It's a little known fact that deleting files or formatting your hard drive doesn't actually remove the data from your PC. This can leave you vulnerable to attacks from hackers and identity thieves looking for credit card numbers, bank account statements, passwords, and other personal information that still resides on your drive.

Recent studies show that 74% of hard drives sold or given away contain data that can be easily read and recovered - and 36% of those hard drives had even been reformatted.* Avoid this danger by permanently wiping your hard drive using DriveScrubber to ensure that sensitive information cannot be recovered.

Features:

• Permanently erases all traces of data from your hard drive
• Restores your hard drive to its original condition, just like it was new
• Eliminates all remnants of even the most stubborn viruses and spyware
• Includes bootable CD-ROM and floppy disk creator for full-drive wipes
• Drive security analysis displays a graphical representation of your drives' current risk levels
• Offers a wide range of advanced wiping options and techniques
• Easy-to-use interface
• Support for multiple hard drives and partitions
• Unlimited email, phone, and web support
• For up to three PCs

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There are many applications that you can use to delete files permanently, but
DeleteOnClick is probably the easiest one of them all.

This program has no interface or configuration options. Instead, it comes in the shape of an extra command that's added to the Windows context menu. This means that you can safely delete files simply by right-clicking on them.

The only drawback to DeleteOnClick is that it has no rolling-back option. That is, you'd better be sure that you want to delete that file before clicking on "Yes", because there's no way to recover it. Well, that's what the program is supposed to do, isn't it?

With DeleteOnClick you can erase files permanently from the file's context menu. Easy and quick!

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Did you know that when you delete a file in your computer, you're not actually deleting it? What your system does is marking the spot as free again, so that it can be used again. Of course, this means that those supposedly deleted files could be recovered if you use the appropriate software.

In order to prevent that, you can use a tool like Free Wipe Wizard. This application provides a quick, safer way to delete sensitive information from your computer, making sure they can't be restored by any means.

The program features a very basic interface with your systems's directory structure on the left side, while showing the content of the selected folder on the right pane. Simply select the file you want to get rid of and click on "Delete file". Just one thing: in case you want to delete multiple files, you'll have to do it one by one, as you can't select more than one file simultaneously.

Another drawback, in my opinion, is the total absence of configuration options to tweak the way the program works. You don't even know what algorithms or protocols the program uses.

Free Wipe Wizard lets you erase sensitive files securely in a quick, easy way, but with no configuration options.

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Do you know that after you have completely deleted information from your hard drive, it is still there? There are a lot of ways to restore deleted data. Just imagine what could happen if your personal information were used by ill-intentioned people. Yet it is a frequent case that users themselves disclose their private information allowing other people to use their computer, selling or giving their PC as present. After a file has been deleted, the information about it is not erased completely, which allows to restore this file later.

Smart Data Scrubber allows you to wipe completely all the information about the file you were working with, ensuring total confidentiality of your work. You can be sure that after using Smart Data Scrubber no any other software will be able to undelete the files you were working with. Make a present to yourself - 100% of security and confidentiality of your personal data!

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You may not know that when you delete files from your hard drive, you're not actually deleting them, but just marking that disc space as available again.

This means that using the appropriate tools, anyone could easily recover your deleted files and therefore threaten your privacy. To ensure this doesn't happen the best option is grabbing hold of a tool like Mareew Free Eraser, an application that enables you to safely delete files by overwriting them a few times and thus making them harder, if not impossible to recover.

While the idea behind Mareew is certainly good, I found the program lacks the most basic options. It's great to have such an easy-to-use tool but that doesn't mean it shouldn't include features like the possibility of previewing the files you're about to delete or a delete command being embedded in Windows Explorer's file context menu. Marew Free Eraser doesn't include any settings window where to tweak deleting options.

Mareew offers a safer way to delete confidential data, but lacks many basic features found in other similar applications.

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The BCWipe utility is a shell extender for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP, intended to secure delete your files. It supports correspondent U.S. Department of Defense recommendations (DoD 5200.28-STD). The BCWipe utility provides several ways to shred file's contents from the disk:

• Delete with wiping. Using 'Delete with wiping' command you can delete and wipe your files and folders using pop-up context menus in Windows Shell (Explorer program).

• Wipe free disk space. If you have previously deleted sensitive files using a standard operating system command, you may wipe free space on the disk where these files were stored - all previously deleted files' contents will be erased.

