Good observation, my USB drives can get lost in the shuffle of over one hundred of them and what happens if you accidentally delete or insert new files, your encrypted files are gone forever.

The only comfort I have after being told by a friend all the ways that the U.S. government has taken interest in me over the span of my colorful life is that here in the U.S. we get cheated by the amount of government we get, and the amount we pay for. If we got all the government we paid for, "all the books in all the world could not hold it". The government has become so large with so many people doing "jobs" that add no goods or services to the economy that they can't possible know who all can see a file on a "free citizen" and tell him what they saw. It would be a funny case of the clowns running the circus except the clowns take themselves so seriously (no matter how much evidence there is that they can't be anything but humorous). Encrypt all you want. The internet services in America have open doors to the government (It is easy to find the room they use at every major intersection of internet service, just ask any ATT or TIME-Warner long term employee). Bonce off "security servers" and do all you will, they already know what you sent from your computer to your internet service. Encryption? Who do you think wrote the encryption programs? You can keep honest people from reading your chocolate cake recipes if you like, but don't fool yourself into thinking that the U.S. government can't see what your sending over the internet even with this program, or any other available to the public. A NSA agent recently told me what I had done on my computer to try to find and explore the "Dark Net" because I had helped him to get the personal email address being used by someone bringing mislabeled packages from Red China (excuse me, we don't call it "Red" here in the U.S. anymore since we hit the Trillion dollar debt level to them). I am very comforted to know that my grandchildren can't read my will that I encrypted with Open Office password protection, but don't think for one minute that the government can't know who I'm leaving my "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help" joke book collection to if they cared.
A Commodore computer DrThomas? WOW. It would be hard for anyone to download their spy software into it's huge 64K memory (if it's a C-64 like the vast majority of them were). It's great to hear from someone still using those wonderful machines. Brings back memories of "Easy Script" and "Easy Spell", MSD dual drives, and early EA games (some of which are still around today in a much larger version).
It is food for thought that many still think they can "encrypt" their data out of the reach of the government with any of the publicly available schemes. On a totally unrelated note, the US government has been the largest customer of Cray computers for a very long time now, and the government finally admitted they were "storing" everything that went over the internet "backbone" in one of their new facilities (that they denied they were building until they couldn't anymore) in the US desert.
If any programmer wants to write a best seller, how about a program that would analyze what you send out over the internet and to who; Oh well. Never mind. The government finally admitted they had been copying and storing ALL traffic from target computers for years with a program called "sniffer". No way to know what they do with your traffic after it hits your provider.
On a final note, here's something for those who read all the way through this post to this point. Ashampoo really centers around your account. Be sure you keep all the information you give them to set up an account somewhere you can find it latter. I use throw away email addresses and rotating passwords, but then I can't "unsubscribe" to their flood of emails and "offers" (often in German) because I can't remember my account information so I have to "spam" folder them and lose any information they send about the programs I have. You very well may need your sign-in information again.

If you are that paranoid, I mean protective, why are you still using Windows? Linux, for example, is a lot safer. I've gone through this paranoia stage myself, and in the end, the trouble and hassle isn't worth it. I've extensively explored this area before, and found that in fact, you can achieve fairly close to absolute protection from prying eyes and hackers (taking the right steps, of course). But, again this kind of protection is so much trouble and expensive. Even if I was a business that was guarding the formula to Pepsi or Coco Cola, I wouldn't need all the protection you claim to use. In fact, I could give you tips on improving your already overwhelming security. But, I am not. You don't need it (LOL).

You call people like me a fool. Well, its not that I don't care if anyone knows what programs I use, I just don't think they care. I really think you are delusional to call us fools. I mean that in a concerned, non offensive way. I think you are going to take a look back on your life one day, and wished you hadn't invested so much of your life in protecting yourself from hackers.

I wish you well.

I do not understand how intelligent people make the problem of encryption complicated.
First, do not save or keep any files on your primary (system) hard drive.
Second, 64GB USB drive can hold all of your personal data and correspondents for a whole year.
Third, backup your files daily to another USB drive and keep both in different secure places, problem solved, you can still encrypt your USB drives, just in case they may fall in wrong hands.

To avoid misunderstanding: The last part in "about privacy ..." concerning privacy of emails is cited from yesterdays GOTD Mailwasher, comment #22 as an answer to #21. Please distinguish that it's not concerning Ashampoo Privacy Protector 2015.

Very strange: after in comment #21 I revealed this problem (concerning gmail, too) I got downvoted.
I am very glad that Karl (for whose unrivaled work and comments we all are very grateful) mentions this problem here once more!

As far as I can see Ashampoo Privacy Protector 2015 is a means to overcome this Mailwasher weakness but unfortunately it isn't available for mobile devices.

But the encryption problem concerning emails is that the counterpart must "own" the same encryption software, i.e. has to buy Ashampoo Privacy Protector 2015 or use free PGP or alike.

The advantage with western European encryption products is: strict legislation in EU (European Union) doesn't allow that an enterprise builds a backdoor or alike into its products. I know about at least one big Asian country where a backdoor for government etc. use must be built into every encryption software otherwise severe punishments.

Therefore I trust Ashampoo Privacy Protector more than usual. Absolute security isn't available, endless life neither but you wouldn't kill yourselves tomorrow, wouldn't you?

FrancisBorne ...I know about at least one big Asian country where a backdoor for government etc. use must be built into every encryption software otherwise severe punishments...

And I know of at least one big country at the Far Western edge of the world map with aspirations to being exceptional (perhaps it's that peripheral position on the map that's the problem?), where a backdoor for government etc. use is willingly adopted by certain well-known mega-corps. Agree with you about the EU standards, though.