Wiping confidential files from your PC can be a difficult task. Just deleting them leaves the data available to any passer-by with a suitable undelete tool. Overwriting the files can help: but only if you do it properly. And even then it's possible for some data to survive for days, weeks, months, maybe even years -- unless you take advantage of a specialist secure deletion tool like O&O SafeErase 5.
The program is straightforward to use, integrating with Explorer so you can start wiping personal files right away. Just right-click the file or folder you no longer need, choose the SafeErase option and decide just how securely you'd like this deletion to be.
Options here range from a simple "Overwrite with zeros" -- fast, but may leave the data available to hardware-based recovery -- through standards like a US DoD 5220.22-M-compliant 3 overwrites, right up 35 separate deletion cycles (the Gutmann method) that are executed in a random order. It's slow, but does ensure that your files really will be gone forever. Once you've made your choice then O&O SafeErase will remember it for future runs, and then there's little else to do, other than click the "SafeErase now" button and watch your files disappear.
Control Center
The Explorer extensions are useful, but to get a clear view of what SafeErase can offer you'll need to launch the full program and browse its Control Center. This now includes a new "analysis tool" that promises to scan your system and report on files that may pose a security risk. If they're doing some detailed analysis then that could be very interesting, we thought, clicking the "Start analysis" button.
However, it turned out that the program just listed standard items like our cookies, bookmarks, browser temporary files, history, various deleted files and more. So there was no detailed analysis at all. You can click "Clean" to delete all of these at once, which is handy, but the report itself is of little use otherwise, listing so many files on our test PC (half a million) that it wasn't practical to check it in any detail.
Fortunately the other Control Center options were much better designed. If you actually know what you want to wipe, for instance, it's easy to create multiple "delete lists" that specify a group of files and folders you'd like erased. And so there's no need to browse Explorer, right-clicking on this or that -- a couple of Control Center clicks will securely wipe the data for you.
Another option will wipe your drive's free space (optionally including slack space), effectively erasing all deleted files. There are modules to clean up after your browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome and Opera are supported), or delete the contents of your temporary folders. And if you're selling a drive or computer then you'll appreciate the feature to securely delete the contents of a partition, an entire drive, even your entire computer, including the system files. (Unusually, the latter option doesn't even require you to burn a bootable CD/ DVD -- it comes with its own boot environment, which allows the program to delete Windows system files that would normally be locked.)
All these modules are easy to use, and there are thoughtful touches throughout. So if you choose the "Delete hard disks/ partitions" option, say, SafeErase will highlight your system and other essential partitions, reducing the chance that you'll choose one by accident.
New to this version, SafeErase now automatically detects compatible SSDs and uses TRIM when deleting to help improve performance. And another handy addition sees a command line tool that lets you automate just about any SafeErase operation. A couple of lines in a script would be enough to wipe your temporary files and free space, say: launch this from Task Scheduler and you could have your drive cleaned at lunchtime, overnight, whenever's convenient.
O&O SafeErase 5 is working in a tough market, then, with strong free competition from utilities like Eraser. Its ease of use, configurability, and sheer weight of features help the program to stand out from most similar tools, though, and so if you regularly need to securely delete confidential files then you should give SafeErase a closer look.
Verdict: Fast, configurable and with plenty of features, O&O SafeErase 5 provides a professional way to securely delete confidential or personal information.
We Like: Easy to use, supports several deletion methods, wipes free space (including slack space), Delete Lists can wipe many files/ folders at once, uses TRIM on compatible SSDs, most functions scriptable.
We Don't Like: New analysis reports have little value, lots of free competition around.
Manufacturer: O&O Software
MSRP: $29.95
Platforms: Windows XP (32/ 64-bit)/ Vista (32/ 64-bit)/ 7 (32/ 64-bit)
Requirements: 20MB free hard drive space
