east-tec Eraser 2011

East-Tec Eraser 2009 features three major options to make you feel completely safe online and offline: Privacy Guard, Erase Deleted Data, and Erase Files and Folders.

Privacy Guard.
The 'Basic' section configures your protection levels automatically and acts to enforce your security. If you are a beginner, simply choose 'Basic' protection and the program will automatically erase temporary and unnecessary files from Windows and installed applications.
The 'Advanced' section, allows you to select your system features that can eventually disclose personal data, like recently used files, alternate data streams, Windows application logs, etc. You can choose to clear temporary stored data like history, cookies, cache, etc. stored by the Web browsers. Other sensitive data, like P2P software logs and complete or incomplete downloads, can be set as well to be deleted by East-Tec Eraser 2009. If you are worried about the privacy of email, both web-based and news clients (deleted, sent items, and news masks) you can protect them as well with East-Tec Eraser 2009.

Erase Deleted Data.
The Data Eraser allows you to destroy beyond recovery the files in the Recycle Bin and to eliminate deleted data on your local drives. The erasing options include wiping the free disk space and the slack of existing files, as well as scrambling the properties of deleted files or scrambling the log files of system's transactions. You can choose from over a dozen different methods of wiping normal or compressed drives in order to make sure your data is gone for good. Some of these cleaning methods include stopping all software and hardware recovery tools, if there are any active.

Erase Files and Folders.
You can use this feature of the program in order to select files or folders that you want wiped off. You can drag-and-drop files and, of course, choose your favorite deleting settings.

The program interface is very carefully designed and it provides an ergonomic working environment. Wizards are also available for accomplishing tasks and there is also a scheduler, which helps you automate the most repetitive tasks.

Pluses: You get an extra option when right-clicking your Recycle Bin icon, which allows you to quickly erase all files beyond recovery. You can set the erasing process priority to low, normal, high, or real time depending on how busy you are. Where "low" means less usage of system's resources, and "real time" means maximum usage of system's resources.

I tested the program by erasing all the files in the Recycle Bin and we tried to recover them using a couple of file recovery software, but there were no files to be recovered, especially after using the '35 pass Gutman - Stop Hardware Recovery' method.

There are several other features, which I found extremely useful. The possibility to password-protect unauthorized access and to skip files older than a number of selected days were great. You can also establish a list of files and folders in order to prevent them from being erased accidentally.

Drawbacks / flaws:

In conclusion: we may say that once destroyed with East-Tec Eraser 2009 all files are gone forever. This is an excellent solution for safeguarding information both for individual and corporate users.

version reviewed: 9.2