Anyone have any good suggestions for software that can be used to encrypt, and/or password protect specific folders on your computer?
I’m currently on XP Pro, but will be upgrading to Win 7 next year.
Does the software here look pretty good?
Apart from forgetting a password, is there any downside to encrypting folders?
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I gotta pick a good program for this so recommendations would be appreciated
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Truecrypt is a great way to protect sensitive information.
Not only is the file/folder password protected, but the actual existence of the file can be hidden from prying eyes in the first place.
Great, and it looks like it’s open source?
Another question…is there a possibility that my files could be corrupted by encryption and not be able to be recovered?
I heard this was always possible
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Yup - it is open source.
…and yeah corruption is always possible.
With unencrypted files, if your hdd gets corrupted somehow they are often still recoverable with the right tools. If you have encrypted them, then that is just not possible.
I don’t know whether the encrypted files are more likely to become corrupted or not, but I do know they aren’t recoverable if they do become corrupted. That is definitely the downside of encryption.
I think TrueCrypt and SafeHouse Explorer are the powerful and highly-effective encryption softwares.
PGP was a great little product I used to use when it was free. You have to pay for it now. I understand there are a few open source programs similar to PGP.
Man, I don’t know now… since I’ve heard there is a chance encrypting your data could lead to that data being corrupted, I’m not so sure I want to encrypt it now.
I guess I could encrypt my data on my main machine and then have that same data on back-up drives un-encrypted so I’ve always have an un-encrypted version of my data…
How does encryption work when you need to access a file that is, say a MS Word doc?
How does Word access the file I’d be trying to open? Do I put in a password in a special window that opens?
I only use TrueCrypt, but for that the archive is encrypted until you open up TrueCrypt, select the archive and give the password. Once you’ve done that, the archive shows up as a second hdd drive, which works perfectly fine within Word or any other program - you can use it just as you would a thumb drive. Then once the data is saved there, you just re-encrypt the archive.