CyberScrub Privacy Suite Review

Every time you use your PC, information about your electronic activities falls into your OS' (operating system's) cracks. You won't find the information by browsing your hard drive, but a malicious user can quietly retrieve your deleted files, email, and Internet tracks. CyberScrub lets you hunt down and permanently erase that data.

CyberScrub Professional Edition 3.0 keeps its predecessor's thorough data deletion routines and boasts a few new tricks, such as tools that erase hard-to-reach data in your Internet and email programs. Most importantly, CyberScrub includes the Welcome dialog box, which lets inexperienced users choose one of three actions: Erase Previously "Deleted" Files Beyond Recovery, Erase Specific Files And Folders Beyond Recovery, and Protect Your Computer And Internet Privacy. You can skip the Welcome dialog box and open these tasks from the program's main page, but you'll miss the detailed explanations.

I like CyberScrub's intuitive GUI (graphical user interface), which features fresh icons, clear labels, and feature explanations. CyberScrub has several types of file deletion routines, ranging from fast wipes to routines that exceed the Department of Defense's DOD 5220.22 standard. The program includes data deletion capabilities that let you delete information from a range of popular programs, including AOL IM, ICQ, Kazaa, and Microsoft Windows Media Player.

Users who want to customize CyberScrub won't be disappointed. It has a variety of options, including a Protect Cookies feature, which displays the cookies on your PC and lets you flag files you don't want to erase. CyberScrub also erases email in Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, Netscape Mail, Pegasus Mail, and QUALCOMM Eudora.