patndoris' blog

I’m very concerned with the recent proliferation (perhaps equivalent to the summertime bunny population) of online HijackThis readers. I’ve seen them popping up more and more in blog posts as viable alternatives to a proper log reading. More and more on forums, I notice the abundance of people seeking help with their logs. Sadly, these forums are staffed primarily by trained volunteers - and there just aren’t enough of them to satisfy the rising demand. As viruses and malware continue to become more sophisticated and prevalent, I’m sure the demand is going continue this increasing trend.

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HiJackThis (HJT) is a free downloadable program used to detect browser hijackers. It can be a useful tool in finding bad things that have somehow sneaked onto your computer. It produces a rather ominous looking report (which you’ve likely seen posted in forums where people are asking for assistance with a problem) that has become almost a staple when troubleshooting an issue is required and/or systems are behaving a bit oddly when they used to function fine. I highly recommend learning how to manually analyze these logs. In addition to providing you some tools for doing this, I’ll also offer up a couple of shortcuts to make it a wee bit less painful.

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