If you're on the move regularly or your hard drive is accessible by third
parties, it's always vulnerable to attack or your privacy can be compromised
by prying eyes. One way to prevent such compromises is by *encrypting data*.
*TrueCrypt* aims to do this by allowing you to encrypt data "on-the-fly".
This means that data is automatically encrypted or decrypted immediately
before it is loaded or saved without any further action on your part. Nothing
can be encrypted or decrypted without using the correct password or
encryption keys. This encryption extends to entire file systems such as file
names, folder names, file contents, free disk space etc. The good thing about
TrueCrypt is that it doesn't get in the way of you dragging and dropping
files. Some encryption programs that work on-the-fly prevent you from doing
so easily or add a delay to the transfer but that's not the case with
TrueCrypt. The other good thing is that TrueCrypt never saves any decrypted
data to a disk – it only stores them temporarily in your RAM which is far
more secure because when you restart or turn off your computer, the volume
will be dismounted and files stored in it will be inaccessible and still
encrypted. TrueCrypt takes you through the encryption process step-by-step
via a *handy wizard*. Just select the volume that you'd like to encrypt and
then click "Create Volume" to encrypt it. This will create a TrueCrypt
"container" which acts like normal file or folder but of course, it's totally
encrypted. Note that if you select an existing file, TrueCrypt will not
encrypt it - rather it will delete and replace it with a container. *For a
free application, TrueCrypt is remarkably powerful and will be easy enough
even for beginners to encrypt their hard drive.*Download *TrueCrypt 7.1* in
Softonic
