I used Window Washer for many years. A while ago I installed Secure Anywhere, then I installed Norton 360 Primier. My SecureAnywhere subscription has now expired and I'm considering renewing. What I want in a product is something which will do the same functions as the old Window Washer did - specifically overwrite unused portions of my hard drive. Does SecureAnywhere do this? If not, does Webroot have a product which does?
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Washing hard drijve
Best answer by Kit
Free space wash! Ahhh, yes... The memories...
This is not anything saying we will or won't do it, but rather a personal exposition on free space wash. :)
Free Space Wash is one of the advanced functions in Window Washer. The idea behind it is that when something is deleted, its entry in the file table is marked as gone, but the data is still located on the drive. Free Space Wash overwrites this old data and removes it.
Definitely not a magic bullet or answer to everything, though. On an SSD, which are becoming more prevalent these days, it's a bad idea for example. In all cases, deleting the file securely to begin with is much more efficient and effective. Also, some manufacturers did some... Interesting... stuff with their drives that caused free space wash to fail... and completely wipe out the drive. This was not good, to say the least, and left it a minefield for free space washing. And finally, though we were able to get the function through some versions of Windows, there are still some drivers and systems that prohibit it from functioning, and they were becoming more and more prevalent.
So with SSD and some computers making it a really bad idea and an original secure delete being better, plus the growing number of systems it wouldn't function on at all, it did not survive through as a specialized function. :( Keep track on the idea exchange though.
View originalThis is not anything saying we will or won't do it, but rather a personal exposition on free space wash. :)
Free Space Wash is one of the advanced functions in Window Washer. The idea behind it is that when something is deleted, its entry in the file table is marked as gone, but the data is still located on the drive. Free Space Wash overwrites this old data and removes it.
Definitely not a magic bullet or answer to everything, though. On an SSD, which are becoming more prevalent these days, it's a bad idea for example. In all cases, deleting the file securely to begin with is much more efficient and effective. Also, some manufacturers did some... Interesting... stuff with their drives that caused free space wash to fail... and completely wipe out the drive. This was not good, to say the least, and left it a minefield for free space washing. And finally, though we were able to get the function through some versions of Windows, there are still some drivers and systems that prohibit it from functioning, and they were becoming more and more prevalent.
So with SSD and some computers making it a really bad idea and an original secure delete being better, plus the growing number of systems it wouldn't function on at all, it did not survive through as a specialized function. :( Keep track on the idea exchange though.
+56Hello Ifdow and Welcome to the Webroot Community Forums.
It has been suggested in the Ideas Exchange already just make a reply there and give it some Kudo's https:///t5/Ideas-Exchange/Incorporation-of-All-Window-Washer-Capabilities-into-Webroot/idi-p/10714 also most of the functions are already in the Complete version https://detail.webrootanywhere.com/agenthelp.asp?n=Running_a_system_cleanup but not "specifically overwrite unused portions of my hard drive"
HTH,
TH
It has been suggested in the Ideas Exchange already just make a reply there and give it some Kudo's https:///t5/Ideas-Exchange/Incorporation-of-All-Window-Washer-Capabilities-into-Webroot/idi-p/10714 also most of the functions are already in the Complete version https://detail.webrootanywhere.com/agenthelp.asp?n=Running_a_system_cleanup but not "specifically overwrite unused portions of my hard drive"
HTH,
TH
O.K. I did that. I really miss Window Washer. I can't understand how this functionality got lost.
1 person likes this
Hello Ifdow, Welcome to the Webroot Community Forum. :D
I seen your comment in the Ideas Exchange about Window Washer. Please make sure you give it a Kudo in the upper left corner. More Kudo's gets Webroots attention. ;)
I seen your comment in the Ideas Exchange about Window Washer. Please make sure you give it a Kudo in the upper left corner. More Kudo's gets Webroots attention. ;)
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1 person likes this
Free space wash! Ahhh, yes... The memories...
This is not anything saying we will or won't do it, but rather a personal exposition on free space wash. :)
Free Space Wash is one of the advanced functions in Window Washer. The idea behind it is that when something is deleted, its entry in the file table is marked as gone, but the data is still located on the drive. Free Space Wash overwrites this old data and removes it.
Definitely not a magic bullet or answer to everything, though. On an SSD, which are becoming more prevalent these days, it's a bad idea for example. In all cases, deleting the file securely to begin with is much more efficient and effective. Also, some manufacturers did some... Interesting... stuff with their drives that caused free space wash to fail... and completely wipe out the drive. This was not good, to say the least, and left it a minefield for free space washing. And finally, though we were able to get the function through some versions of Windows, there are still some drivers and systems that prohibit it from functioning, and they were becoming more and more prevalent.
So with SSD and some computers making it a really bad idea and an original secure delete being better, plus the growing number of systems it wouldn't function on at all, it did not survive through as a specialized function. :( Keep track on the idea exchange though.
This is not anything saying we will or won't do it, but rather a personal exposition on free space wash. :)
Free Space Wash is one of the advanced functions in Window Washer. The idea behind it is that when something is deleted, its entry in the file table is marked as gone, but the data is still located on the drive. Free Space Wash overwrites this old data and removes it.
Definitely not a magic bullet or answer to everything, though. On an SSD, which are becoming more prevalent these days, it's a bad idea for example. In all cases, deleting the file securely to begin with is much more efficient and effective. Also, some manufacturers did some... Interesting... stuff with their drives that caused free space wash to fail... and completely wipe out the drive. This was not good, to say the least, and left it a minefield for free space washing. And finally, though we were able to get the function through some versions of Windows, there are still some drivers and systems that prohibit it from functioning, and they were becoming more and more prevalent.
So with SSD and some computers making it a really bad idea and an original secure delete being better, plus the growing number of systems it wouldn't function on at all, it did not survive through as a specialized function. :( Keep track on the idea exchange though.
Kit - Prior Webroot Quality Assurance / Prior Webroot Escalation Engineer
+56Thanks Kit that's good to know as I'm running SSD's and would not want to brick my system with such a feature! Also TRIM looks after the free space on SSD's!
TH
TH
Running a free space wash on an SSD won't brick the system, but it puts unnecessary strain on the drive. TRIM handles the same functionality, and even lacking TRIM (such as translated by (pseudo) hardware RAID), the drive's internals will handle it in a few hours.@ wrote:
Thanks Kit that's good to know as I'm running SSD's and would not want to brick my system with such a feature! Also TRIM looks after the free space on SSD's!
TH
+56Thanks again Kit for the info I use Diskeeper 2012 with Hyperfast to keep my SSD's optimized. It's saves allot of I/O's and of course there is No Defragging. 😉 http://www.condusiv.com/products/hyperfast/
TH
TH
I don't know anything about either program. I did install Eraser and it does seem to be doing the job but I'm not completely confident about what's going on. I'll check out the two you mention.
It looks like neither of these do the job I"m thinking of. IOverwrite is an app for iPhones, a great idea but it doesn't work for PC's (or, so it seems, for Android phones, which is what I use) and Shredit destroys the HD completely. I just want to overwrite deleted files on my PC's HD. So, so far, Eraser is still the best solution I've seen. I just hope it's working.
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