JANUARY 2022 PCWorld 103M
ost of us have some rather
sensitive files on our PCs.
Whether it’s our tax returns,
financial records, password
lists (seriously, just use a password manager
already [fave.co/3lRkfRz]), or just files you
don’t want anyone to see under any
circumstances, we all have our reasons for
wanting a bit more security. This means that
it’s time to get into encryption, which is where
a drive, file, or folder is encoded (encrypted)
so as to make it unreadable to anyone except
the person with the right key to decrypt it.
The upside is that anyone attempting to
access it without the password will fail, and
the downside is that if you lose the encryption
key (usually a password), whatever you had
encrypted will be gone forever, unless there’s
a way to recover it.
Luckily, in Windows you have options on
how to do this for absolutely no cost
whatsoever. Windows 10 and 11 Pro users have
encryption tools built into the OS, while users
of the Home variant must use a free third-partyIMAGE: WK1003MIKE/SHUTTERSTOCK
How to encrypt files in Windows
You have a couple simple options. BY JOSH NOREM