Security - Secure Deletion (16)

BleachBit quickly frees disk space, removes hidden junk and safeguards your privacy. You can erase cache, Internet history, cookies (including the much-maligned "evercookie"), DOM storage, unused localizations and temporary files of 70 applications including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Flash, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Adobe Reader, APT and more. Additional applications can be added with the community authored winapp2.ini cleaner list in the Preferences - General tab (requires restart).

Includes wipe function to protect privacy, support for many languages, and available for Linux and Mac OS X.

WipeFile is a secure file and folder deletion utility, overwriting data to prevent later recovery. Although most users will only require a standard 1-pass wipe, the program supports 14 different wipe methods, including high-security military standards. Higher security settings involve overwriting the data multiple times, which is dramatically slower.

For full drive wiping, the developer makes available an also portable WipeDisk program.

WipeDisk is a tool for secure wiping of hard disks (both logical and physical), USB memory sticks and floppy disks to prevent file recovery. By default, the program will wipe a disk and all it's content, but the program includes a "Free Space" wipe, which includes deleted but recoverable files.

Although the "Low 1x" setting should be sufficient for most security needs, it supports 14 wiping methods for very high security, including US Navy, Airforce, DoD and NATO standards. Higher settings are slower.

The developer also makes a program for individual files WipeFile.

Note: No longer listed on the author's website -- linking to Softpedia.

CyberShredder is an easy to use, drag-and-drop way to delete files and folders from your computer permanently. While normal file deletion remove a file's directory entry and allocation table information, the actual disk clusters that contained the file's data remains intact on your hard disk and can be recovered. CyberShredder overwrites the space occupied from a file with random data and then erases the file, so recovery tools cannot recover it.

Although the "very quick" shred should be more than adequate for most users, there are multi-pass methods available that overwrite the file multiple times.

Warning: Some users have reported issues when wiping directories with non-English characters in them.

OW Shredder erases files irretrievable by overwriting the affected file data blocks on the disk space, which prevents the reconstruction of the deleted documents. The program can wipe individual files, free disk storage, as well as entire disks or volumes.

The program includes basic disk usage analyzer, file unlocker, autostart manager and more.

Various erasing methods are available, with more iterations (wipes) taking longer to execute and potentially more secure.

Blank And Secure is a basic tool for permanently deleting files from your hard drive by overwriting them. The program includes drag-and-drop capability, multiple overwrites for greater security and a free space wipe feature to help prevent recovery of files already deleted.

Quick Erase is a simple drag-and-drop file shredder, helping to prevent file recovery by renaming, overwriting, and resetting file date. The program offers 12 different deletion methods that vary from fast 1 pass approaches (zero-out or British HMG IS5), up to very slow 23-pass mechanisms (Rizonesoft's own South African RSDP-23).

Notes

• Only the most security-conscious users will require anything but 1-pass shredding
• Program discontinued (linking to Softpedia and Archive.org)

DPWipe is a tiny drag-and-drop secure wipe program for files and folders. It supports normal delete (not secure), single overwrite, DoD wipe (US Department of Defense 5220.22-compliant wiping), and Gutmann's method (35-pass).

Note: Multiple wipe actions are progressively slower. All but the most security-minded users should only need single overwrite.

Mareew Free Eraser wipes the content of the files and metadata, making private data and sensitive information completely unrecoverable.

File systems supported: NTFS 4 and 5, FAT16, FAT32, and VFAT file systems.