Sesame

Preventing malicious programs from infiltrating important files can easily be done by archiving those files. However, the real threat is represented by other individuals, considering malicious programs are one of their creations. This is where specialized applications like Sesame want to help by encrypting files so that only you can access them.

The application sports a simple designed that seems to be brought back from the last decade, but with a few minutes snooping through its features you quickly find your way around. It comes in a light package, with not a lot of content or potential, sadly. It's also available under a portable edition you can use on the go.

It's best if you install the application in an accessible location because you might encounter some issues when using it. For instance, we were unable to reach the desktop navigating through the built-in file explorer, because stability problems caused crashes the moment it reached the desktop. Several other locations generated the same result, delivering a major blow to practicality.

Navigation is pretty difficult and gets frustrating at times, especially because simply pasting in the path doesn't get the job done. What's more, the list of folders provided by the application for easy access is poor, leaving you to manually go from folder to folder.

Encryption is a mouse click and a password away. You're only capable of doing this from the application's interface, with no context menu integration. There aren't any options or different algorithms to choose from so you need to entirely rely on the application to keep your files safe.

Sadly, stability issues are not the only concern, with the encryption method applied not always living up to expectations. Most of the times your files can still be accessed without a prompt for the password, while trying to open them from the app's explorer working as it should and not unveiling content until you provide the security key used.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that Sesame is only motivation to look for better security methods. Its set of features is poor and this isn't a major disappointment, but given the faulty explorer and functionality issues, as well as the plain interface make the level of practicality highly questionable.