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Giveaway of the day — Password Folder Pro 2.3.1
Password Folder Pro 2.3.1 was available as a giveaway on July 23, 2022!
Password Folder is a Windows lightweight folder password protection freeware tool adds password protection to a folder in an instant. It is extremely fast and the encryption speed is not limited by the size of the folder. Even a folder of several gigabytes can be locked and restored in 2 seconds. It is perfectly suitable to protect folders on the local computer. No one would be able to access protected folders without the password. Besides, once the folder is protected by Password Folder, it cannot be copied to other drive or sent via the internet unless you decrypt. Password Folder also adds a context menu shortcut so that users can protect a regular folder by a right-mouse click easily.
Features of Password Folder:
- Password Protect Folders on Windows
- Extremely Fast Encrypting Speed
- Access Protected Folders Easily
- Prevent Folder Copying
- Work for Mobile Drives and Flash Disks
- Context Menu Shortcut: Right Mouse Click
- Lightweight: 2 MB
System Requirements:
Windows XP/ Vista/ 7/ 8/ 10/ 11
Publisher:
Password FolderHomepage:
https://passwordfolder.netFile Size:
1.74 MB
Licence details:
Lifetime, no updates
Price:
$29.95
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Comments on Password Folder Pro 2.3.1
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A better solution that actually encrypts your data is Cryptomator. Been using it for years, it's free and open source too.
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Not safe
If the folder was on drive C: , it was moved and only a file .pff remains at the source.
Was ist on another drive, the folder remains there, but get a name like PFDocument...
BE CAREFUL:
in both cases the files are not encrypted at all ! - only the new folder name is replaced through one, which won´t be accepted by most programs !
- "IrfanView" es (as wll as other tools) CAN read in files from such folders (if you find access)
- the "TotalCommander" (as well as other tools) can easily rename such : after renaming them, ALL files can be seen and used BY ALL PROGRAMS again.
I would not call that safe (took me less than a minute to find that out...)
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forgetting the smoke and mirrors of what this does compared to what is claimed for it, it cannot password protect a folder over a mapped network drive letter as the network file system does not permit the program to create it's protected folder name on networked storage.
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On my system it only changes the name of a folder, nothing more, nothing less. No protection at all.
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czy linux moze to odczytać ?
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zbyszek, not tried it but it is likely that access the protected folder hierarchy using the Linux NTFS/FAT32 file system drivers using a LiveCD/USB will probably succeed.
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After encrypting a folder. I saw it in the folder C:\pfdocument..\20220723093519gmh0isengw2sgogj
Note I saw all original files in the folder. They were not encrypted.
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I saw the "encrypted" folder in C:\pfdocument..\20220723093519gmh0isengw2sgogj
and not encrypted at all.
It seems the giveaway just hides and renames the folder.
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I like protection with a vault, you can put 1000's of other folders or individual files that can not be accessed, except by the person with the password. You can copy, backup, move and resize the vault as you wish. The encrypted vault is much much secure than the individual files and can be installed on a USB disk and you only need one password to access the huge numbers of the folders or files inside. (just keep your password written somewhere on a piece of paper, just in case only)
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mike, you could call this a vault but there is no real protection as no data is encrypted except the password. It is unclear what you're saying... There are so many ways that the data can be exposed, deepscan with undelete program, Linux LiveCD/USB, Sector editor, short folder~name renaming to bypass the illegal ".." characters in the full name...
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What I don't like with the Password Folder protection approach is the following: suppose you have a folder, let's call it secretfolder, containing files secret1.txt, secret2.txt etc. After protecting it with Password Folder all data are stored in file secretfolder.pff. Now if you want to read the content of secret1.txt, you first have to convert file secretfolder.pff back into folder secretfolder in order to be able to read it. During this time it's unprotected and everyone can read it. And if you forget to protect it again, it remains unprotected.
A better approach is using the free 7-zip and convert folder secretfolder into a password protected file secretfolder.7z. With 7-zip you can then read secret1.txt without having to convert file secretfolder.7z into the unprotected folder secretfolder.
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As well as protecting against viruses, hackers, and all the other little cyber cooties out there, Norton has this, and assists with automatically logging them onto sites you use frequently if you desire.
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One of the things I like best about GAOTD are the comments sharing alternatives.
Below is the title of an article just out this morning on MSN that offers a script to lock a folder,
as well as listing several alternative programs and methods.
Personally I prefer a lockable thumb drive. Cheers.
