Portable Secure Wipe

This is the portable counterpart of Secure Wipe, a fast and easy-to-use software utility developed to permanently delete files from the computer and prevent other users from getting ahold of removed data using specialized tools. It includes a few advanced settings but they can be configured by anyone, so no previous experience with file shredders is required.

Since installation is not a prerequisite, you can drop the executable file in any part of the hard disk and just click it to launch the app. It is also possible to save Secure Wipe to a USB flash disk or other mass storage device, in order to run it on any PC effortlessly and without previous installers.

An important aspect worth taking into account is that the Windows registry does not get updated with new entries, and no extra files are created on the HDD, leaving no traces behind after its removal.

The GUI is represented by a regular frame split into two main sections for shredding files and folders, as well as for configuring deletion settings, respectively.

The shredding process is quite simple. It is only necessary to point out a file or entire directory, and click a button to get rid of it. As far as settings are concerned, you can select the security algorithm (ranging from 1 to 35 passes) or specify your own number of deletion passes for each file (the higher the number, the longer the task).

Secure Wipe can be set to reduce memory usage during jobs, include subdirectories in the task, run silently to not disturb you while carrying out normal activity on the PC, as well as to exit on job completion.

As expected, the program may take a very long time to finish a job, depending on the size of the file or folder, as well as on the number of passes applied. We have not come across any unpleasant surprises in our tests, though, since it did not hang, crash or display error messages. In a nutshell, Portable Secure Wipe provides a fast and effective method to shredding files and folders, and it can be handled by anyone. No recent updates have been made, though.