Hotspot Shield process "hsssrv.exe"

[Minus the Boom]

It seems that in another life I used Hotspot Shield to browse websites that were otherwise inaccesable to me. I stopped using it about 10 months ago (and only used it for about 2 weeks), and deleted it because I read it was involved with distributing malware. I never noticed anything, but I deleted it nonetheless.

 

Now I was just browsing my Program Files and saw the directory "Hotspot Shield", so I decided to delete that aswell. However, I got an error saying it couldn't be deleted because a process that had a similiar looking name to hsssrv.exe was running, so I closed that and retried. Now I got an error saying it couldn't delete hsssrv.exe, so I closed that and retried. Same error, and the hsssrv.exe was back up and running. No matter what I do it keeps coming back. It only uses about 5kb (I think?), whereas it says Firefox uses 80.

 

Should I be worried about this file? I used my default virusscan, which is a pretty decent one, aswell as Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, and both of them found nothing. Google says it is a Hotspot Shield Helper process, and I figured as much, but I'd like to have this process and the directory gone from my PC nonetheless, and it doesn't seem like I need the process.

[Wolf68k]

Did you try killing it in the TaskManager then delete the file?

If that doesn't work then restart in SafeMode and delete it that way

Then do a scan with CCleaner to clean out the registry of whatever is left behind

 

 

From what I punched into Google I didn't see anything nasty about it so it should be safe but if you want to remove it because you're not using it then follow the steps above

[Minus the Boom]

Did you try killing it in the TaskManager then delete the file?

If that doesn't work then restart in SafeMode and delete it that way

Then do a scan with CCleaner to clean out the registry of whatever is left behind

 

 

From what I punched into Google I didn't see anything nasty about it so it should be safe but if you want to remove it because you're not using it then follow the steps above

That was what I did at first, but it came back as soon as I deleted it. I found nothing wrong with the file either, so I'll just leave it there.

 

Thanks.

[Wolf68k]

Wait. You deleted the file and it came back?

That's not possible if it's safe

[Minus the Boom]

Wait. You deleted the file and it came back?

That's not possible if it's safe

Not the file, the process.

[AmyJones]

isn't that a program used to block your IP from being seen from website admins and so on?

[Minus the Boom]

isn't that a program used to block your IP from being seen from website admins and so on?

Yeah, a proxy. Turns out it wasn't very safe though.

[Wolf68k]

Do you know where the file that is the process is?

If so then restart into SafeMode, go there and delete it. This way it shouldn't be running and you can easily delete it.

[Minus the Boom]

I got it deleted thanks to this post on another forum: http://www.remove-malware.com/forums/viewt...php?f=46&t=2865

 

Thanks for your help regardless.