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Favourite File Encryption Software?

isofa
isofa Posts: 6,091 Forumite
More of a survey than a question!

What is everyone's favourite, or most commonly used file encryption software, i.e. a standalone package?

Excluding the NTFS security built into W2K, XP Pro etc. and also excluding Truecrypt (which I always recommend to people, and use exclusively for this purpose), as you have to set-up a volume for this, rather than it being file based.

Just curious to see what everyone uses especially to e-mail sensitive data attachments, to send files (heaven forbid) fully encrypted through the post and the new on-line backup services etc...

Do people just rely on zipping files with an archive password, or something altogether more secure?

Comments

  • Latest versions of winzip have 256 bit AES, which is pretty secure.
    Ever get the feeling you are wasting your time? :rolleyes:
  • sra
    sra Posts: 4,676 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker Photogenic
    On a recent episode of Security Now Omziff was recommended for when you couldn't use TrueCrypt and that's what I've started using for selecte files on my USB:
    STEVE: Exactly. If you put "Omziff" into Google, it'll find it for you. I've checked it out relatively thoroughly. It's not very big. It's about 400K, so it'll fit easily on the smallest of thumb drives. And it runs perfectly from a thumb drive. It uses state-of-the-art encryption. A whole bunch of different crypto algorithms are there. My favorite, Rijndael, is among them. And you're able to give it a password, and it will encrypt a drive. So, I mean, it just does - it's a very, very clean, simple, lightweight, standalone encryption system. And for example, if you just have one file that you are sensitive about and you want to encrypt, this is a perfect little tool for doing it. It just zips through it and encrypts it; and then you reverse the process, and it'll decrypt it.
  • Bob63
    Bob63 Posts: 1,320 Forumite
    Truecrypt. Main reason is that it is open source meaning lots of pairs of eyes have seen the source code and know it doesn't have any nasties lurking in it. If you use commercial off the shelf (closed source) encryption software you have to be 100% certain that you trust the company providing the software not to put in any kind of back-door access.

    Mike
  • LardyCake
    LardyCake Posts: 290 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
    One the rare occasions I need to do this, I use: http://www.gnupg.org/
  • isofa
    isofa Posts: 6,091 Forumite
    Thanks guys - it's a pity TrueCrypt doesn't offer some file level encryption, but I agree, it's hard to beat - it's the only one I use.

    I thought WinZip would be the other popular alternative, will have a look at the GNU and Omziff projects too.

    It's amazing to notice that most people sending sensitive data, don't use any methods, demonstrated by all the news reports of bad security on our personal data.
  • dm-crypt, has a choice of using aes, blowfish, serpent, sha256
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