Best encryption software reviews
Why use encryption software?
The data you store on your personal computer could be an open source of knowledge about your identity. If skillfully processed and analyzed, your files can tell a whole lot more about you than you might have ever thought: financial and banking information, your contacts, SSN, social circle, habits – the almost intimate things that people normally do not disclose to strangers. Now, imagine someone breaking into your PC – be it a hack or ‘physical’ burglary – and getting hold of it all. You wouldn’t be flattered, would you? As far as privacy and personal information confidentiality are concerned, encryption software can become your solution to safeguard these data from unwanted disclosure, even if your machine gets compromised or you happen to lose it due to unpredictable circumstances. As the concept prompts, the software employs cutting-edge techniques to encode your files so that nobody else can retrieve anything out of them in readable format. With encryption software’s features on your side, you are the only one who knows the secret key for undoing the lock and getting the information back to its original state. Encryption software is particularly helpful to those dealing with large bulks of high-value sensitive information whose loss may lead to serious consequences for their well-being or reputation.
Evaluation criteria
Amid the varied characteristic features of encryption software, we tend to make a special focus on the degree of its effectiveness, the options supplied, usage convenience, as well as support responsiveness and efficiency. More details on how we rated encryption utilities to come up with the best ones are below:
- Usability: Installing and using encryption software should be made smooth enough for users of any computer expertise level to be fully satisfied. Having installed the program in several simple steps, you should be able to easily navigate its GUI and quickly customize it to fit your needs. You are not supposed to sense the inherent inner complexity of the application while using it, so everything should be transparent, user-friendly, and fairly lightweight here.
- Features: The attractiveness of specific encryption software gets substantially magnified if it provides a diverse feature set enhancing your data security. Some of the smart and useful ones are file compression, secure notes, portability options, folder locking, on-the-fly encryption / decryption, online backup, and multi-factor authentication. Furthermore, it’s great to be able to access the essential functions without actually opening the program’s interface – by just having them integrated into the context menu. Whereas certain advanced features might be of no particular interest to some users, we consider the above to be the most versatile and must-have ones, so their presence is really preferable.
- Efficiency: Encryption reliability is an unambiguous indication of whether a program is worth the time and money spent. This attribute is typically measured in the encryption standard applied, which should meet the 256 bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) parameter. Additional mandatory capabilities include post-encryption shredding of original files, adequate password strength requirements and decryption dependability. To sum it up, as long as you’re using encryption software, you needn’t worry about your data being endangered and exploited in any way. The tools we recommend here have been verified for proper efficiency in this regard.
- Support: The best encryption software manufacturers are literally obliged to do a great job helping their customers tackle various problems if something goes wrong and get professional help when it’s needed. Along with multi-channel support opportunities, users should be supplied with sufficient online or embedded software documentation, including manuals, FAQ section and troubleshooting tips. Live support via chat or phone is of special importance with this type of software, since problems when encrypting or decrypting data may lead to the loss of critical files, so tech representatives should be easy to reach.
