The freeware spyware-removal tool created by the Dutch student Merijn Bellekom is a very powerful program and became a standard for spyware removal from Windows systems. HijackThis generates a complete report that can help in detection and removal of spyware. The well-known company Trend Micro has recently acquired HijackThis, but the financial terms of the deal were not released.

Trend Micro planned to announce the acquisition next Monday, the 19th, but the news is already out. The program that diagnoses what's happening on the Windows platform is already available on several websites as HijackThis 2.00 beta. The Wikipedia page for HijackThis was recently changed to mark the acquisition. Merijn announced on his web site that he had sold the product to Trend Micro and stated that theiar product incorporated all changes, updates and fixes that he was planning to add in the v1.99.2 release. He also hopes that no one will be disappointed with it. He also said: "I sold HijackThis because I had been sitting on an unfinished update for over a year and I still could not make enough time to finish it. My uni classes are taking up a lot of time and I want to set my goals a bit wider than just the antispyware business (though I still love it). Sitting on an unfinished product until it becomes obsolete is not useful, so I decided to transfer the responsibility to TrendMicro (who have also taken care of my CWShredder) so they can give it proper attention and support. Where they will take HijackThis, I do not know - but I am sure they will respect its goals and what it stands for"

The new beta version works with Microsoft Vista and Internet Explorer 7. The new function "AnalyzeThis" allows users to see how prevalent the threats detected on their computers are when compared to other HijackThis users.
TrendMicro also announced plans to launch a Web site security ratings rival to McAfee's SiteAdvisor. The new site will be called TrendProtect and combines web site reputation monitoring and URL filtering for consumers. A new browser plug-in that adds visual warnings to sites linked from search engines will be available shortly. It will be compatible with IE and Firefox and currently supports the MSN, Google, and Yahoo search engines.
HijackThis will remain free under the Trend Micro brand. According to Trend Micro chief technical officer Ed English, Trend Micro has no plans to interfere with the existing community-based support. A few members of some anti-spyware groups expressed concern with the sale relating it to other similar acquisitions made in the past. The problem was that the programs slowly began to fade. “Trend will only kill it off like they did CWSshredder” was one of their statements.