Crypto Notepad is an open-source text-editor that is just like Windows Notepad except that it offers very strong encryption for all the files saved through it. You can use it like Windows Notepad for creating any new files containing plain-text information, but when you save these files, they are saved using AES cipher which is considered one of the strongest ciphers in the world today. The files are assigned a file extension CRN so that you can identify them easily.
Crypto Notepad is designed using .NET framework version 4.7 and therefore, .NET 4.7 should be installed in your Windows PC before you can use this program. For Windows 10 users, this is not a problem as .NET 4.7 comes pre-installed. But users of older versions of Windows can downloade .NET 4.7 from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55167.
User interface of Crypto Notepad is not much different than that of Windows Notepad with a minor difference of a toolbar with colored icons. From the toolbar, you can create a new file, open an existing file, save the file being edited, open the file location , delete the opened file, cut/copy/paste, change the encryption key, open Crypto Notepad settings, and lock Crypto Notepad interface.
When you save a new file in Crypto Notepad, it asks for the encryption key – this key will be required whenever you want to open this file again in Crypto Notepad. Without this key, you won’t be able to open that file. You can change this key later on from the toolbar option – change encryption key. But this key alone is not enough for decryption – there is a salt value that should match the salt value that was used for encrypting the file, furthermore the hashing algorithm (SHA1 or MD5), iterations and key size must also be exactly the same. This salt value is set when you launch Crypto Notepad the first time and can be changed from the settings.
From the settings for Crypto Notepad, you can also associate the CRN file types with Crypto Notepad which makes it very easy for you open CRN files in Crypto Notepad. You can also enable auto-locking of the editor when it is minimized. You can lock the editor window by clicking on the lock icon in the toolbar as well. In order to unlock it, you will have to specify the encryption key for the opened file.
Crypto Notepad is a simple text editor with very strong encryption features. It can be used to write encrypted text files that nobody else can read without proper settings and passwords.
You can download Crypto Notepad from https://github.com/Sigmanor/Crypto-Notepad.