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Se ve una buen trabajo en el programa, el problema es que no tiene el idioma español, haber si corrigen ese detalle.
How is this supposed to work? The installer says that it installed, but then nothing is found but the installer.
Running the installer again, the installer says that it installed OK, but once again nothing is found but the installer. It never asks for the license key.
running
[@Pilcrow] The description says “You do not have to register for using messenger. Your address is serial number of COVERT Pro.”
As long as you have provided your email address it should be registered.It appears that the only way to uninstall Covert Pro is to run the installer and select “uninstall”.
SO BE SURE TO KEEP INSTALLER file in case of problems down the road.Once again, a program making dubious claims, unable to explain exactly what it purports to do, making you wonder whether it’s snake oil in the best of cases, and possibly even a piece of spyware by itself.
First of all, it pretends to be both an anti-spyware product, and an encrypted messaging product. Who’s ever heard of such a combination ? What’s the logic of sticking both together ? The developer does not say. He doesn’t even attempt to explain.
Let’s have a look at the product’s site. The developer uses some fear-inducing language which obviously means he does not know anything about security :
“Do you know how many people want to know other people’s secrets : a list of sites visited, what is written in the confidential correspondence and dating sites, email passwords, account credentials in social networks, games, online banking and other sensitive data ? How many people are interested in keylogger ?”
This is baby-talk. Security experts don’t write like that. They don’t lump together “a list of sites visited” (which Google, Microsoft and plenty of others routinely and openly collect, and which is a privacy issue), and “people interested in keylogger” (which is malware, and a security issue at a completely different level).
What does the product pretend to do ?
“An innovative solution to ensure total privacy while working at the computer. It protects against spyware and has instant messenger with encryption. When working in secure platform, all user’s actions in all applications (browsers, email clients, office software, messengers, etc.) are safely hidden. Using special features of COVERT Pro allows you to detect and remove all hidden applications.”
This does not mean a thing. Protecting against spyware is only remotely related to privacy. It is primarily a security concern.
All applications are hidden from what ? Are they sandboxed, which is the technical term the author seems to ignore ? But a sandbox does not hide applications from malware ; on the contrary ; it executes software in a separate, isolated space which, if malware has been downloaded with the application, the user can entirely delete afterwards, ensuring that malware will not have leaked to the permanent computer space.
Then in the very next sentence, the developer uses this same word, hidden, to refer to an entirely different thing : “detect and remove all hidden applications”, meaning, presumably, malware. So we’ve suddenly gone from “hiding” legitimate applications, presumably from malware, to un-hiding “hidden” software, that is, malware. Colour me highly skeptical. Real security researchers know what they are talking about, and they are able to explain it clearly.
So this is supposed to be a two-in-one product. Let’s start with the anti-spyware side of things. The developer makes the extraordinary claim that all “classical” anti-spyware are worthless — except his own. No known publisher makes such preposterous claims. At most, they say they work better than the competition. How does Mr. Covert Pro “prove” his extraordinary claim ?
With his own testing. Make that “testing”. In a parody of a technical paper, he pretends to have tested TWO anti-spyware programs, against ONE piece of malware. They failed, he says. Then he proceeds to test that same SINGLE piece of malware against 40 other applications, only now we’ve switched to anti-virus programs, and he doesn’t say why.
In the real, adult world of computer security, anti-malware publishers submit their products to independant testing by third-party, specialised outfits, which test them against tens of thousands of types of malware, publish their methodology, repeat their benchmarks regularly, compete with each other, and are, themselves, regularly challenged by the security community, because anti-malware testing is a very serious and difficult business.
Claims about the product vary according to which part of the site you visit. On the home and main pages, it is presented as an anti-spyware product. Bizzarely, when you dig deeper, it now claims to detect rootkits as well, which are a different type of beast, and much more difficult to hunt. So this should be advertised upfront, shouldn’t it ? It’s not. First it’s an anti-spyware, then it’s an anti-rootkit also, but it’s still not a full-fledged anti-virus / anti-malware. The developer does not seem to know, or to care. He’s just throwing buzzwords at your face.
On to the most valuable function of the product (potentially). It claims to offer “instant messenger with encryption”. This is a major endeavour. Very few applications in the world manage to do that. We are speaking about WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram… All of them compete at the forefront of encryption and privacy technology, against formidable adversaries, the likes of NSA and GCHQ.
So the developer should make that a major selling point, and shout his achievements from the rooftops, right ? Wrong. There’s almost nothing on that part of the product on his site. No encryption technology whitepaper, no explanation about what it does better than competitors or how it does it. It does not even say what that “instant messenger with encryption” does, apart from the fact that it’s there.
However, we do learn, on SoS site (not on the developer’s site), that “immediately after reading, your message will be deleted from the server”. What ?!? What server ? Do you mean that my confidential messages will go to a server you control, about which you say nothing, through an application you explain about zilch ? Now wait a minute, isn’t that the very definition of spyware ?
This program apparently comes from Eastern Europe. A prime location for hackers and scammers. If I were you, I wouldn’t install this program anywhere else than a virtual machine, or inside Sandboxie (which is a well-known, respected and legitimate sandboxing program).
Can someone please tell me how to uninstall this program? It does not show up at all in the Add/Remove Programs, nor did my uninstall software recognize it was even installed (although it was set to track the install).
I really hope someone knows how to go about getting this software off my computer.
Thanks in advance.M,
According to what uninstaller you use, you could try its forced uninstall mode. Revo Uninstaller has such a mode (at least in the paid-for version). You only have to type the name of the software, and hopefully the place where you installed it, and it will try and hunt for it.
One alternative (or additional measure) would be to launch a system-wide search for files bearing the application’s name in a program such as Everywhere. Also, searching for the program’s name in the Registry (more dangerous ; make a restore point before).
