About Process Hacker

History

Process Hacker was first released in 2008 and has been continuously developed and improved since then. The project was created to provide Windows users with a more powerful alternative to the built-in Task Manager, offering advanced features for system monitoring, process management, and debugging.

The project has grown significantly over the years, with version 2.39 being released in February 2018. Process Hacker has been downloaded over 18,000 times per week and has received excellent user ratings, with a 4.7/5 star rating from over 138 reviews on SourceForge.

Development

Process Hacker is developed by wj32 and the open source community. The project is hosted on SourceForge and GitHub, where the source code is freely available for review, modification, and distribution.

The project has evolved into System Informer (formerly Process Hacker 3), which continues to receive active development and updates. System Informer includes all features of Process Hacker plus additional capabilities like device manager integration and firewall management.

Open Source License

Process Hacker is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2.0 (GPLv2) and GNU General Public License version 3.0 (GPLv3). This means:

• You are free to use Process Hacker for any purpose
• You can study how it works and modify it
• You can distribute copies of the original or modified versions
• The source code is publicly available for review

Key Features

Process Hacker provides a comprehensive set of features for system monitoring and management:

• Detailed process monitoring with real-time resource usage
• Network connection monitoring and management
• Service management beyond services.msc
• System graphs and statistics
• Advanced debugging with stack traces
• File handle discovery
• Disk activity monitoring
• Malware detection capabilities

System Informer

Process Hacker has been succeeded by System Informer (formerly Process Hacker 3), which is the active continuation of the project. System Informer includes all features of Process Hacker plus:

• Dark mode support
• Device manager integration
• Firewall management
• Continued active development
• Regular updates and bug fixes

While Process Hacker 2.39 remains available and functional, users looking for the latest features and updates should consider using System Informer, which is available on GitHub.

Community

Process Hacker has a vibrant community of users and contributors. The project is supported by:

• Over 18,000 weekly downloads
• 138+ user reviews with a 4.7/5 rating
• Active GitHub repository with contributions from the community
• Regular updates and bug fixes
• Comprehensive documentation

Contributing

Process Hacker is an open source project, and contributions are welcome. You can contribute by:

• Reporting bugs and issues on GitHub
• Suggesting new features
• Contributing code improvements
• Writing documentation
• Helping other users in the community

Visit the GitHub repository to get involved.