If you can't run Hone because your antivirus flags it as a virus or malware, or if you've come across claims online that Hone is a crypto miner, this article will explain why these false detections happen, how you can help us address them, and clarify that Hone is not a crypto miner.

No, not at all. A crypto miner is a program that uses the resources of your computer to mine cryptocurrencies. Hone is coded in Electron, the same language as Discord. When Hone is opened in the foreground it uses slight resources to display the application (like Discord), since Electron is not a very lightweight language. Once you minimize Hone to your background, Hone consumes next to none resources, similar to having Notepad minimized to the background. This is because when you minimize Hone to your background, we make sure to utilize small amounts of resources in order for the app to function and optimize in the background. We have made drastic efforts, in order for Hone to take the least possible resources it can when running in the background. We have achieved a level where it makes virtually 0 difference in performance if you have Hone in your background or not. This debunks any claim that Hone could be a crypto miner, since programs need to consume heavy resources in order to mine cryptocurrencies.

XMRig, a crypto miner software, has a CUDA miner named REAL.exe. It has been confused for another open-source program also named Real.exe, which aims at reducing audio latency: https://github.com/miniant-git/REAL.

Hone used to have an optimization called "Reduce audio latency". The optimization sets up a scheduled task to run REAL.exe in the background on startup at all times (since the app needs to be running in the background to reduce audio latency). The EXE was in the resource folder of the Hone, usually located at "%LocalAppdata%\Programs\Hone\resources\assets\hone-resources". After some research, we discovered a bug within Windows, in which REAL.exe set the audio buffer lower, resulting in a reduced audio latency. Though by doing so it unexpectedly disables Thread 0 of your processor; Read more about the issue from GitHub here. Because of this the "Reduce Audio Latency" optimization was removed since Hone version 1.1.7 on November 22 2023 and the software is no longer in the resources folder nor in the app.
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TL; DR:

There are 2 files titled: "Hone.exe". Let's start with the Hone installer you download from our website. The file is named "Hone - Installer.exe", and it is an installer for the Hone app, taking up storage of around 2MB. This means when you run this file it, downloads the latest version of Hone from the internet. This file has only 1 detection out of 71 Anti-Viruses on virus-total. That 1 detection is by DeepInstinct who were contacted several times in regards to resolving the false detection but we were met with complete silence. (They did subscribe us to their newsletter tho...)
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We have also resolved similar false detections by other companies in the past which were easily resolved thanks to their lovely customer support whom we will remain eternally thankful to for their full co-operation. View them below.
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As for the second "Hone.exe" file we mentioned, it's the app itself when it's finished installing, usually in "%LocalAppdata%/Programs/Hone.exe", this file has 0 flags.

The entire Hone app and its optimizations are all digitally signed to ensure your safety and reliability:
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Hone may get falsely detected as a virus because optimizations need to make changes to settings that require administrator permissions in order to be modified. Upon automated changes to these settings, they have a tendency to get mistakenly detected as a virus by certain Anti-viruses.

Additionally, Hone has optimizations that benefit the user’s performance at the cost of security, such as the Advanced optimization "Disable Windows Defender" or "Disable Mitigations". For example, if Windows Defender is not running, you may gain performance as it's no longer consuming resources in the background but it's very normal and easy for an Anti-Virus to find this behaviour suspicious.

There are dozens of sources proving Hone is legit and can be trusted:

For more information, please view our Privacy Policy.

At Hone, we aim to provide full transparency for everything we do. If you have any claims or further concerns that Hone is malware, please join our Discord server and create a ticket. We also have a help center and a support system in our Discord server for Hone-related issues.

The team behind Hone has consistently been working on developing the best optimizer to improve FPS and reduce input lag, and would never jeopardize and betray users by putting a virus into the software. Our long-term partnerships with some reputable companies such as Salad and Overwolf, along with some YouTubers with unfathomably large fanbases can all vouch for us. We're here to protect and optimize your PC, and will continue to do so.