dErase

If you are not familiar with how the Windows operating system works under the hood, you might be surprised to find out that files you delete in Windows are not actually deleted for good. In fact, with the proper tool, you might be able to recover them in an instant. Fortunately, there are applications out there that can help you get rid of sensitive files you really want gone. One of them is dErase.

Using secure deletion operations, dErase can delete individual files, as well as entire directories and their content. Unlike other applications of its type, dErase does not take into account the file system ownership or the file or folder permissions. To put it another way, access-related errors and permission restrictions are usually ignored by the application, even if the file belongs to another user, is a system file or a file marked as suspicious and believed to be malware.

All you have to do is browse for the target file or directory and, with the click of a button, the application starts to overwrite the area where the file is located on the hard disk.

You also get to select the number of secure passes dErase should perform. Keep in mind that one secure pass of dErase is equal to three consecutive overwrites. Although the number of passes is customizable, a much too high number will require a lot of time for the application to carry out the task successfully.

A secondary function of dErase is the possibility to fill the free space on a partition with random data, so as to force the overwrite of any data that has previously been deleted. Once you do so, it is less likely for any recovery application to be able to get the files back.

In order to make sure that the files are completely unrecoverable, dErase can also delete the shadow copies for a partition of your choice. This makes it much more difficult, if not impossible for data recovery software to get the files back.

Aiming to allow the secure but permanent deletion of files and folders on a computer, dErase is one of those tiny applications that prove to be quite handy to have around. With a few clicks, you can completely erase sensitive information or confidential documents that you don’t want anyone else to access.