Want solid encryption features but don’t want to bother installing yet another application for that? Not a problem, as BitLocker has you covered. Platform Availability: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (Desktop) Simply put, 7-Zip may not be as advanced as VeraCrypt but it’s a useful utility for quickly creating encrypted files on Windows. compression method, volume splitting), and of course the encryption password and method (defaults to AES-256, the only available option), hit the OK button. After specifying the necessary parameters (e.g. Simply launch 7-Zip, and add the files/folders you want to encrypt to a new archive (Note that only 7z and zip formats support encryption). Basically, you are getting powerful encryption in the form of a password-protected archive and without any charge.Ĭreating encrypted archives on 7-Zip is a cakewalk. Keep in mind, this is not a standard password lock but a truly encrypted system that deploys a strong 256-bit key length for maximum protection.

Essentially, 7-Zip can be used to create password-protected archives, which are further secured with the AES-256 encryption standard. You may know 7-Zip as the tiny yet powerful free archival program that supports a ridiculous number of formats, but it also has some sweet encryption goodness built into it, and that’s why 7-Zip is ranked among the best encryption software for Windows. So not only your built-in storage but also the external storage solutions are encrypted and safe. VeraCrypt supports industry-standard encryption algorithms, such as AES, Serpent, Twofish, SHA-2 and can even employ more than one of them in cascading mode.Īnother good thing about VeraCrypt is that you can also use to encrypt your USB devices. Any data moved/copied to an encrypted volume is automatically encrypted as well. Once an encrypted volume has been created, it must be always mounted first (on any of the available mount points) through VeraCrypt, after supplying the password and keyfile (if used) to access the data stored on it. For additional security, you can specify a password, as well as a keyfile (any random file of your choice that acts as an additional authenticator). To start off, you specify the details regarding the encrypted volume to be created, such as volume size, save location, as well as the encryption and hashing algorithms to be used. Further, now with the latest release, you can also encrypt folders and files by mounting the encrypted data to a disk volume. It essentially works by creating password-protected encrypted volumes, but can also encrypt entire disk partitions, including the system partition, and even the entire hard drive. It’s considered as one of the best encryption software across Windows, Linux, and macOS. Based on TrueCrypt, the hugely popular encryption program, VeraCrypt provides top-grade encryption for your data.

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