Labs

Where other packages offer anti-spyware, secure deletion and online identity protection elements, Window Washer concentrates solely on secure deletion. To get a decent score despite lacking these important features, Windows Washer would have to do what it does very well.

For starters, of all the software on test, Windows Washer is the easiest to use. All the settings are accessible through a cleanly designed, friendly, wizard-style interface. And it adds an option to 'shred' files - securely delete them by writing over them multiple times with random information - to your right-click context-sensitive menu. This makes it easy to remove sensitive data immediately without any faffing around. Our only reservation is that you can only select one file at a time to be deleted in this way. Given that you may be deleting Internet cache files, of which there are always a great many, or weeks' worth of financial records, this is a bit of a pain and makes the program more cumbersome to use than it ought to be.

As well as being accessible and easy to use, Window Washer deletes

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more of the trace files left behind by Web sites you've visited than any other package we tested. Apart from clearing the usual cookies, recent URL and file history lists, Window Washer removes index.dat files. These files maintain lists of files in folders, even when those files have been deleted. More uncommonly still, it gets rid of the history list found in common Windows dialogue boxes, deletes records of recent network connections, and even recent Direct3D applications. In all, it can delete traces of activity left behind in 400 different programs.

Like Ghostsurf, Window Washer also offers several different strengths of secure deletion. It calls this 'adding bleach', and lets you choose between several different military-grade standards for deleting files. It also offers the option of securely wiping all of the free space left on your hard disk. Unfortunately, this didn't seem to work properly when tested. Running some simple undelete software after waiting several hours for the full wipe to complete - at maximum strength - revealed hundreds of recoverable files remaining on the target drive. We recovered a number of plain text files too.

And again, though Internet Explorer and Firefox are both catered for, those who use Opera will once again be disappointed - it appears to be one of the few popular Windows applications that Window Washer does not appear to cover out of the box. Though, fortunately, you do get the facility for setting up your own custom 'Wash' jobs.

Window Washer has plenty going for it - but at this price we expected perfect deletion and anti-spyware thrown in. For this reason, Window Washer misses out on an award.