PC Utilities, issue 58, page 73

January, 2005

by Darren Evans

Acronis Privacy Expert Suite 7.0

Rating: 8/10

It's a little known fact to many Windows users that the operating system stores a record of a lot of things you do on your computer. This wealth of hidden information includes such things as the webpages you visit and even your website login passwords. Just filling in forms on webpages often reveals that Windows has remembered such personal data as your name, email address, mail address and more in order to make data entry faster. While some users might find this useful, others may not want a history of what they've been using and viewing remaining visible to anyone. This could prove to be a particular problem if the PC you are using is shared by other people and the multiple Windows user accounts feature is not being used, as might be the case with older versions of Windows or in the family PC in general.

There are a number of ways to change Windows' behaviour to stop this information from being stored. For example, you can adjust system settings from the Control Panel. Unfortunately, these settings tend to be hidden away in the depths and are not well documented.

Acronis Privacy Expert Suite solves the issue of automatically handling these privacy issues from a central location. Like a security conscious personal butler, it will take care of emptying the Recycle Bin and deleting those hidden temporary Internet files that your browser creates while you surf. You can even take the drastic step of using it to erase your entire hard disk, which may prove useful if you've bought a bigger hard disk and are donating your old one to a friend.

As you may know, when you delete a file using Windows' delete functions it only marks your files for deletion — the file itself remains on your hard disk for anyone to retrieve. Acronis Privacy Expert will do a more thorough job by overwriting the area of the hard disk where your deleted files still exist, destroying the data completely. Clearing document histories, wiping unencrypted passwords, clearing cookies, deleting spyware, browser pop-up blocking and other handy functions all add up to a useful set of tools to help cover your tracks.

Acronis Privacy Expert Suite 7 does its job without any fuss or complications. If you feel the need to cover your tracks as you go then this is a perfectly good tool for doing it.