Best free software for secure file deletion?

[Chaotic0ne]

I got CCleaner, but I was wondering if there was something better? I got some personal data that needs to get deleted (W2s, documents with my SS#, etc), and I'd like to make sure its absolutely 100% impossible to be able to recover it under any circumstances. I've never really put much thought into this before, so its something I'm not familiar with. What approach and/or software does the US military use to delete stuff?

 

[Auric]

CCleaner seems okay from its description -just enable the higher level options and then overwrite the free space as well?

Storage devices are destroyed to actually secure data.

 

[tynopik]

http://eraser.heidi.ie/

to make sure all por^H^H^HW2s are gone for good

 

[user1193526]

usually easyest to just use an offical app for the platform your targeting.

windows
$ sdelete.exe -a -p 3 afile
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897443.aspx

linux has built in commands, just for example
$ ls -l afile (find _SIZE_ )
$ dd if=/dev/urandom of=afile bs=_SIZE_ count=1 conv=notrunc
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=afile bs=_SIZE_ count=1 conv=notrunc

Storage devices are destroyed to actually secure data.

well, now I know how cave men secured there data. lol

 

[Chaotic0ne]

Thanks for the help guys, but after doing some more research I found out Advanced system care 8 has a file shredder that works pretty good. I used the gutmann method, 35 passes, so that should work, right?

 

[Auric]

Sounds good but would still overwrite free space afterwards. Looking at CCleaner again, besides whole drive or free space, it is more appropriate for repeated use on the same file names since apparently lacking file context operation.

Another option is Blank And Secure:
http://www.softwareok.com/?Download=BlankAndSecure

 

[Zahid Iqbal]

CCleaner is the best choice.