Free History Cleaner

Overview

Free History Cleaner claims to protect your privacy. Unfortunately, when testing the product 2003-11-19, it installed MapiSvc Adware and Winpup Adware without mentioning them in the EULA. Free History Cleaner's uninstaller did not work at all, when testing the 2.62 and 2.72 version of the software. The uninstaller in version 2.80 worked somewhat better but left behind fhccall.exe. fhccall.exe will continue to run on the system, starting each time a user logs on. The purpose of fhccall.exe is currently unknown, but the following URLS found inside the binary file indicated strongly indicates that it is an automatic updater of the software, downloading executables over the insecure http protocol, which can be a security risk.

http://www.freehistorycleaner.com/autoupdate/update.txt
http://www.freehistorycleaner.com/autoupdate/update.exe
http://www.freehistorycleaner.com/df/l.txt
http://www.freehistorycleaner.com/win/win.exe

This is what the EULA has to say about the ads: "FREE HISTORY CLEANER permits you to download its proprietary software (the "Software") that enables you to: manage cookies, Delete history, etc. In consideration of which you expressly allow Free History Cleaner to redirect 404, DNS and other pages and show you advertisement windows from time to time." Source

Free History Cleaner 2.62 is also showing Google Adwords in the application, which requires a connection to the internet when using the software. 2.72 uses another ad supplier but still requires an Internet connection.

In the middle of August 2004 the vendors web site was promoting pornography with the following link:
"**Porn Is Free** Click here Enjoy all the Porn you can and then Erase it." The link pointed to http://www.pi<BLOCKED>free.com/.

Classification

Adware

Files

FreeHistoryCleaner.exe, fhcprogress.exe, fhccall.exe

If you have any of the files related to Free History Cleaner on your system, please send them for additional analysis. Generally, I have only analysed a few versions for each software component listed at this web site. With your help I will be able to look at both old and more recent versions of the Free History Cleaner software. Thank you very much for your time!

Vendor

FreeHistoryCleaner.com whois

End User License Agreement

2003-11-19
2004-02-06

Privacy policy

No privacy policy available.

Detection

Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner detects Free History Cleaner. Bazooka is freeware and detects spyware, adware, foistware, trojan horses, viruses, worms and other potentially unwanted applications. Read more »

Uninstall procedure

Uninstall Free History Cleaner from "Add/Remove Programs" in the Windows® Control Panel. If you run into problems uninstalling Free History Cleaner, please contact the vendor for support.

Uninstall Free History Cleaner with FreeFixer

I'm working on a general purpose tool for removing unwanted software. The tool is called FreeFixer and can help you remove unwanted Browser Helper Objects, Internet Explorer toolbars and software that starts automatically when you reboot your computer, so it can offer some assistance while uninstalling Free History Cleaner. The manual removal instructions listed below will help you to identify what to delete with FreeFixer.

Read more about FreeFixer.

Manual removal

Please follow the instructions below if you would like to remove Free History Cleaner manually. Please notice that you must follow the instructions very carefully and delete everything that is mentioned. In most cases the removal will fail if one single item is not deleted. If Free History Cleaner remains on your system after stepping through the removal instructions, please double-check by stepping through them again.

1. Start the registry editor. This is done by clicking Start then Run. (The Run dialog will appear.) Type regedit and click OK. (The registry editor will open.)
2. Browse to the key:
   'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Run'
3. In the right pane, delete the values called 'FHC', 'fhcprogress' and 'fhccall', if they exists.
4. Exit the registry editor.
5. Restart your computer.
6. Start Windows Explorer and delete:
   %ProgramsDir%\Free History Cleaner\
   %SystemDir%\fhcprogress.exe
   %SystemDir%\fhccall.exe
   Note: %SystemDir% is a variable (?). By default, this is C:\Windows\System (Windows 95/98/Me), C:\WINNT\System32 (Windows NT/2000), or C:\Windows\System32 (Windows XP).
   Note: %ProgramsDir% is a variable (?). By default, this is C:\Program Files.

Problems uninstalling? Click here.

I'm looking for your help!

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Contact information for Free History Cleaner's vendor

In order to provide correct, accurate and updated information about Free History Cleaner I encourage the vendor to contact me if any part of this write-up needs a revision.