New
#11
Do others agree with what masterchief says here? Neil, i dont use avast anymore as i heard people say just use windows defender
I agree with Masterchief's post and other posts on this thread which offer secure deletion methods.
The factor is which method offers the user confidence. Personally, I would recommend one of the methods listed in Borg's post (#11). Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) is a well-known program.
Yes. If they are encrypted you can just delete them. Never in a billion years will anyone decrypt them without the key.
EDIT howeverAxantum Software AB | AxCrypt | Notes on Securitythere are some caveats:
The name of the file, as well as the size, may be recovered.
If the file has been viewed or edited with an application that creates temporary copies of the content (such as Microsoft Office may), those temporary copies may still be available for undeletion on your harddisk.
If this matters you may want to zero the free space after (use sdelete or ccleaner as mentioned before), once is enough.
You would be better off (if you have Pro) to use bitlocker as this encrypts the whole disk rather than individual files removing these issues.
Last edited by lx07; 08 Mar 2018 at 17:28. Reason: other thoughts
I mean i no longer use avast for antivirus. I was told having window defender is enough. I use to have a few antivirus programs like avast, malwarebytes and people say you only need 1 etc.
Okay so for my windows 7 on my the old desktop. Should i just keep avast and malwarebytes? And thus don't enable windows defender? So if i remove these programs, then windows defender would work? I also have microsoft essentials and super antispywhere on this desktop. Which of these programs should i delete and which one to keep? On my primary laptop, i use windows defender only etc.
Hi PaulyJustin
In my humble opinion, if it was me, I'd be using Avast and Malwarebytes on your Windows 7 desktop. I'm assuming Microsoft would still support definition updates for Windows Defender and Microsoft Essentials for Windows 7 if you were to just use either of those, but I'm not sure about that?