that it uses do all the work. HMP, by itself, does nothing at all. It's basically a pretty macro and script that ranges across various programs. The only exception to this is the HMP heuristics process which, as mentioned in Nien's post, is very unreliable.

When I ran HMP scans for the first time, I stopped it and uninstalled it immediately after I saw it open AdAware, go into the AdAware settings, and start changing some of the variables.

I had no idea what it was changing or why, and have no reason to trust it beyond my own capabilities and knowledge.

For inexperienced users, and for mothers and grandmothers, it's probably an excellent program. But the problems is can potentially cause are enormous, and an inexperienced user wouldn't have a chance of fixing it.

[Chaddy]

:soapbox:

[Nieninque]

Originally posted by Chaddy
:soapbox:

same old shit from the same old shithead

[Bobmuhthol]

<<When I ran HMP scans for the first time, I stopped it and uninstalled it immediately after I saw it open AdAware, go into the AdAware settings, and start changing some of the variables.>>

Yeah, I saw it downloading all the install files, and I was like, "...wtf?" My next step was to check my installed programs, and the things it downloaded weren't on it, but 30 seconds later it started opening all the install menus. Fuck that. Uninstalled Hitman Pro 2 > Installed Hitman Pro 2.

[Bobmuhthol]

OH COOL! It uninstalled Ad-Aware and SpyBot for me!