When process hacker first came out I really liked the application.  The only down side is that back then it was a .net application and not everyone had .net installed.  Ever since process hacker 2.0 was released the program no longer required .net and I strongly believe this should be on every ones computer.  Doesn’t matter if you are a computer repair tech or not.

Process hacker has many features that I find useful but I am going to list a couple that my readers may find really useful.

1. Able to verify digital signatures and allows you to sort by Trusted/Non Trusted.  This allows you to quickly find malware as it is pretty rare for malware to have a cert (though it does happen).  To turn this on go to Hacker > Options > Advanced > Check Images for digital signatures and packing.  Then right click the column header (Name, PID, CPU, etc etc) then add Verified Signer and Verification Status to the Active columns.  Now you are able to sort by Verification status or Verified Signer.   If you want to reset to the normal tree view just keep on the column header “Name” until the default tree view comes up.

2. The ability to suspend a process.  Lets say you have a process that’s running and slowing you down or getting in the way but you don’t want to terminate it.  You just want to pause it.   Simply right click the process in process hacker and then click suspend.

3. The TERMINATOR!  You know those programs that refuse to close when you try to end task via task manager?  Well the terminator doesn’t take crap from any process.  It doesn’t matter if the process is an antivirus that boasts about how it can’t be closed by viruses.  The Terminator will terminate that process no matter what (least from what i’ve seen).  Careful what you terminate though as the Terminator has no limits it can terminate processes the operating system needs which will result in a blue screen then you’ll have to reboot.

There is much more to process hacker than just those things I listed above.   There is also several plugins that further enhance process hackers capabilities.   Including a virus total uploader for you virustotal fans.  They have both a install version and a portable version,  check those out at the following website: http://processhacker.sourceforge.net/