5 Most Popular Encryption Applications to Keep Your Files Private

When working with any files that contain sensitive or private information, one must be extremely cautious. Whether it’s work files or those you want to keep wandering eyes from viewing, encrypting your files keeps them safe and secure.

Luckily, many applications are available to help us secure our files through encryption and password protecting. Today, I wanted to highlight the 5 most popular encryption applications that many users are using today. For this post I’ve used the download site I trust, CNET’s download.com.

The top 5 is based on number of downloads in the last week. Also included is the price, editor and user reviews and total number of downloads just last week.

5. USBCrypt (Free 30 day trial, $29.95) No current reviews | 785 downloads last week

With USBCrypt, you can protect your private files on your removable drives. You can password protect a portion of any removable or fixed drive. It uses AES encryption and requires the appropriate password to be entered before showing the drive letter and files. USBCrypt works with any drives Windows recognizes, to include FireWire.

4. Actual Keylogger (Free) Editors 4 Stars | Users 3 Stars, 101 reviews | 1k downloads last week

Actual Keylogger records every keystroke made to an encrypted log file, providing the title of the window active. It runs in the background, automatically logging all keystrokes so you can see which actions are being taken by others on your computer. You can password protect the interface so only you can control Actual Keylogger. After collecting all the keystrokes, you’ll be able to view a report in either HTML or plain text. This application doesn’t have the capability to grab print screens of keystrokes, but is still useful.

3. TrueCrypt (Free) Editor 4.5 Stars | Users 4 Stars, 229 reviews | 1k downloads last week

TrueCrypt is a free open-source program to protect your private information. It works by creating a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounting it as a real disk.  Encryption algorithms used are AES-256, Blowfish (448-bit key), CAST5, Serpent, Triple DES, and Twofish.

2. Easy Private Disk (Free 35 day trial, $19.95) Users 5 Stars, 2 reviews | 5k downloads last week

Easy Private Disk works by protecting your sensitive data on your laptops, personal computers and removable disks. It creates virtual disks on your computer, so you can store private information. By saving files and folders on this private disk then closing them, Easy Private Disk protects your files automatically.

1. Folder Lock (Free 25 mb trial, $39.95)  Editors 4 Stars | Users 3.5 Stars, 988 reviews | 7k downloads last week

Folder Lock is a quick way to protect your private files. You can either lock your files and folders or encrypt them with 256 bit Blowfish algorithm. Folder Lock can be used to encrypt and password protect your folders, lock your files, USB Drives, CDs and DVDs. Folder Lock uses Lockers to create your encrypted storage, providing a place to safely keep files behind your Locker password. Lockers can also be transferred by email. Create as many Lockers as you want.

Additional features include hack monitoring, stealth mode, data shredding, history cleaning and more. The Locker’s delete, move and rename functions are password protected to help keep data from being lost.