The behaviour you describe is strange, to say the least. What uninstaller do you use ? Are you sure you used the audit mode correctly ?
Oh, and I almost forgot, m : more powerful option, restore your system to an older Windows restore point. If you used Revo to install this piece, of, er… code, normally it would have made a restore point before installing. Other similar uninstallers should have done that too.
You can ask Windows to tell you what programs would be deleted if you reverted to a specific restore point. There’s also a restore function in Revo, which you might try to use. See if the program is listed there. I have never used it, so I could not tell you more about it.
Also, if you have a recent complete image backup of your system, done either with Windows or with a third party program, you could restore that. That’s the nuclear option and works very well — of course you’ll lose everything changed in-between (except documents, if they are separate).
Most important would be to make sure you get rid of the registry changes, not only the files. If this is a rogue program, or simply a badly behaved or badly written one, this would be especially important. Security programs are known for being difficult to uninstall. Legitimate, big-name anti-virus often have their dedicated, custom, free uninstall tools that you need to download separately. Fly-by-night programs, not so much.
[@Clairvaux] With such a detailed comment — that you usually make – I would encourage you to post a review for giveaways as opposed to here in the discussion forum. More people read reviews.
[@Pilcrow]
Hello,
The program is installed in the default folder Program Files/Covert Pro AE, unless you specify a different. You need to run the file Protection.exe.
You can see a video tutorial “Introduction to COVERT Pro” on this page https://covert-pro.com/video/Dear Clairvaux,
Thank you for the very important issues.
1.”First of all, it pretends to be both an anti-spyware product, and an encrypted messaging product. Who’s ever heard of such a combination ? What’s the logic of sticking both together ? The developer does not say. He doesn’t even attempt to explain.
”
We do explain all of this in our video lessons https://covert-pro.com/video/. We have combined these two functions only a year ago. Our users often asked the question of how secure their messages after sending from their computer. Covert Pro protects or not messages outside of the computer.
We analyzed the market of messengers and realized that all popular products are very vulnerable because of their centralized architecture. Our messenger is the most secure because of its architecture – principles of operation. Our customers messages can not be intercepted during their writing (by keyloggers and screenshoters), but also on the way to the recipient. I.e. we were able to ensure privacy for confidential communication.2. “
Protecting against spyware is only remotely related to privacy. It is primarily a security concern.
”
When someone reads all your posts in which you talk about your feelings or tell confidential information about your health, it all has direct relation to privacy.And every person has the right to privacy of his personal correspondence.3.
Are they sandboxed, which is the technical term the author seems to ignore ?
No we are not a sandbox. We use a different technology.
4.
Then he proceeds to test that same SINGLE piece of malware against 40 other applications, only now we’ve switched to anti-virus programs, and he doesn’t say why.
We show how any user can carry out their own testing any spyware without specialized knowledge and training. It is very simple. We do not test spyware. It makes independent and popular website http://virscan.org/. We show how our program protects against malicious. And we have done it with many spyware.
Test our COVERT Pro. Install spyware. Go to the COVERT Pro secure platform and write something in a Notepad. Then exit the platform and check the spyware logs. It’s very simple.5. “
Bizzarely, when you dig deeper, it now claims to detect rootkits as well, which are a different type of beast, and much more difficult to hunt. So this should be advertised upfront, shouldn’t it ? It’s not.
”
You’re right, we don’t advertise very powerful COVERT Pro tools for finding and removing malicious code. We believe that the majority of our users need a safe environment to work and they do not want to search for malicious software. Therefore, in our interface, such a big button to enter the secure platform. This is for those who are bored to study other aspects of information security. But we have a lot of users who provide services to find malicious software on the computers of their clients.They use our tools to quickly find malicious software only.
6. “
So the developer should make that a major selling point, and shout his achievements from the rooftops, right ? Wrong. There’s almost nothing on that part of the product on his site. No encryption technology whitepaper, no explanation about what it does better than competitors or how it does it. It does not even say what that “instant messenger with encryption” does, apart from the fact that it’s there.
”
Enough detailed information about the messenger can be found in the video lessons “About messendger” and “Getting started” https://covert-pro.com/video/ and on the pages https://covert-pro.com/about-messenger/ and https://covert-pro.com/download_messenger/.
And as mentioned earlier, our messenger is a supplement for those who really need to transfer confidential information. For messages such as “How are you” there are many excellent instant messengers. Our messenger is not needed for this.7. “
However, we do learn, on SoS site (not on the developer’s site), that “immediately after reading, your message will be deleted from the server”. What ?!? What server ? Do you mean that my confidential messages will go to a server you control, about which you say nothing, through an application you explain about zilch ? Now wait a minute, isn’t that the very definition of spyware ?
”
Please read the information that I have posted in the previous point. We do not know another messenger in the world that allows you to send messages through the client server. All forwarded messages go through vendor servers, where messages are stored and can be hacked and read. We allow to specify a server which controls the user in the settings.
Thank you again for the opportunity to respond to your comments
Thanks for your suggestion, Ashraf. I did not want to propose a review, because I didn’t actually install and use the program, which to me is the implied pre-requisite for a review. But I’ll make a note of your kind invitation for the future.
We had a previous giveaway last year from COVERT Pro which filename was COVERT-Pro-AEH-Inst.exe (30.435.232 byte) and version number 3.0.22.21.
New giveaway has filename COVERT Pro.exe (31.368.616 byte) and version number 3.0.20.22.
My question is:
Is new giveaway executable file a newer version worth installing (and replacing old one) ? with better performance perhaps? or even with new added features?
Because version numbering creates confusion as which version is better to keep.
