Rubbish "helper" that makes AudioHijack even more uselessly complicated and user unfriendly than ever. There a SERIOUS NEED FOR AN APP THAT RECORDS SIMPLY THE INTERNET MUSIC without all the maddening fuss audio Hijack is dedicated to.

I don't use any non-Apple products currently but I prefer to remove the DRM as a matter of principle. There has not been a satisfactory way to do this since jhymn. I've tried a couple of scripts that purport to circumvent the DRM by importing songs into iMovie with little or no success. Then, along comes Hijack It!

I already own a copy of Audio Hijack Pro and have Growl installed so Hijack It! wasn't a big stretch at just $12.00.

Hijack It! works as advertised, scripting the process of hijacking the audio from iTunes, one song at a time, and renaming the output - Well worth the money for the time and trouble it saves.

I'm grading it down to a 4 primarily on its lack of instructions (Ease of Use = 4). It took me several tries to get a reasonable result. More exhaustive instructions with regard to both iTunes and AHP would have been helpful.

Results were abysmal until I turned the iTunes volume up to maximum and disabled all the iTunes Playback options (Crossfade, Sound Enhancer and Sound Check). After more experimentation, I finally settled on AAC/128 for my AHP settings. Any differences between the DRM-free copy and the original were then almost imperceptible.

A section in the Hijack It! manual with Tips and Suggested Settings for iTunes and AHP would have been most helpful - and would have raised the Ease of Use score to a 5.

My other complaint was the lack of support for all the Tags in purchased iTunes songs (Album Artist, Disk # of #, Composer, Compilation, Comments, etc.). This is primarily because AHP does not support these Tags. However, there are a number of possible workarounds that would improve Hijack It! Perhaps the next version of Hijack It! could import each song back into iTunes and use AppleScripting to set the missing Tags in iTunes. Or, perhaps just put all the missing Tags into the Comments field so I don't have to search for them. Better yet, Hijack It! could work with the makers of AHP to add those Tags.

Last but not least, one final tip: After archiving the original Protected AAC files, I deleted them from iTunes. I then imported the DRM-free AAC files, losing all the Album Artwork. Import the DRM-free AAC files before deleting the Protected AAC files from iTunes and the Album Artwork is magically added to the newly imported songs.

Hijack IT requires Audio Hijack Pro and Growl to convert protected AAC files (purchased iTunes songs) into the more portable and compatible MP3 format -- Automatically!

Once all the pieces are in place, this combination will make your life a whole lot easier. Just make a playlist of the songs you want converted and launch Hijack IT and let the software do it's thing.

There are other ways to get your music back, but none as slick as this combination. Very nice.

I recently adquiered Hijack iTunes and since then my life has become a little bit easier.

Hijack iTunes is a very straightforward tool that allows you to record multiple files from iTunes trhough Audio Hijack Pro.

The reason why I consider this program so ingenuos and efficient is because it allows you to quickly select what iTunes playlist you wanna record and what Audio Hijack set-up you wanna use for the recording. You don't have to waste your time going through endless menus and configurations, you click and choose and that's it. You're ready to go! Then, you let Hijack iTunes do the rest. You can record a whole audiobook overnight and when you wake up in the morning you'd find new universal playable files for each one of the original only-playable-in-iTunes files, completely labeled and organized in the destination you previously selected.

There's no doubt Hijack iTunes is worth the money and the support is just great!

I hope the developer keeps improving this amazing tool.

Version 2.1 had stability issues under AudioHijack v2.1.1. Hopefully, now that scripting issues have been overcome (in Audiohijack v2.2.1) the author will correct the issues in this package. After all, it's been pretty useless since I bought it. I'd like to think that author will reward my patience of those who trusted him with their $, and still are not able to use his program?