How To Permanently Erase Files From Your Computer

You've deleted a file. So that's it. It's no longer available to anyone, is it?

Err. No. It's still on your hard drive.

You see, computers - and especially computer programmers - take short cuts. And one of the things they take a short cut on is that they don't actually delete a file when you click delete. Sometimes, this is useful because it means you can undelete a file that you've accidentally deleted.

But what can you do if you want to completely obliterate all traces of a file? Maybe you're passing your old PC onto someone else and you don't want the new owner to have access to all your passwords. Maybe you had a number of confidential files from work and you need to make sure that they're not kept on your hard disk any longer than needed. Maybe it's some email correspondence you don't want anyone else to get hold of.

No matter the reason, simply pressing the delete button just won't do the job properly.

Unless you can guarantee that no-one else will ever have access to your computer, you've got to ensure that any files that need to be deleted forever really are deleted permanently.

Far and away the best way to do this is by using a software program. The only other way is to format your hard disk tens of times and hit it with a big hammer until it breaks into so may pieces even the biggest jigsaw addict would give up.

Fortunately you can download some affordable software that will give you the same kind of file security the government would expect to use.

It will overwrite the space occupied by the file you want to delete. Not just a few times (that wouldn't be foolproof) but tens of times. Once it's finished, not even the most powerful computers in the world would be able to read the contents of the file.

Which means if you want to be completely certain that your files are permanently deleted, you need to download this software!