Ogni Free Folder Locker & Hider for Windows

All kinds of sensitive information can end up stored on your computer, from trade secrets to medical information, financial records to love letters. There are plenty of utilities out there that are designed to keep private files private, protecting users from identity theft, fraud, and embarrassment. Ogni Free Folder Locker & Hider is one such program. Although it seems to work--sort of--it didn't seem as easy to use or as secure as similar programs we've encountered.

When we first opened Ogni Free Folder Locker & Hider, the program prompted us to choose whether we wanted to use regular or maximum security. We were also asked to create a username and password before progressing to the main screen. The program's interface is clunky and not particularly attractive. A dropdown menu at the top lets users select the drive that contains the files they want to work with, and a pane below that displays files and folders. On the left there are buttons to lock, unlock, hide, and unhide files. We selected a folder and clicked Lock, and the program informed us that we should hide the folder first for maximum protection. When we tried to do that, we got a message stating that hiding was in progress and would "take some time." However, there's no status bar or other indication of when the hiding process is complete, and even after we waited a while the folder was still visible on our desktop. We moved on to the locking process, this time ignoring the prompt to hide the folder first, and went ahead and locked it. This changed the folder's icon on our desktop (though not the name), and clicking on it took us to the Windows Control Panel instead of the contents of the folder. Unlocking the folder was a simple matter of clicking the unlock button on the interface. Although the program has a Help menu, clicking on it did not launch any documentation. Overall, we were not impressed with Ogni Free Folder Locker & Hider. It didn't seem to work reliably, and there are plenty of better alternatives.

Ogni Free Folder Locker & Hider installs politely but leaves a folder behind upon removal.