14 DAY TRIAL // Keeping your files and folders safe from curious eyes is never an easy job. Secure Folder attempts to correct the problem by offering you the possibility to folders, impose restriction to open them or encrypt all the data inside. Or, for maximum protection, you can opt for all three security measures at once.
One of the handiest ways to secure a file or a folder is to change its attribute to “hidden”. An invisible item is much more difficult to be picked up by those you hide it from. If they do not know where it is, then they do not know where to look in the first place.
Of course, this method is not foolproof and chances are someone manages to set Windows Explorer to show hidden files and folders and from then on it is just a matter of searching for the right terms. Locking files in Windows is just a matter of imposing user restrictions from the security settings of each item.
Secure Folder is a nifty freebie that offers both folder locking and hiding and, besides these two forms of security it also makes available the possibility to encrypt all the data in a folder. The application is free of charge comes with an extremely easy to use interface. Installation takes a jiffy and does not push additional items to the system.
Looks are not impressive as all the options are bundled under a single view. Adding folders to be protected by Secure Folder is an easy-peasy drag and drop job. The program can also integrate its lock/unlock function in Windows Explorer so that you can enforce protection from the right click menu of a folder.
Once the target is dropped in the interface you can choose one of the three security modes for protection: lock (restricts access to the target), hide (makes it invisible in Windows Explorer) and encrypt (encodes the containing information).
If you enable Windows Explorer shell extension you will be able to handle all locking of the folders without accessing the application’s interface. However, for unlocking you are compelled to appeal to the application window if you use only Windows Explorer as a file manager.
Secure Folder is easy to manipulate, and it seems to work great as long as you are using Windows Explorer as your default file manager. We noticed that a folder made invisible with Secure Folder stays that way in Windows Explorer. But if you ask Total Commander to display hidden files your data will pop right up.
Total Commander showed some other strange Secure Folder behavior as the application would apply the hidden attribute to any folder, regardless of the type of security chosen. This means that whether you wanted the item just locked or only encrypt its contents, it would no longer be visible in Total Commander (but it would be visible in Windows Explorer).
A more serious matter is the fact that Secure Folder does not use strong access restriction when locking the folders. It actually relies on Windows’ own security settings and simply changes permissions to achieve its goal. We were able to get past this security form by changing the access permissions for the users that had them denied. On the other hand, encryption process uses the strong AES algorithm.
When you drop the folders in the application window the program will automatically enforce the security measure that is already enabled. If no choice has been selected then the folder will not be added to the list. During our tests it also happened to have one of the three choices enabled, apply the desired protection, yet the folder was not added to the list.
Some users may regard folder unlocking as an uncomfortable procedure, especially when there are a lot of entries in the list. This is because you can multiple unlock can be done with items sharing the same type of protection. Luckily, Secure Folder automatically sorts all the items according to their security mode.
One of the most important aspects that need to be mentioned is that you must not apply multiple security measures, one after another. In our case encrypting the folder and then locking it (or vice-versa) caused the entry to disappear from the application folder list and all the files to be corrupted after managing to gain access to them.
Secure Folder seems like a pretty good application that has not been properly tested before being released on the market. It can be useful at least for folder encryption purposes, but these do not keep the item safe from an “accidental” deletion. However, activating both of them at once worked like a charm in our case.
The encryption algorithm used is AES, which is a reliable standard. Locked items are properly marked in the file manager. Choosing different security modes one at a time corrupts the data in the selected folder when access is regained.
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