Eraser

It's the perfect tool for paranoid users who think that the CIA is out to get them. Simply called Eraser, it does exactly what it sounds like, but in a more thorough way. If your data is too valuable and you don't want to let them fall in the wrong hands, Eraser makes sure that it would never happen.

The installation package is approx. 8 Mb large and the installation is straightforward. You can either choose to manually select where to put it or let the wizard do a typical installation. Best of all, the program is absolutely free with no strings attached.

The only interface you have to deal with is a simple options menu where you can choose an erasure method. The program comes with some impressive deleting patterns that make more than one deleting pass. Some of these are even used by the US Department of Defence, Army or Air Force, and other agencies around the world. Eraser lets you nuke certain files or unused space, using the mentioned methods. An interesting feature is replacing erased files with others to "allow plausible deniability". That's what it says in the options menu. What more do you want? You can rest easy because no one will ever find any trace of your love poems.

Using the program to actually delete something is easy. Just right click the file or folder and you'll see that a new option has been added to the pop up menu. You can also set erasing schedules for periodical evidence destroying. Besides just erasing a file, the program lets you target it for termination which begins when the system is restarted. All it lacks is a way to delete something according to some conditions, like failing to provide a password. This would have been a neat countermeasure.