More on Wipe Free Space

CCleaner for Windows CCleaner Windows Suggestions
1

Hi,

The Wipe Free Space feature is excellent. People have already asked for more info display. Let me expand just a bit:

1.

Where is CCleaner now? If you have a lot of partitions, I've suggested elsewhere to use Alex Nolan's Drive Manager freeware to roughly compare byte sizes to figure out CCleaner's work in progress. Piriform People, please give us a display so we know where we are amongst half a dozen or a dozen partitions being processed.

2.

#1 is not really a new suggestion. I included it here (sorry for the redundancy) mainly as a point of reference for the following idea:

In Wipe MFT Free Space, we are really blind. There is just no way to know what is happening, other than noting that larger partitions take longer to process. I think a GUI line letting us know which partition's MFT Free Space is currently being wiped would be very helpful indeed.

Piriform People, your good work is better than ever! These suggestions are made with real appreciation for your excellent work. My computer's Piriformance has never been so good! Thank you.

2
The Wipe Free Space feature is excellent.

Why?

The only reason I would want to wipe free space is to wipe a file or files that I really, really wanted to delete securely but had inadvertently deleted normally.

3

@Marmite, sure, you are right.

It goes along with using a paper-shredder, which isn't generally necessary either. If you want to read about the reasons or paranoia people have for wiping files, you can check out the forums at Heidi's Eraser, which has long been maybe the most respected app in the field. http://bbs.heidi.ie/viewforum.php?f=30

Psychologically, I think a lot of people prefer to have empty wastebaskets around their offices, rather than full ones. Of course, ordinarily deleted files are still pretty much extant; they have surrendered their ownership of their space, so other files might or might not be eventually written overtop. As you know, the readable files are still there, like papers in a wastebasket, and, unlike papers in a wastebasket, they are STILL still there when programs like CCleaner empty the recycle bin.

For myself, I'm not worried about security. I have no password on any of my 4 computers at home. I don't do any banking online, and I have nothing to hide in the way of files. And yet I do like the sense of being able to see what I have.

I run a very heavy-duty operation with huge Word documents, for example. Big 500-page things with many photos embedded; these are fully-formatted scientific book manuscripts. I use a system of backing these files up which creates maybe two or three dozen copies in a few hours during a work day, each copy almost the same as the previous one. I also have the entire collection backed up to a USB disk at the same time. At the end of the work day, I check the files and then delete all but the last two.

Which leaves my system with a huge amount of very recent work in totally readable form, scattered all over the hard drives in question. Hundreds of these files would collect in a few weeks, all very similar to the most recent version of the manuscript.

Well, that feels a little insecure to me. It's pretty nice to be able to wipe those disks. Whether it really matters?you're perfectly correct; it might not. It probably would never matter. But it's a moot point, because Wipe Free Space is fast and easy. Heidi's Eraser, as you no doubt know, is an excellent program but is less "fast and easy", and also was not working just right on 64-bit systems.

4

90% of people on this site seem to wfs. why? do they have something to hide? or is it because the option is there.

who even knows if files r really recoverable after over passing. i dont. you dont. every one has there own opinion.

even encypting your files in a archieve will land you jail time. the simple answer is dont do ne thing illegal.

5
even encypting your files in a archieve will land you jail time.

Pokey time in UK for encrypting? :o Say you're joking. :)

6

Hi Groonx

I know where you're coming from. I always wipe anything 'personal' that I don?t want or that I have archived else where, whether it's family photographs or a pdf copy of my passport page or financial details.

File wiping I don?t have an issue with. But surely it's better to use a tool like Eraser to wipe files (directories) selectively when you're done rather than to repeatedly wipe your entire freespace. This takes longer and increases the wear on your drive. I'm sure if you're disciplined (which I presume you are if you're working with that many documents) that the files are (or could be) in a few specific areas of your drive.

Alternative ... use (something like) TrueCrypt and work inside a large encrypted file container. Every so often (or as often as you like!) you can just bin the entire thing and you automatically have 'wiped freespace' and you're also working in the knowledge that your work is protected until you do decide to delete it. Or even use TrueCrypt to encrypt your entire hard drive!

@kroozer ... I understand that in France personal encryption is actually illegal. In the UK it is not. Though the 'authorities' can demand access to encryption passwords if they feel they have cause. Recently a guy has been imprisoned for not doing so ... he claims just on principle.

7

@Gronxx

The GUI of Wipe Free Space (WFS) and Wipe MFT free space (WMFS) certainly can be improved.

1. When using these option, I think, e.g. the screen shouldn't be cleaned when CC moves on the next operation (e.g WMFS of drive D: to WMFS of drive E: and/or e.g WFS of drive C: to WFS of drive D:). I think all the information should be remain on the screen as long as possible.

2. A progress bar also would be welcomed.

In another thread I made some recommendations to improve both WMFS and WFS.

PS.: Are Gronxx and Groonx two usernames of one person ?