Mince

Encryption isn’t just a method of security used with computers, but they came to life long before the PC came to power. Needless to say that there is a large variety of tools to use in this regard, some even dedicated to particular file types. For instance, Mince helps you put a lock on your text files so they remain confidential.

Some things need to be clear before you enjoy all the program has to offer. First of all, there’s no setup involved, so you can carry it on a thumb drive. The target PC’s health status isn’t put at risk, but registry entries are altered so a new context menu item is added. Second, Microsoft Visual Basic Runtime needs to be on the target computer to ensure functionality.

The application aims to be a pretty fast file encryptor, mostly because it integrates into the context menu on launch. This provides a great deal of comfort, but a system restart might be required for integration to be successful. Another usage method is to drop a file of interest over the executable, generating the same result.

Note that the application is specially designed for text. It doesn’t target text itself though, so you need to launch the context menu on a TXT file. The original item is left intact, and you can easily identify the encrypted file. Once the corresponding item is selected in the context menu, a slim window shows up so you add the encryption password.

If context menu integration is successful, you can later on simply double-click on encrypted files to start decrypting. Needless to say that the password is required. Unfortunately, there’s no option to set any restrictions or actions if too many wrong attempts are made.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that Mince is a practical security solution you keep around in case multiple individuals are using the same computer on the same account. Even though it can only process TXT files, the whole operation is straightforward, but pretty fast, especially since context menu integration is done.