• Swap file wiping. BCWipe utility automatically wipes Windows Swap file contents when you run 'Wipe free disk space' command.

• Recycle Bin wiping. You can wipe contents of Windows Recycle Bin by pointing on the Bin icon by mouse and running the 'Wipe Recycle Bin' command from context pop-up menu

• Windows ME specific: allows to wipe contents of special folders, created by Windows ME 'System Restore' function.

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Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.

The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter Gutmann's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" and they are selected to effectively remove magnetic remnants from the hard drive. Other methods include the one defined in the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual of the US Department of Defence and overwriting with pseudorandom data. You can also define your own overwriting methods.

Download Eraser 5.86a in Softonic

SuperCleaner is an all in one disk cleaner for Windows. Its built-in Garbage Finder can find hundreds or even thousands of megabytes of unneeded files taking up space on your computer.

The Internet Privacy features of SuperCleaner will let you erase your web browser's cache, history, cookies, and even the hidden index.dat files! If there are cookies you want to keep, you can use the built-in Cookie Manager to manage them. The Start menu cleaner can find items in your Start menu which are dead (pointing to files that no longer exist), and gives you the option of deleting them.

For maximum security, you have the option of erasing files using a file wipe. This prevents someone using "undelete" software from recovering any of your files. SuperCleaner is very powerful, yet easy for beginners to use.

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The world has never been the same since the invention of the shredder. Besides allowing you to safeguard the privacy of your important documents and bank statements, shredders are a great way of spending a Sunday mindlessly destroying bits of paper in a cool way. Like all the best inventions, shredders have now found their way to the computer, and Zilla Data Nuker provides a great way to keep your sensitive data from ever being seen by anyone else.

One of the great things about this particular file shredder is that it shreds using five different file deletion standards, giving you information on the best one to use for the particular file or folder you want to erase. These ultra-effective algorithms will ensure that the data you remove stays removed. Despite its power, Data Nuker is remarkably easy to use and comes with a tabbed, skinable interface that lets you erase files with the minimum of hassle via drag-and-drop functionality.

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R-Wipe & Clean is a complete solution to wipe useless files and keep your computer privacy. Irretrievably deletes private records of your on- and off-line activities, such as temporary internet files, history, cookies, autocomplete forms and passwords, swap files, recently opened documents list, Explorer MRUs, temporary files, etc.

The utility wipes files and unused disk space using either fast or secure erase algorithms. All files and folders may be combined in wipe lists to erase them in a single procedure. Supports both the FAT and NTFS file systems. All separate wiping and cleaning tasks can be combined in one or more erasing procedures launched immediately or at predefined times or events as a background task.

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In most cases, privacy and security are crucial to maintaining a business afloat. Making sure you have the right application on your PC can avoid you the risk of information theft. East-Tec Eraser caters to users by offering all the necessary tools to fully erase files and information from your computer.

The application is fitted with 3 essential file cleaning features, directly accessible from the quick start menu: protecting your privacy, erasing deleted files, or erasing specific files. Choosing the first option will thoroughly check your PC and remove all existing registry entries and cookies. A detailed progress bar makes the process speed and time spent on the task visible. You can also decide to configure automation options such as if your PC should shut down or restart after it has been wiped clean.

If you choose to erase deleted files you can wipe your unused space and existing files and also scramble all file properties as an extra security precaution. East Tec offers up to 13 different file wiping methods, like German VSITR or AFSSI-5020, some of which are specific to normal drives and other methods which also work with compressed drives. The program also informs you of which methods stop software and hardware recovery tools. You will be able to set priority settings such as a password or permission settings.

Other important features appear as tabs at the top of the East Tec Eraser interface. You can recycle bin files, completely erase emails, wipe your entire drive or schedule regular cleaning procedures in a few clicks; however the application lacks a recovery feature to recuperate files you might have accidentally trashed.

East Tec Eraser is a very specific type of program that should satisfy any user who is worried about his privacy. If you want to make sure that confidential or unwanted information is fully erased from your PC, then East Tec Eraser is a professional and effective solution that should do the trick.

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ObjectWipe protects your computer privacy: wipe files, disk drives/flash memory and unused disk space so your data can never be accessed or recovered. The program uses either fast or secure erase algorithms. Files and folders can be combined in wipe lists to erase them in a single procedure. Both the FAT and NTFS file systems are supported.

