14 DAY TRIAL // Shared computers, intimacy and paranoia are all valid reasons to want some way of hiding content on your computer from prying eyes. Regardless of what pushed you towards wanting to hide files, you have no "out of the box tool" for doing so, and must, thus, turn to third party software. Sure, you can always bury files deep in the recesses and shadows of a complicated folder hierarchy, so that they are unlikely to be stumbled upon. However, this is a social endeavor which will not keep the files safe from anyone that is truly determined to find them. Apimac's Secret Folder is one of such programs, whose sole purpose is to let you hide files and folders.
Out of sight is out of mind The age old adage holds true, and there is nothing that entices curiosity more than the knowledge that there is something hidden that someone does not want you to find. Because of this, this program fails miserably at what it is supposed to do.
Firstly, the name "Secret Folder" a dead giveaway to what the function of the program is, and that if there program is present on that computer, then in all probability there are files and folders that were made invisible using it. This is a practical invitation and enticement to snoop around and find whatever is hidden. Fortunately, the preference file of the application is not plain text, which makes it harder for anyone who stumbles upon the application to know exactly what folders you have on that list.
The second thing that boggles the mind is how the require password option is in fact an option. The program should always require a password. Without one, anyone who opens the application can see exactly what and where you are trying to hind and from that point on, accessing the information is simply a matter of several minutes, at the very most. If the intention of the developers was to make the program easier to work with by not asking constantly for a password, they could have spend this energy on something more constructive.
In this respect, "Ghost Sphere" is a much better product that hides its real purpose to protect against accidental discovery, meaning that anyone who stumbles upon it and does not previously know of it's functionality, can be fooled into thinking it is a spy ware scanner.
How many clicks can you handle? To sum up the functionality of this program in a few words, you open the application, select the folder you want hidden and press the big button to toggle its hidden/visible state.
Nice and easy, right? Wrong. If the sensitive information in that folder is something you work on regularly, this program's approach is horrid. Every time you want to work on the information, you have to go click to make it visible, and every time you stop working on it, you need to go back and make it invisible. Forgetting to make the files invisible after a session can prove to be a problem, and, if not, constantly having to go through this routine will definitely get on your nerves.
Once again, "Ghost Sphere" performs much better in this respect, with its managed visibility option. Each item can be set to be automatically managed, so that while Ghost Sphere is open, the item is visible, and when the program is closed it is invisible.
How hidden is hidden? If you are actually serious about keeping your information hidden, it is going to require more than a shareware tool for making files invisible. Anyone with slightly advanced knowledge of computer and the Mac platform will be able to locate your files with incredible ease. This is because this program does not do anything much on itself, utilizing OS X built in invisible file handling to do the work.
In this respect, you would be getting the exact same equivalent of this application if you were to manually rename the files you wanted hidden, so that their name start with a full stop '.'. This would make them invisible when normally browsing the files, but any application that can display hidden items, will display them as normal.
The Good Ease of use is the only thing that this program has over others, but this ease of use comes at the price of the program's initial purpose being slightly defeated.
The Bad The program announces the fact that it is used to make files invisible in its name, not a wise approach to keeping things hidden. Also, having to make files visible and invisible on a regular basis is a chore in itself.
The Truth "Ghost Sphere" is a better product in almost every way. If you are looking for a program that can hide files, go for what you think is better.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
