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View Full Version : How effective is File Shredder in FreeCommander?


drone
April 30th, 2009, 09:57 AM
Just curious about it: I saw that FreeCommander (a two-pane free Windows Explorer replacement) has a Shred function that, on each selected file, performs every following step (and you can choose the number of iterations):

1. Overwrite with 0
2. Overwrite with 255
3. Overwrite with random values
4. Multiple file renames
5. Delete

I couldn't find if it's erasing cluster tips too; also, being in a limited user account on my work pc, I couldn't test the effectiveness of deletion trying to recover shredded files.

I'm finding very convenient the ability to perform file shredding inside my (portable) file manager of choice, so I'm asking if someone had tried it and what you thin about it.
My major concern is that it is closed source, so I don't know how reliable is and at the moment I'm staying with Portable Eraser.

Thanks

LockBox
April 30th, 2009, 05:27 PM
Eraser just works. There's not a lot of improvement you can do with erasing programs. They either make a file irretrievable or they don't. Eraser does, so I've never bothered looking for anything else. If you want to know if these things do their job, you need to use a hex editor and actually take a look at what is there (or is not).