BCWipe 6.04

Overview

There are many reasons as to why someone would want to make sure that when he deletes files from his computer, there would be no chance of recovering them again. In such cases, where sensitive data is on the stake and you want to wipe it from the drive completely, professional software like BCWipe is required. This fully-featured software can guarantee that your files will be deleted for good and cannot be recovered afterwards, using advanced deletion methods that you can choose from depending on your situation.

Installation

Don’t worry about the installation; it goes smoothly and has no steps with difficult settings. In the first step you are prompted to choose installation language, and a few steps afterwards you’re asked to select whether you have a license key or want to try the program for evaluation purposes. After installation finishes you can see a few basic instructions on how to use the program.

BCWipe is available for Windows (XP, 2003 Server, Vista, 2008 Server, 7 and 8), Mac and UNIX-based systems (Linux, SunOS, Solaris, IRIX, Digital Unix, FreeBSD, AIX and HP-UX).

Interface

BCWipe doesn’t have a main interface, but you could say that BCWipe Task Manager is its main window. From there you can create new deletion tasks and view the scheduled ones. When creating a new wiping task a window pops up, from where you can browse for the files/folders you want to delete, enter the date/time for BCWipe to delete them on and make a few more options such as choose wipe methods.

BCWipe embeds itself into Windows Explorer, so to delete files and folders directly you can right-click on them and then select the “Delete with wiping” option.

Pros

First and foremost, this software has quite a lot of wiping methods; from the quickest (one random pass) but less safe, to slower but safer methods like Peter Gutmann, U.S. Department of Defence, Russian GOST R 50739-95 and others. If you are familiar with this kind of software and have enough experience on this area, you can create your own custom wiping schemes.

In addition, you can wipe internet history if you wish. Here you have the same deletion options as when performing normal wiping tasks.

BCWipe comes with many additional functions. For instance, you can encrypt the swap file (the Windows file used for the virtual memory support) using one of the four advanced encryption techniques (Rijndael 256-bit, Blowfish 448-bit, GOST 28147-89 256-bit or Twofish 256-bit). Furthermore, you can wipe free space and wipe local history. Last but not least, there’s the Transparent Wiping feature which, when enabled, will erase all contents and data of a folder or file when it’s deleted.

Cons

No cons here. It’s a very reliable and stable program with many features.

Alternatives

Eraser (free) is a data wiping tool like BCWipe. It has many deletion techniques as well and can be used not only by experts but beginners too. Other similar tools are File Shredder (free), WipeFile (free), O&O SafeErase (paid) and Zer0 (free).

Conclusion

With BCWipe you can rest assured that your files won’t be recovered. You can choose one of the many security options as well as perform other operations that are not available in other software of this kind, so if you’re looking for maximum security then this this program won’t disappoint you.