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Lucas

There’s another option Paul but it may be too inconvenient.

AxCrypt is designed for encrypting individual files and folders (but not recursively!). If this is what you need then stay with AxCrypt. Unlike Cloudfogger with AxCrypt you can decrypt your data offline. Eventually they plan on building a feature (according to Svante) where you can export your keypair.

At the minute the only scenario where you may lose access to your data is if AxCrypt got hacked* or shutdown AND you also lost your computer which stores your keypair.  [*And lost all of their backups (highly unlikely)]

Unless both of these scenarios occur then even if AxCrypt shut down then, as long as you have your computer, you can decrypt all your files. If your computer was stolen BUT AxCrypt remained operational then you’d be able to decrypt your files because you’d be able to download a fresh copy of your keypairs onto your new computer.

The other option is to download a piece of software like VeraCrypt. It’s free and open source, offers extremely secure methods of encryption, is the updated successor to TrueCrypt and does not rely on the cloud. You create a container and drag your files into the container. The problem with this approach is if you store your data in the cloud: if you make an update to one single file then you have to re-upload the whole container to the cloud which may take a long time. It’s a great solution if you’re only keeping files locally but not so good if you’re storing files in the cloud (unless you create an encrypted container for every file).

A commercial alternative is BestCrypt by Jetico which is very similar to VeraCrypt. It has no backdoors, is open source but you have to pay for it. It suffers the same problem as VeraCrypt if you’re using the cloud. It’s used by governments and military forces worldwide.