15-Minute Reviews :: Uconomix Encryption Engine v1.0.2441.17711

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Uconomix Encryption Engine version 1.0.2441.17711 by Uconomix Technologies – An application to encrypt files and folders from pesky data thieves and snoops.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Uconomix Encryption Engine allows you to protect the privacy of your sensitive files and folders by encrypting them with strong encryption algorithm and a password. Once encrypted the files or folders can not be viewed without the original password with which they were encrypted.

Uconomix Encryption Engine can password protect multiple files and entire folders with just a few clicks. The encrypted files can be stored on any unsecured devices or can be sent through email without worrying about the security of the data.

UEE can encrypt any and all types of files like Word, PDF, Excel, PPT, images, MP3, AVI and more. It Supports English, German, Spanish, French and Italian languages.”

Quick Pros

• Straightforward interface for the most part
• Drag and drop functionality in application window
• Shell integration to process easier
• Ability to delete, purge or leave the original untouched handy
• Leaves files where they were encrypted/decrypted from
• Processes files very fast

Quick Cons

• Can’t choose where to save encrypted files – No USB drive support
• Encryption type is not user-selectable – Uses AES 512-bit
• Should be able to set default for original file handling
• Shouldn’t need double-password on extraction
• Would be good to have the ability of self-contained decrypter

Expansion

During these digital days, data theft is becoming more and more of an issue for many. There are a variety of ways people are being victimized; File theft ot snooping is one common one. This application offers you the ability to encrypt sensitive files and folders from prying eyes.

This application’s interface is pretty straightforward and uncluttered; It is easy to get around for the most part and easy to understand what is going on. The application even offers links to how-to videos for those who may be having some difficulty getting rolling as well. For both encrypting and decrypting, there is drag-and-drop functionality to be able to quickly add new files, if you choose not to use the dead-simple shell integration (Right click and Encrypt or Decrypt).

The encrypting process is easy to get set up; Add the files or folders you wish to encrypt, enter a secure password (I would strongly encourage you to use a lot longer password than the 4 characters it recommends as a minimum), choose your options for the original file(s) and/or folder(s) and click ‘Start’. As mentioned, there are options for handling the original files. The default is ‘Leave Untouched’, which leaves the original file or folder in place after the whole process; There is delete, which simply deletes the file or folder with no overwriting to prevent forensics extraction; There is also purge, which also writes data over the original on top of deleting, hopefully preventing forensics extraction of your data (The application does not detail the process, so may not be fool-proof, but will be far more secure than just the delete function.) My only quip here is that it defaults to ‘leave untouched’ – I do wish there was a way to set a default for the end-user. Defaulting to leave untouched in many cases is pointless and could leave the data at risk still.

During encryption, the application leaves the resulting encrypted file where it was composed from with no option to move it. This can be a benefit; If you are encrypting an entire application, specific support or source file or otherwise, it may be handy to keep track of where it came from. On the flipside, this makes it more difficult to track what you have encrypted and forces you to have to manually backup by copying the files. For each item you add to the list to encrypt, each will generate a different encrypted file, which may make it more difficult yet.

The encryption process was very fast in my opinion. 53 seconds to encrypt a 286MB file, and 1 minute 4 seconds to decrypt – Very respectable speeds indeed. I tested folders and I saw similar speeds as well.

A few issues I do have however; I do not like the fact that I am limited to only AES 512-bit encryption. This application could really deal with having other formats as well; Twofish, Blowfish and more could extend your protection with a higher bit encryption. I’m not sure why the author chose this path; Giving the end-user options for encryption based on performance and quality of encryption (and even giving a rough performance/encryption chart for all algorithms) could be a boost to the application. That said, would also be handy to be able to choose an overwrite method for the purge option to know how secure you will be. The decryption page could use some rebuilding too – It is a pain to enter and then reenter the password to decrypt. You should only have to enter it once.

One last note; As mentioned above, there is no built-in ability to change where the files end up, and as such makes USB support difficult without manually copying the files; This goes for using this for backup or distribution purposes. That said, even if this application were used for backup or distribution, the receiving end would have to have this application as well; There is no way currently to make these files self-contained packages.

Final Verdict

While this application does have a few things that are a bit quirky, all-in-all it works pretty well, and is very fast in my opinion – Even though it appears to be early in its development lifecycle. That said, while free, if you have the need to do some light encryption tasks, this may be the application for you – It is one of the better file-based encrypters I’ve used. As for paying $19.99, it is really not a bad price point at all for what you get; If you can use it, it may be a good purchase. Keep in mind though that there are other alternatives – Ones I’ve used in the past has been TrueCrypt (Open-Source) and FolderLock ($35.00)

Posted by BladedThoth on Wednesday, July 25, 2007