HidenGate

HidenGate is a tool that, allegedly, can guarantee network anonymity. The tool is officially presented at hidengate.xyz, and the information available on this website suggests that with the assistance of the program you can enable “rapid data transmission,” “highest data security,” and “capacity for a variety of applications.” These are introduced as the main features of the suspicious program. Others include saving crawling history and logging SSL traffic. The services are not free, and the website offers three different plans: Starter ($350/month), Production ($850/month), and High ($5500/month). At the bottom of the page, there is a contact form that allows entering an email address so that the creator of the service could contact the interested party. The creator of the service is MEGATOUCH UK LTD, and there isn’t much information about the company. Needless to say, the services are pretty unclear, but the prices are steep. One of the strangest things about this program, however, is that it comes bundled with other programs, and so you might find that you have to remove HidenGate even if you are not familiar with it at all.

Although the services of HidenGate are very expensive, it was discovered that the program, which we classify as a PUP (potentially unwanted program) could be spread bundled with freeware. Although even official installers can sometimes offer other programs, you need to be exceptionally careful about bundles because they could be malicious. According to our research, HidenGate does not provide any indication that it is running after execution, and that suggests that the program might run silently, without the notice of the user after a bundle is installed. We do not claim that the program can be installed without permission, but the installation is certainly disconcerting. After execution, the PUP starts with Windows automatically, which suggests that it starts running every time the operating system is started. Once the program is running, it cannot be just turned off. To disable it, the user would have to launch Task Manager and terminate the process. So, what is the purpose of the PUP? Is it used as bait to lure users into downloading a bunch of programs? Or is it used to spy on you? Before we move on, we strongly encourage you to install a trusted malware scanner right now to check if you need to delete malicious threats. While we do not claim that you need to delete HidenGate because it is malicious, you definitely want to be sure you don’t need to remove threats if you used a bundled installer.

Our research team reviewed the Privacy Policy of HidenGate. It is unlikely that you reviewed it yourself because users are rarely bothered with that kind of stuff when they install new programs, which is a mistake. According to the statement, the “right holder” of HidenGate can collect personal data to provide personalized services and to send notices, requests, and information. The data that is gathered can also be shared with third parties “for a fee or free of charge.” This indicates that the service is not all about protecting internet traffic or helping with online anonymity. Do you want a suspicious, potentially unwanted program recording data about you and then sharing it with parties who stay undisclosed? If you do not, there is only one thing you need to do, and that is to remove the PUP.

If you have not scanned your operating system yet, we suggest you do it right away to check if you need to delete HidenGate alone or along with other potentially unwanted programs or even malicious threats. Hopefully, you do not, but if other threats are detected, and you need information about them, use the search tool at the top to find removal guides for these threats, and if they do not exist, let us know via the comments section, and we will help you with the removal ASAP. If manual removal of HidenGate and other threats is not ideal for you, you can install an anti-malware program that will delete all PUPs and threats automatically. If you need to ask us questions about the PUP or the elimination process, the comments section can be found below.

HidenGate Removal

1. Launch RUN by tapping Win+R simultaneously.
2. Enter control panel and click OK.
3. In Control Panel menu click Uninstall a program.
4. Select the undesirable program and click Uninstall.

N.B. The path to the unwanted program on Windows XP is: Start menu>Control Panel>Add or Remove Programs.