Most Popular File Encryption Tool: VeraCrypt
Encrypting sensitive data is important, but not all encryption tools are created equal. Last week we asked you to list your favorites and then looked at the top five file encryption tools and compared them to each other. It’s time to crown the community favorite.
VeraCrypt , a spiritual (and in many ways, including its code) descendant of TrueCrypt, took first place by a wide margin, with almost 41% of the total votes. It’s free, (mostly) open source, cross-platform, offers strong encryption, and offers all the great features TrueCrypt did before the developers abandoned it.
The second place with 20% of the total votes was taken by 7-Zip , a file compression tool that can also create encrypted archives. It’s also free, cross-platform, and easy to use. Third place with almost 16% of the votes went to GNU Privacy Guard – more platform than product, but with many separate tools supporting its preferred encryption method, PGP. In fourth place with more than 15% of the votes was Microsoft BitLocker , built-in and already available in Windows Vista and Windows 7 (Ultimate and Enterprise), as well as in Windows 8 (Pro and Enterprise), as well as Windows Server (2008). and later). AxCrypt came in second with just over 7% of the vote.
To learn more about each of them, as well as honorable mentions not listed here, be sure to return to our full Hive Five feature to find out more.