Here today, we will be talking about some of the best free encryption software for Windows in 2024. Protecting some of your essential personal data on your computer is very important, especially, if your computer isn’t password-protected. And even if it was, you may at times allow your children or siblings to use it for a while maybe for learning or playing games.

So, if your know your computer is also being used by other and have some very important files, you may want to encrypt and protect them. As such, you only can have access to these protected files.

Indeed, on a computer, our personal data can be consulted by any person. This is because, by default, data in Windows is not encrypted or even protected with a simple password. So here is a list of free disk and file encryption software for Windows.

5 Best Free Encryption Software for Windows 2024

Here, we will be talking of software that can do both simple file encryption as well as whole-disk encryption. So, before you go in for any of these software, you will have to consider your prime objectives. Do you want a software to encypt all your hard drivers or to encrypt on particular files.

Also, it should be noted that whole-disk encryption is an effective line of defence for a single device, but doesn’t help when you need to share encrypted data.

#1: VeraCrypt

VeraCrypt is a free open-source disk encryption software for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. Brought to you by IDRIX. This Windows-free encryption software is based on TrueCrypt 7.1a.

This software allows you to create an encrypted virtual disk in a file or a partition. The encrypted virtual partition created will be impossible to find and decrypt except for the person who knows the password.

VeraCrypt main features:

• Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.
• Encrypts an entire partition or storage device such as a USB flash drive or hard drive.
• Encrypts a partition or drive where Windows is installed (pre-boot authentication).
• Encryption is automatic, real-time(on-the-fly) and transparent.
• Parallelization and pipelining allow data to be read and written as fast as if the drive was not encrypted.
• Encryption can be hardware-accelerated on modern processors.
• Provides plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password: Hidden volume (steganography) and hidden operating system.
• More information about the features of VeraCrypt may be found in the documentation

#2: AxCrypt – One of the best free Encryption Software for Windows

Another great free encryption software for Windows is AxCrypt. It is an encryption software developed in Sweden and has cryptographic primitives AES and SHA-1.

This tool even allows you to create encrypted files that can be opened without having to install AxCrypt on a PC.

Key features:

• Open secured files on your mobile device.
• Secure any number of files using strong encryption.
• Right-click integration with Windows Explorer makes AxCrypt the easiest way to secure individual files in Windows.
• Double-click integration makes it as easy to open, edit and save secured files as it is to work with files without security.
• Share keys with others and allow secured files to be opened by other AxCrypt users with their own passwords.
• Secured folders will automatically secure files as required on demand.
• Multilingual support for English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

#3: DiskCryptor

DiskCryptor is a free and open-source full disk encryption system for Microsoft Windows. It allows for the encryption of a PC’s entire hard drive or individual partitions. It supports AES, Twofish, Serpent encryption algorithms, including their combinations.

Originally DiskCryptor was developed as a replacement for DriveCrypt Plus Pack and PGP WDE. The new releases of DiskCryptor are meant as a replacement for BitLocker from Microsoft.

#4: GPG4Win

We sometimes send important files via email. One of the Best Free Encryption Software for Windows that can help you encrypt your files before sharing is Gpg4win.

Gpg4win is an email and file encryption package for most versions of Microsoft Windows, which uses GnuPG public-key cryptography for data encryption and digital signatures.

 Encryption protects the contents against an unwanted party reading it. Digital signatures make sure that it was not modified and comes from a specific sender.

Gpg4win supports both relevant cryptography standards, OpenPGP and S/MIME (X.509), and is the official GnuPG distribution for Windows. It is maintained by the developers of GnuPG. Gpg4win and the software included with Gpg4win are Free Software (Open Source; among other things free of charge for all commercial and non-commercial purposes).

#5: 7zip

Most people are already familiar with this tool. 7zip is one of the best file encryption software for Windows. It allows you to create secured archive files that can only be accessed by those who have the password. Some of its keep features include:

• High compression ratio in 7z format with LZMA and LZMA2 compression
• Supported formats:
  • Packing/unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM
  • Unpacking only: AR, ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DMG, EXT, FAT, GPT, HFS, IHEX, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, QCOW2, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, UEFI, VDI, VHD, VMDK, WIM, XAR and Z.
• For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
• Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
• Self-extracting capability for 7z format
• Integration with Windows Shell
• Powerful File Manager
• Powerful command-line version
• Plugin for FAR Manager
• Localizations for 87 languages