Any sufficiently advanced uninstaller is indistinguishable from malware

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • EasyHook

    EasyHook - The reinvention of Windows API Hooking

  • go

    The Go programming language

  • Apparently some parts of this are quite recent, huh[1]:

    > jstarks commented on Jun 18, 2019:

    > [I]n the most recent version of Windows, we updated DeleteFile (on NTFS) to perform a "POSIX" delete, where the file is removed from the namespace immediately instead of waiting for all open handles to the file to be closed.

    [1] https://github.com/golang/go/issues/32088#issuecomment-50285...

  • InfluxDB

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  • open_safety

    An application to assist with securing script execution

  • Malware delivered as an email with a link to a zip file containing a .js file is one of the most common methods of delivery, right behind word macros. The "map the .js extension to notepad.exe" is a common security trick with a measurable, immediate drop in malware in large orgs. You can deploy it via GPO or InTune.

    Personal promotion, I built this as a better alternative:

    https://github.com/technion/open_safety

    Note the built in .js parser hasn't basically ever updated, if you're writing for this you're writing like you're targetting IE5.

  • Microsoft Research Detours Package

    Detours is a software package for monitoring and instrumenting API calls on Windows. It is distributed in source code form.

  • You essentially replace a function with your own. The project is at https://github.com/microsoft/Detours.

    I’ve created a PowerShell module that wraps this library to make it easier to hook functions on the fly for testing https://github.com/jborean93/PSDetour. For example I used it to capture TLS session data for decryption https://gist.github.com/jborean93/6c1f1b3130f2675f1618da5663... as well as create an strace like functionality for various Win32 APIs (still expanding as I find more use cases) https://github.com/jborean93/PSDetour-Hooks

  • PSDetour

    Windows Detour Hooking in PowerShell

  • You essentially replace a function with your own. The project is at https://github.com/microsoft/Detours.

    I’ve created a PowerShell module that wraps this library to make it easier to hook functions on the fly for testing https://github.com/jborean93/PSDetour. For example I used it to capture TLS session data for decryption https://gist.github.com/jborean93/6c1f1b3130f2675f1618da5663... as well as create an strace like functionality for various Win32 APIs (still expanding as I find more use cases) https://github.com/jborean93/PSDetour-Hooks

  • PSDetour-Hooks

    Auditing Hooks for https://github.com/jborean93/PSDetour

  • You essentially replace a function with your own. The project is at https://github.com/microsoft/Detours.

    I’ve created a PowerShell module that wraps this library to make it easier to hook functions on the fly for testing https://github.com/jborean93/PSDetour. For example I used it to capture TLS session data for decryption https://gist.github.com/jborean93/6c1f1b3130f2675f1618da5663... as well as create an strace like functionality for various Win32 APIs (still expanding as I find more use cases) https://github.com/jborean93/PSDetour-Hooks

  • subhook

    Simple hooking library for C/C++ (x86 only, 32/64-bit, no dependencies)

  • WorkOS

    The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

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  • Squirrel

    An installation and update framework for Windows desktop apps

  • As soon as Office 2007 didn't use MSI the format was doomed.

    I assume the Here in NIH refers to an individual team, not MS as a whole.

    Teams is entirely NIH https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows for updates to the Electron app.

    I would use winget, but MS made it weirdly hard to run as a script on multiple computers, it installs per user, because... who knows.

    So still using chocolatey

  • PolyHook_2_0

    C++20, x86/x64 Hooking Libary v2.0

  • And my more sophisticated library, https://github.com/stevemk14ebr/PolyHook_2_0

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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