Hardwipe

Hardwipe

DOWNLOAD 5.71 MB
5  (1 vote)
1.8
This program received 3 awards
Questions & answers
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Video tutorial & screenshots

  • Setup Wizard
  • Options Screen
  • Main Screen
  • About Screen
  • Main window
  • About Dialog
  • Settings
  • File Browser
  • Main View

Editorial review

All comments (1)

Pedro Castro Senior editor

Hardwipe can help you remove files permanently instead of deleting them like the system does. Erasing your data permanently is a useful measure when you want to protect your privacy from intruders.

The program has an intuitive interface from which you can access various functions.
As you can see from the screenshot of the menu, it allows you to delete selected files or folders, wipe a whole drive, or clean the empty space on disk.

The program can be customized to use different wiping methods. Accordingly, there are three speed levels to choose from. Of course, the faster the cleaning, the higher the chance that the erased data could be retrieved. Additionally, some of the best methods are allowed, including Gutmann with up to 35 overwrite passes. A verification pass has also been implemented in this version as a means to increase the effectiveness. Another important development is the release of a portable version of the program, which can be run from an external drive.

Hardwipe is an excellent program. Unfortunately, although the program can be set to integrate with Windows Explorer’s contextual menu, it does not seem to do the same with the Recycle Bin. And though the program comes free of charge, it actually shows some advertisements.

Pros

  • Easy to use.
  • Provides various overwrite methods.
  • Integrates with Windows Explorer.

Cons

  • It does not integrate with the Recycle Bin.
  • It shows some advertisements.

What's new in version 2.1

The latest release (codenamed Perky Pike) is now offered as a "portable download" as well as a traditional installer based application. This means that you can copy it onto a USB stick and run it on any computer.
The other big change in this release is the ability update language files yourself. Previously, language translation text (such as Spanish text) was embedded in the application itself. Many users emailed to offer their services in helping to translate the user interface into other language. Sadly, it was not practical to maintain multiple language translations in this way. The alternative was to "open up" the language translation data, so that anyone can update or create new language packs themselves.
 

Publisher's description

Hardwipe is a free file wiper and drive cleaner for Windows. It can be used to permanently erase, or to "hard wipe", data on disk and portable storage media in order to prevent personal or sensitive business information from ever being recovered. It can wipe entire drives, wipe files individually, and sanitize unused drive space. It runs from within the OS and supports right-click context menus in Windows Explorer.

Latest comments

 
  • 0
    creamy antony 6 months ago
    Pros: various functions
    Cons: it does not seem to be set integrated with the Recycle Bin..

    Hardwipe is a good program It has intuitive interface and all functions I need.


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