I've never tried to encrypt the whole drive. My basic question would be if I did, how would I be able to get back into it to decrypt it, as everything I would need would still be located inside the drive? I've only used Toucan to encrypt specific files, and like most FOSS programs, it has minimum documentation and takes a bit of trial and error.

When I want to encrypt a file, I launch Toucan and click on the secure tab, find the file I want in the left column and click + to move it to the right column. I then click to encrypt. I do not bother with giving it a job name or even saving it, I just click OK, do it. It asks me for the password twice and then it takes only a few seconds to encrypt the file. You know it is encrypted as it will change the file name from something like " filename.doc " to " filename.doc.cypt " or something like that. It is the same process to decrypt it. One note, I read that if you make a mistake and encrypt a file again that has already been encrypted (like if you forget to check the decrypt function because the encrypt function is checked as default) then the file will be lost forever because you will not be able to decrypt it. I tried it, and yep, that's what happened.

The one function of U3 that portable apps does not have (yet) is the ability to password protect your whole flash drive, but there has been alot of discussions on their forums about that and I hope that function will be coming soon.

Higgy

I've never tried to encrypt the whole drive. My basic question would be if I did, how would I be able to get back into it to decrypt it, as everything I would need would still be located inside the drive? I've only used Toucan to encrypt specific files, and like most FOSS programs, it has minimum documentation and takes a bit of trial and error.

When I want to encrypt a file, I launch Toucan and click on the secure tab, find the file I want in the left column and click + to move it to the right column. I then click to encrypt. I do not bother with giving it a job name or even saving it, I just click OK, do it. It asks me for the password twice and then it takes only a few seconds to encrypt the file. You know it is encrypted as it will change the file name from something like " filename.doc " to " filename.doc.cypt " or something like that. It is the same process to decrypt it. One note, I read that if you make a mistake and encrypt a file again that has already been encrypted (like if you forget to check the decrypt function because the encrypt function is checked as default) then the file will be lost forever because you will not be able to decrypt it. I tried it, and yep, that's what happened.

The one function of U3 that portable apps does not have (yet) is the ability to password protect your whole flash drive, but there has been alot of discussions on their forums about that and I hope that function will be coming soon.

Higgy

In the context of carrying around files on a portable drive, is there an advantage to using Toucan for encryption instead of using portable 7-Zip with 256 AES encryption?

Edited March 7, 200917 yr by OriginalPoster