In my humble opinion, every computer user should have access to various security related tools on the system. This includes a program to backup files and folders, one to encrypt files to protect them from prying eyes, and a program to securely delete files so that they can’t be recovered anymore with file recovery software.

File Secure Free is an all-in-one tool that is giving you access to all of these features. When you first run the program after you have downloaded and installed it you will notice the following window layout.

On the left is a sidebar that opens the tools it makes available. You start on the file backup and can switch to the file encryptor, file shredder and lockup tool with the click of the mouse.

The file backup app lets you select files and folders that you want to backup. It unfortunately can’t backup files or folders hosted under a system path, which makes the whole user profile folder incompatible with the backup software. That’s a big issue, and the developers should definitely work on that to get it resolved.

You basically add files or folders to the backup list, select them afterwards and hit the backup button. This triggers a select backup save location browser that lets you save the backup on a local or network drive. Restoration is handled in pretty much the same way, only that you select the backup image and destination path in the menu.

The backup tool is rather weak, as it too limited to be really practicable to use. You can’t configure compression, password protection and other features that one nowadays expects from a backup software.

Thankfully though the file encryptor and file shredder modules work a lot better. Select files or folders from the system first, and then the encrypt button to password protect the files using AES encryption. To decrypt, simply select the file again and click on decrypt. You are asked to enter the password that you have used to encrypt the file.

The file shredder deletes files and folders securely so that they can’t be recovered anymore. Keep in mind that this is only effective when the data is stored on a platter-based hard drive and not a Flash drive.

Both tools do not support files or folders located under the user directory which is definitely something that the developers need to work on.