Damn you, Unhackme Security Software. I’m so freaking mad at you I’m not even including a link to your piece of shit.

Now, I must justify my opinion about your software.

It is decent. Not perfect, and a bit pre-1999 in design and layout, and it does the job – I think.

I say I think because I spent three days and over 18 hours fucking with my desktop computer to remove viruses that weren’t there.

Yes, I had a couple of viruses. Your program found the little PUPs and were able to remove one but not the other, even though the specific PUPs were guaranteed to be removed by your program. They were removed after much fuss, time, wasted energy, and money by Kaspersky Total Security.

The PUP (Potentially Unwanted Programs) causing me the most grief was Weevah, a redirecting beastie that redirected web links to spam sites randomly. Your software promised to deal with it. The virus infected the browser and links I’d click. I’d click on a link and it would redirect to a crap site. I’d close the tab immediately. Click on the link again, it might redirect or actually go to the site I wanted.

Still concerned that the virus wasn’t gone, I ran UnHackMe again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

Each time I ran the malware scan that identified the virus in the first place, a few minutes into the scan, that promised 5 minutes and took 10-20 minutes, a popup would ask me to prove I was human before the scan would continue. The popup said that TotalVirus was asking me of this. Since it wasn’t UnHackMe, WTF is Total Virus and what business did it have of intruding onto my computer without my permission? If you read the fine print, it says that after clicking it will transfer me to a humanity checking web page. What the hell is that? A warning that it is going to initiate my browser, which is closed because it is hacked, and take me to a web page so I can prove my humanity? I’m losing my humanity as I continue to work with this crap.

Click this, and it would popup a web page in my browser. ARGH! The site was TotalVirus wanted me to confirm I wasn’t a robot. Really? As I didn’t know what TotalVirus was, I briefly considered it was the next step in a total takeover of my computer by a virus. Great. Just what I was trying to prevent.

The web page went to TotalVirsus, a company that isn’t UnHackMe, so I’m even more suspicious. I did a search and find out that Google bought TotalVirus a few years ago, but there is nothing on the web page that gives me a sense of trust or connection with UnHackMe. It could be the virus at work again. I don’t know anything but I’m suspicious.

The first few times, I didn’t click the confirmation. Then I connected it to the paused UnHackMe scan. So I gave in and clicked, and the scan recommenced. BUT! When I hit submit, the web page spawned a new site that redirected to an ad site, looking spammy, the exact same action as the virus hooked into my browser.

Shit!

So, I run scans with UnHackMe again, and again, and again. I run full scans with Windows Defender and Kaspersky. My computer bogs down and I can’t get anything done without delays and never ending popups telling me to confirm I’m human or update security definitions and such.

It goes into another day, and another. I even reboot my computer into safe mode and run scans. Nothing found. Nothing happening. Still I get redirect issues – until I realize that the redirects only happen from that damn CAPTCHA page.

I’m so tired, I can’t see. I’ve been up against deadlines and unable to concentrate on my work for all the virus scanning interruptions. To realize that it was all fixed three days ago and I’ve been hunting a phantom virus because of the piss-poor way that UnHackMe yanks us around until we sign up for their crap. I need sleep. I need calm. I’ve wasted three days on this shit.

Seriously. This is NOT the way to earn trust nor customers. Clean up your act, folks.

Fixing UnHackMe

First, bring your interface into this century. It is clunky.

Second, give us another way to nag us into buying your software. Don’t interrupt the promised 5 minute scan so it takes ages as the popup is easily missed. The popup stayed in the background for over an hour once because I missed it, it dropped behind windows, and I was trying to work and assumed it went away. It didn’t, and the scan froze at that spot in the scan.

Third, NEVER force a web page to open for any reason. We’re using your software. That means we are human by default. We installed it, using it, human here. Do you really have a problem with bots downloading and installing your program and abusively running it to scan their hard drives? Really? And if they were, what harm is it to you. It is more harm to the owners of the hard drives. If your API is working right, it sent the info and is done with your site and database.

If you have to do this stupid thing of forcing a web page to open, brand it. You idiots. This is a change for a landing page to market the crap out of your stuff some more, and you missed out. You just created an annoyance, and it pissed me off, thus you get this negative review and post because your dumb actions convinced me the virus was still on my browser.

Fourth, NEVER force web pages to open to advertising. It’s just gross, spammy, and beneath your dignity. Have some self-respect.

Lastly, clean up your marketing. Just because we don’t click your ads to upgrade to a paid or better version doesn’t mean we aren’t interested. We are in panic mode. Our system has been violated, we’ve been potentially data-raped. This is not a good time to make buying decisions or put up with “Lose this deal” warnings to close the deal. Really? Again, self-respect. Got some.