If you have some personal files that you want to keep away from the eyes of strangers, then your best bet is to encrypt them. There is an easy to use free program called Simple File Encryptor that can encrypt your files with strong AES cipher. It can be used as a portable application or can be integrated with Windows File Explorer.
You can download Simple File Encryptor from its sourceForge website. The download is available as a portable application. Its user interface shows three tabs – one for the text encryption, second for the file encryption and third for selecting a permanent encrypted folder.
In the Encrypt Text – AES tab, you can encrypt text by copy/pasting text or typing it manually or loading it from a text file. The different buttons on this tab allow you to load the text file, encrypt it or decrypt it. It would ask for the password which should be at least 9 characters long and must contain mixed case characters with numerals.
In the Encrypt a File – AES tab, you can load a file, choose various options and encrypt the file. You can also choose a folder and encrypt all the files inside that folder. There are options to keep the original files or remove them after the encryption. The same tab can also be used to decrypt the files.
The third tab Encrypt Box allows you to create a permanently encrypted folder (called Encrypt Box). When Simple File Encryptor is running and Encrypt Box has been enabled all files and folders that are dropped into the Encrypt Box folder are automatically encrypted without the need to stop and enter a password for every file or folder.
Simple File Encryptor is an nice little application for keeping your information private. It uses the powerful AES 256 bit cipher to encrypt the files, so it is impossible to decrypt them even for professionals. The application is portable so it can be copied to your thumb drive and used on any Windows PC without having to install anything.
You can download Simple File Encryptor from http://sourceforge.net/projects/simpfileencrypt/.