Whisper

With the advancement in technology, communication methods have greatly evolved throughout the years, now being possible to get in touch with virtually anyone in seconds. However, this massive connection is also subject to attacks, or simply prying eyes. Confidential messaging is difficult, with applications like Whisper hoping to provide a simple, but effective method to send and receive messages only the interlocutors can access.

With simplicity in mind, the application does not even require an installation process, so it can easily be kept on a removable storage device. This comes in handy because you need both the message and the application to read it, and with the amount of system resources used it can run on a wide array of configurations.

There are two main actions, similar in design, you can trigger once the application is launched, namely to create or read a message. You might expect it to require an active Internet connection or to be set up on multiple computers, but the application is far from being an instant messaging utility.

The core function is to encrypt the message you want to send, and this is done with an algorithm based on a password you provide. Thus, the stronger the password, the harder it is for attackers to decipher your message.

The creation window is pretty compact, with a text input field that lets you write down the message, as well as a preview panel with the encrypted part. Saving is done only to a TXT file, and opening it is only possible through the interface options, also requiring the initial password.

However, the application lacks a sense of practicability and could have benefited greatly from a few more features. In other words, it takes some time to send your message out and it must be done along with the application. What's more, there is no possibility to pick an encryption method, its strength, nor an implemented password generator for enhanced encryption.

To sum it up, Whisper comes as a neat concept designed to increase security in communication and can be put to good use in several scenarios. However, there are methods to bypass security, and the message needs to be manually delivered, making it lack a certain degree of practicability. For leaving messages locally to others, it's worth a try and does not take up much space, nor system resources.