How to Password Protect a Folder in Windows
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BobbyA,
Can you give a link to the script?
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Question for the developer: If I apply a strong password is this enough to protect from ransomware? Thanks.
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Miltos, I'm not the developer but no this offers no ransomware protection. It is not intended to.
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Miltos, No, because ransomware encrypts data on your drive, even if you already encrypted it. You will still need a backup copy of your data.
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Miltos, ransomware might lock or delete everything on your PC. To be honest, I don't think any software could protect that.
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The biggest drawback is that it only helps against your mother.
It is so unsafe that "protection" can easily be removed with a single line (on the commandline).
My advise: Use for public data only!
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I think the biggest drawback of this software is that once you password protect a folder you cannot copy it to another drive without decrypting it.
If you're password protecting a folder, obviously that means the folder contains important files. So, after password protecting a folder, it will remain only on my hard drive. What happens if my hard drive fails? I will lose this important data because I am unable to take a backup!
You may argue that I could decrypt the folder and then take a backup. But that would be a nuisance if the contents of the folder keep changing, because then I would need to periodically decrypt the folder to take a backup and then encrypt the folder again and also encrypt it on the backup disk too!
I like the idea of encrypting a folder, but I feel the program would be better if one could copy the encrypted folder to the backup drive or a cloud drive.
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Sunil, Re " once you password protect a folder you cannot copy it to another drive without decrypting it."
When I tested the giveaway, I found the folder was encrypted into a file with the name of the original folder and the extension .pff. I could save that encrypted file to my DropBox. So, I can backup it easily.
Of course, you will have to remember the password and have the giveaway handy. But you can always install the freeware version of it. And you can use a standard password.
When I compare it to the freeware 7z - that I use almost daily - I miss the option to test the compressed file. It happens that I make I typo in the password!
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Sunil,
I dont agree.
Surely you would keep your data backed up on an unlocked USB stick, and update that whenever you decrypt the locked folder to add more info.
This way you have access to the folder contents whenever needed, and conveniently to hand, on your PC but you also have a separate, and updated backup, locked away somewhere in your safe/cupboard/garage or wherever you choose.
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Terry I., a safe/cupboard/garage can be broken into. So, what's the point of having an unlocked/unencrypted version stored there? The whole idea behind encrypting the folder is because it has something important or confidential.
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krypteller,
If that's the case, then I guess it is fine. But it's strange that you were able to save the encrypted file to DropBox when they have said that "once the folder is protected by Password Folder, it cannot be copied to other drive or sent via the internet unless you decrypt."
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krypteller, check a little further the original folder is moved into "pfdocument.." folder and renamed. That folder is no longer normally accessible because of the special ".." characters in the folder name and the program provides an interface back into the folder using the tiny amount of data in the .pff file that contains loosely encrypted details of the original folder.
If you know how to rename folders with "illegal" characters in then you can access the "protected" folders within Explorer. You can access/see the data that is supposed to be protected in any disk sector editor. You CANNOT backup the folders using dropbox as the .pff file does not contain any useful data without the contents of the folder hierarchy under "pfdocument.."
Hope that helps you make a more informed choice:-) If you need actual encryption using AES-256 stick with 7zip.
TK
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Sunil, ***You may argue that I could decrypt the folder and then take a backup. ***
And if you make a clone of a hard disk, will it be available?
If you make a clone of the encrypted flash drive "TrueCrypt" into the image, then it can be mounted on a computer and entered using a password.
Checked.
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"I like the idea of encrypting a folder, but I feel the program would be better if one could copy the encrypted folder to the backup drive or a cloud drive."
You might have heard of something sometimes called an encrypted vault -- it's basically just an encrypted VHD [Virtual Hard Disk], which is a single file that can be moved &/or copied anywhere. There are apps that use their own VHD format, so opening / mounting the VHD is automatic when you use the app & enter the password, e.g., the opensource VeraCrypt, or you can create & mount / dismount a .vhd file in Windows Control Panel -> Admin Tools -> Computer Mgmt -> Disk Mgmt., then encrypting the disk using something like BitLocker etc.
"... keep your data backed up on an unlocked USB stick...
... you also have a separate, and updated backup, locked away somewhere in your safe/cupboard/garage or wherever you choose."
If/when you want to use that strategy, a microSD card is smaller than any USB stick, & much easier to hide or destroy if necessary. And card readers are cheap, if not built into your laptop already.
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