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EZ Wipe gives you the opportunity to permanently remove files from your system in the easiest possible way, being integrated in Windows Explorer. Just right-click on the file or files you want to delete and select the "Ez Wipe" option in the context menu. Easy as pie!

Using some powerful wiping methods like DOD-3pass or DOD-7pass, EZ Wipe will let no chance for data recovery, so you can be sure your files will be deleted permanently. Please notice that you will have to delete files before attempting to delete folders themselves.

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File Deleter is an easy-to-use tool for delete files permanently. Because some disk tools can recover the files which have been deleted from Windows Explorer, Command Prompt, Recycle Bin etc., even from formatted disks, deleting file under windows is not a safe operation for your important personal file. File Deleter can erase all data of deleted files physically without any chance to recover, and protect your privacy effectively.

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XL Delete is a powerful secure delete tool that will permanently delete files using its powerful wipe engine. XL Delete can permanently remove any type of file, entire folders, and even your Internet Explorer and Firefox cookies, history, and cache files.

Many people believe that emptying the recycle bin will delete a file forever. This is not true, when you delete a file and empty it from the recycle bin, the file is in fact still residing on your hard drive. The only thing that happens when you empty the recycle bin is that Windows marks the area where the file is on the hard drive as overwriteable so that it can reuse the space when necessary.

This allows special data recovery software to be able to actually undelete the file and view all of its original contents. Prevent hackers and identity thieves from going through your deleted files and finding your passwords, credit card numbers, and other information.

When you delete a file with XL Delete, the file data will actually be overwritten several times using specialized methods to prevent data recovery software from being able to undelete the file. XL Delete will also incorporate several obfuscation techniques to hide the original file name and file size from data recovery software.

Benefits of the program:

• Secure delete any file on your PC
• Protect your privacy by making sure files you delete can not be recovered
• Clean the free space on your hard drive
• Clean Internet Explorer and Firefox history, cookies, and temp files
• Prevent identity thieves from retrieving personal information from your computer
• Clean your old PC or laptop before donating or selling them
• Lock extra free space on your hard drive to prevent fragmentation

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FileASSASSIN can delete locked malware files on your system. It uses advanced techniques to unload modules, close remote handles, and terminate processes to allow the removal of the file.

Simply download FileASSASSIN, unzip the file, and run the installer. Start FileASSASSIN and select a file by dragging it onto the text area or select it using the (...) button. Next, select a removal method from the list. Finally, click delete and the removal process will commence.

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With File Shredder you can remove files from your hard drive without fear they could be recovered. Actually, the "delete" operation in Windows only removes bits of information from files so they appear deleted in OS. It is easy to retrieve those files using specialized file recovery software.

In order to remove, or shred files permanently from your system you have to use a program that is capable of rewriting the files with random series of binary data multiple times. This process is often called shredding. That way, the actuall content of the file has been overwriten and the posibilities to recover such a shredded file are mostly theoretical.

File Shredder has been developed as fast, safe and reliable tool to shredd company files. You can choose between 5 different shredding algorithms, each one gradually stronger than the previous one. It also has integrated Disk Wiper which uses shredding algorithm to wipe unused disk space. More on options of File Shredder check Online Help page.

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File Monster completely erases files from your system, actually overwriting the information in the file so it can not be recovered. The reason information is still available when you delete files with normal deletion methods is because normal deletion methods only tell the operating system to not recognize the file as being present anymore, yet the information hasn't really been erased. As a result, anyone with a little knowledge of computers can very easily recover the information you thought was erased.

To take your privacy a step further, File Monster also overwrites the original file name with a random name and it changes the file's creation date. Moreover, it can even erase pesky hidden files, system files, and read-only files.

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Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Works with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Windows 2003 Server and DOS.
Eraser is Free software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License.

The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter Gutmann's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" and they are selected to effectively remove magnetic remnants from the hard drive.

Other methods include the one defined in the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual of the US Department of Defence and overwriting with pseudorandom data. You can also define your own overwriting methods.

Download Eraser 5.82 in Softonic

Shred It is an easy to use file shredder and more. Removing sensitive data can be a time consuming task, but now you can rest assured that all your sensitive documents will be properly removed from your hard drive. In just a few simple steps you'll have peace of mind knowing that your sensitive documents are no longer sensitive.

With dynamic in-place shredding and complete memory wipe, Shred It is the safest way to remove all kinds of documents from your computer, including email messages, downloaded images, video files and more. It's so simple anyone can do it, all you need to do is Shred It and forget it.

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