HijackThis is a utility from Trend Micro known to many for the removal of unwanted settings and/or files from your computer.
Trend Micro has recently decided to move the source code over to an open source location, namely here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/hjt/
It’s stated that TM will still be actively developing the software, and if you’re a programmer that wants to make you own modifications to the software, now you can do it openly and freely.
Should you use HijackThis?
If you’re not a programmer and are wondering what HijackThis is all about, it’s just an executable, and this is what it looks like on first run:
If you "Do a system scan only", the software will show a record of all the registry stuff in Windows that would matter if you were trying to determine whether you have spyware on your PC or not.
VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not do a scan, check everything and "Fix". Don’t do that, because HijackThis does not determine what’s "good" and what’s "bad", but rather just lists everything. Consider HijackThis to be an inspection tool rather than a cleaner utility.
If you see something in the list that doesn’t look right to you, the best thing to do is check the item, then click the "Info on selected item" button. IF YOU’RE NOT SURE whether something there is safe or not, search it online before doing anything to it, or just leave it alone. Again, HijackThis DOES NOT KNOW what’s good and bad in the list it generates; it just reports.
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HijackThis report can be uploaded to an online parsing facility for inspection. Even then personal judgement and/or further research and consultation may be called for before deleting any suspicious items.