Top Secret

Constantly overseeing the state of your personal documents has long stopped being a sign of paranoia. Since scenarios in which prying eyes spy on individuals have become ordinary news, you are entirely justified if you are considering a safety net that should protect you from intruders.

Top Secret is an app whose main purpose is motivated by exactly this intention: it aims to reduce the risk of having your sensitive data accessed without your consent.

Understanding how the program works is a breeze, since its main window is quite well organized, without being stylish in any way. You are presented with two empty fields - one for decrypted text or files and another for encrypted content - while at the bottom of the page you are shown a series of options that let you decide on the encryption method and security levels, among others. The icons on the right, though, are those that trigger the process.

While the results are listed in real time for both operations, it would have been nice if the blanks corresponding to your text switched places once you resorted to a new operation. To be more precise, when you carry out a decryption, you must insert the text in the second box and see the outcome in clear on top of this field, which could be a little counter-intuitive.

Nevertheless, this should not pose considerable problems, and once you overlook this aspect, interacting with the program should be natural. As mentioned above, there are two modes this app supports: text and files. In the case of the former, things are clear-cut, since all you have to do is choose one of the three encryption methods, namely “Decimal Digitization,” “Binary Digitization,” and “Alphanumerical Dig.”

Besides, you can decide on the security levels that your measures should lead to. No matter your choice, you can be sure that your text is unreadable.

As for files, the same steps should be taken in order to encrypt them, with the mention that, in this case, there are two route you could take. The safest way is to manually fill in the blanks with the name and extension of the said documents and make sure that you store them in the root folder of drive C:. Plus, a new option is the possibility of simply browsing for the document no matter its location on your computer.

Another nice addition to this app is its password protection feature. Up to five passwords can be added to be sure that your sensitive data remain hidden. Unfortunately, there is one option that did not seem to react reasonably during our testing. “Toggle Language,” which is transparent in purpose, triggers an error that blocks the app entirely, leaving you with no other option than to close and reopen it.

On an ending note, Top Secret is a product meant to help you manage your sensitive data by letting you encrypt it and subsequently decrypt it. It works with both text and files, and despite its shortcomings, it does boast fast reactions.