We all have sensitive information that we don't want anyone to see, like credit card numbers, bills, and correspondence. When you're done with the data you usually delete it to keep others from seeing it, but deleting a file isn't enough. Hackers who know where and how to look can retrieve your data from those deleted files.
Shred 3: Shred filesShred 3 eliminates this problem by making shredded data completely unrecoverable. When you delete a file with Windows built-in delete function, Windows simply removes the reference (pointer) to the file. Not until the locations on the disk are overwritten with other data is that file really deleted.
Shred 3 completely removes the data using the following steps:
1. Shred determines exactly which clusters on the disk contain the file
2. Shred accesses those particular clusters and overwrites them according to the US Department of Defense's standard. It overwrites the file three times. Once with zeros, again with a 0xFF pattern, and finally with randomly generated data.
3. Shred renames the file 26 times as a method to remove the name from the directory
4. To finish the job it deletes the file
Shred 3 is a complete rewrite of Shred 2. The shredding method has been rewritten and adds many enhancements. Shred 3 includes the following features:
• New shredding methodology
• Explorer context integration
• New user interface
• Easy shredding of IE, Firefox, and Opera history, cache, cookies, search & form history, and download history
• Shred successfully clears IE's index.dat files without deleting the file
• Shred IM chat logs
• Quick access to shred recent documents list and temporary files
• Shred registry history items
Shred Files
Shred's main interface consists of four vertical tabs: Shred Files, Clean Browsers, Shred IM Logs, and Shred Misc.
Shred 3: Shred files When Shred is launched you will see the Shred Files tab. This tab contains an Explorer view of your system. Find the files or folders you'd like to shred and select them by clicking the associated checkbox. Once you've selected all the items you want to shred simply hit the Shred button.
Shred 3: Error reportWhen Shred has finished processing the selected files you will see a report. It will give you a count of all the shredded files. It will also list any files that could not be shredded.
Shred 3: Warning messageIt is possible that a file isn't shredded because it is currently being locked by another program. For example, when Microsoft Word opens a file, it creates files containing changes in your temp folder. If you try to shred your temp folder, those files, which are locked by Word, won't get shredded. Not until you close Word would you be able to delete those files. Because of this possibility of a lock, Shred recommends that you close all running programs when you want to shred.
Clean Browsers
Shred 3: Clean Browsers The other three tabs in Shred make it easier to shred common data. The Clean Browsers tab allows you to shred stored data from Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera.
Start by selecting the browsers you'd like to shred and then select which data you'd like to remove. You can choose to shred:
• History – the list of pages you've visited
• Cache – the data stored from the pages you've visited
• Cookies – the data sent from the web server to your browser
• Search & Forms History – all the information you've inputted into sites
• Download History – the list of files that you've downloaded
As part of this process, Shred also shreds the index.dat for Internet Explorer. The index.dat is sort of like a database storing all of the URLs of Web pages you've visited and search queries you've submitted. Shred cannot actually delete this file because it is in use by IE and Windows. However, it does shred the data contained in the file and truncates the files, thus eliminating the information stored in the index.dat file.
Shred IM Logs
Shred 3: Shred IM logs Most instant messaging clients will log all of your chats. Some do it automatically and others require you to take some action in order to begin the logging process.
If you want to make sure all of your communications are thoroughly deleted, you can use Shred to eliminate the logs of the following clients (tested with these versions):
• Skype 3.2
• AIM 6.5
• Trillian 3.1
• Pidgin
• Yahoo Messenger 8.1
Shred will attempt to shred all logs from the default log locations of these clients.
Shred Misc
Shred also makes it easier to permanently delete other common bits of data. You can quickly shred:
• Recent documents list – this is the list of files you've opened and found in the "My Recent Documents" entry in the Start menu.
• Windows temporary files – the temp folder contains installation, scratch, cache, and other files that are temporarily used by programs
• File search history – this stores the files and folders and computers you've searched for using Windows built-in search functionality
• Windows Explorer history – Windows keeps a history of all files you've opened from Windows Explorer
• Start menu run box history – this lists every program or file you've launched from the Run link in the Start menu
• Open/Save dialog history – the standard Windows Open/Save dialog stores all of the files you've recently accessed when you click on the History location
Shred 3: Shred misc By selecting one or more of these items you can quickly and easily shred the data without going through your file system looking for them.
The data for "File search history," "Windows Explorer history," "Start menu run box history," and "Open/Save dialog history" are all stored in the Windows registry. To eliminate this information, Shred overwrites the values multiple times and then deletes the registry value. However, please note that the changes won't take effect until after you restart your PC.
Cleaning Removable Media Free Space
Shred can also shred the free space on removable media like USB flash drives. Simply plug in your flash drive and it will appear in the box on the Shred Misc tab. Select the drive and hit Shred. All of the free clusters on the drive will be shredded. This can really be handy if you previously had sensitive data on the drive but didn't shred it with Shred. All those deleted files that are now free space can be permanently deleted.
Settings
Shred 3: Settings Shred has four different options in the Settings dialog. You can choose to:
• Enable Windows Explorer context menu – this adds Shred to the right-click menu of any file or folder in Windows Explorer
• Show splash screen – this allows you to enable or disable the splash screen when Shred launches
• Do not display confirmation before shredding – this allows you to turn off the dialog that alerts you to close applications before shredding
• Use portable mode – checking this allows you to use Shred from portable media like a USB flash drive (this mode requires a Shred 3 restart).
In addition you can also reset all the settings to the default values and check for program updates.
Known Issues
Clearing Removable Media Free Space
Shred doesn't remove deleted filenames in the directory structures during clearing of free space. If you use file undelete software you can see the deleted filenames and restore files but the files will be damaged.
Files less than 4 KB
Shred cannot delete files that are less than 4 KB if the drive is formatted with NTFS. NTFS stores small files in the MFT (Master File Table). Shred cannot go into the MFT and shred these files.
