14 DAY TRIAL // Some things that are private must stay that way, and I am not talking about underwear here. If you get exposed, you can find yourself on the first page...but, wait! That's usually true when we talk about Paris Hilton, but for the rest of us, our underwear is not first page news. Well, where I want to get here is that if your underwear is seen by the public, that's not such a big deal compared to the exposure of your private Credit Card data or personal passwords from your computer, and since such things must not happen, we're going to have a software built to take care of that now...
Privatize Platinum is the name of the software safe for your files and passwords, its latest version is 1.103 and, unfortunately, you'll have to pay some money for it. To be more precise, the price is 39.99$, and the demo version I have here is limited to encrypting only 3 files, having only one user and manage 3 passwords, while the full program can be used on three different computers without any limitation.
The size of the setup package is exactly 4MB, and installing this program is as easy as using it, but before that, we should spend a little time to talk about its interface, don't you think?
Privatize Platinum's interface is simple and extremely easy to use, but that doesn't mean it doesn't look good. Anyway, don't expect for a design masterpiece, because the art gallery is the third door down the hall, and now we're talking about security here! All that you will get is the main menu, the toolbar and the work area. How can these help you, this is what you're going to find out right away...
If you think there's a lot to know about this program...well, you may be right but, as I said, using the program is very easy, despite the fact that it can clean a lot of tracks left by different programs. The area containing all the items that can be cleaned is the wipeout groups pane, and this is what we're going to explore next.
After completing the installation, first thing to do is to create a user and a password that you are going to use for accessing this program, since security starts with the garden fence, not with the front door!
Once you log into the program, you can start by choosing the files to privatize. By doing this, you are assigning a password and encrypting the chosen file(s) so they will be available only after entering the right password and restoring them. Even more, you can email 256bit encrypted documents to your business partners and coworkers without any worries about the data security using the P-Mail tool. Of course that the general advice concerning passwords is available here too, so be careful to use long passwords with ASCII characters and make them as complex as possible.
The Shredder tool can help you erase sensitive data forever, and the methods available to do that start with the low security one pass wipe and go up to the high security 35 passes Gutmann algorithm.
Finally, the Passwords management tool allows you to save your passwords belonging to one of the four categories available - banking, shopping, web passwords and accounts. The data that can be stored inside this program includes a web address, account and phone number, as well as your personal notes for each entry, but I think that it would be a good idea to have different fields depending on the category, since I don't think that you need an account number or a phone number associated to a website, but I may not be the one to judge this, since I have other methods of keeping my passwords safe...
These being said, the time has come to move on and check the conclusions and screenshots, as usual...
The Good
Privatize Platinum is a useful program that can save you from a lot of trouble, is easy to use and a real deal, because you get a license that can be used on three different computers.
The Bad
Since we have a commercial product here, I was expecting more from the documentation, and I can't say that I am completely satisfied with it. A custom data wipe method would be a nice addition too, and I must say that I have seen such a thing inside at least one free program, so it can be done, no doubt about it!
The Truth
Can you put a price on your security? This is the main reason that makes security tools' prices range between 0 and thousands of dollars, but this time, everything starts with a free demo version that can show you what you can get from Privatize Platinum, and I am sure you know what to do from now on... Good luck and stay safe!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
