All the files you copy to your hard drive and all the files that you download from the internet stay behind even if you delete them using regular methods provided by the operating system. This is because the operating system does not actually erase the file data and only marks the files absent in the file table. Special file recovery programs such as Recuva can scan your hard drive and recover most of the deleted files. The files cannot be recovered only if the file data has been fully or partially overwritten by some other files.
So if you want to ensure that your private and sensitive files are deleted forever, then you can use file wiping programs such as WipeFile. It is a small portable program that can be used to securely delete your files in Windows. It uses a number of methods for overwriting files completely so that nobody can recover them even when using high grade forensic tools.
When you launch WipeFile for the first time, it asks you where the configuration data will be stored. You can choose to store this data in the user profile folder, in the same folder where “WipeFile.exe” is located (this option makes it truly portable) or in a folder of your choice.
In the WipeFile user interface, you simply have to add your files, select one of the wiping methods and click on the Wipe button. Among the wipe methods you can choose from over a dozen algorithms – including the ones developed by US Navy, US Department of Defense, NATO, Peter Gutmann, Microsoft and more. Another interesting thing that WipeFile offers is file mask that changes the file name in the file table before deleting it finally, ensuring that the original file names are not available to the file recovery tools.
Verdict: WipeFile is a simple, small and portable tool for securely deleting files. It offers dozens of file wiping methods that ensure that your files are deleted forever. Unlike other tools like Eraser, it does not clean the master file table after overwriting files.
You can download WipeFile from https://www.gaijin.at/en/software/wipefile.