Simple Startup Password attempts to change this by password protecting the Chrome startup. The extension displays a password prompt on browser start. It is not possible to use the browser before the password has been supplied. It is however still possible to see a page in the active tab, the tabs and browser interface.

The password needs to be added to the browser before you’ll be prompted for it on every start. This is done with a click on the wrench icon, and the selection of Tools > Extensions from the context menu.

Locate the Simple Startup Password extension in the listing and click on the Options link next to it. You are then asked to enter a password that protects the web browser from the moment you click on the Save button.

Failure to supply the correct password will terminate the browser window. A click on cancel in the password prompt window has the same effect.

This extension may keep inexperienced computer users at bay. Tech savvy users on the other hand can easily bypass the password protection. Probably the easiest option available is to move the extension folder out of the Chrome directory. This is like uninstalling the extension in the browser. Once you have moved the folder you can access the browser without having to supply the correct password.

Windows users find the Chrome extensions folder here:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions\

Why move? Because you can move the extension folder back to the Chrome directory once you have used the browser. The original owner in this case does not know that someone else has accessed the browser. There are however traces left that may reveal the information, for instance new history items or cached files.

You can download and install Simple Startup Password for Chrome from the official Google Chrome web store. (via)

On the other hand, many families use only one user account on a system, either because it is more comfortable or because they do not know how to do it in first place.

A portable application like AppAdmin provides basic protection in those cases. The application can be used to block applications from being executed in Windows. The process of adding files to the list of protected applications is intuitive.

Users simply need to click on Block which opens a file browser. They then select the file to block and from that moment on, it cannot be opened anymore.

Applications can be unblocked again by ticking a checkbox and selecting the unblock selected option. This unfortunately removes the application from the listing, which has the consequence that it needs to be added again at a later time using the file browser. Not very comfortable.

It also means that users who are allowed to access the blocked files need to open the program as well to unblock the applications.

This limits the application quite a bit. Still, it may prove to be useful to block applications in different user accounts. Then again, there are other ways to do that.

AppAdmin can be password protected, to prevent that other users unblock blocked applications.

The program uses the Registry to block those files in Windows, just like it is possible with Group Policy settings that are available in some editions of the Windows operating system.

AppAdmin has some usability issues that the developer should try to fix. Especially a history, or an easier option to unblock files would improve the usability by a mile.

The portable software is compatible with most versions of the Windows operating system, including Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Downloads are offered at the developer’s website.

In this article I am going to show you more than one way to do this: Using permissions, using zip, and using encryption. Hopefully, in the end, you will have a method that suits your needs and your abilities.

The tools

Most likely you already have all of the tools you need installed. There could be a slight chance that gpg is not installed. To find out issue the command which gpg. This command should return the version of gpg you have installed. You should also know (as if you don’t already know) that these tasks will all be completed from the command line. So open up your favorite terminal and get ready to type.

Permissions

Since we’re talking about Linux, keeping other users from seeing your files/folders is actually quite simple. All you need to do is make sure the read permissions for other and group are not set. So let’s say you create a folder in your home directory called ~/TEST. By default the permissions on that folder will be:

drwxr-xr-x

This means that anyone in your group and all others can read and execute from within that directory. Let’s remove those permissions. To do so issue the command:

chmod -R go-rx TEST

Now the only user that can read, write, or execute from within your TEST directory is you. There is one problem with that – the root user will still have access to that folder. Or anyone with your user password for that matter. So let’s take this one step further.

Zip

You may not have known this, but you can encrypt a zipped file. Let’s say you don’t want any user on the system seeing the contents of that particular folder. To do that with the zip command is easy. The only issue with this is the folder will now be in zipped form and the only way for you to view the contents is to unzip it. That’s simple to do as well. But let’s zip and encrypt using the same folder ~/TEST. To zip and encrypt this folder you would issue the command:

zip -e -r TEST TEST

You will be prompted for a password for the encryption. The above command would complete with an encrypted TEST.zip file and leave the TEST folder behind. You would then want to delete that folder so no one could see the contents. To unzip that same folder issue the command:

unzip TEST

You will then be prompted for the same password you gave for the encryption. Once you successfully enter the password the file will be unzipped.

Nautilus

There is a very simple way to encrypt files from within the Nautilus file manager. To do this you will need to install the following:

• seahorse
• seahorse-plugins

Seahorse is an encryption front-end for the GNOME desktop. More than likely seahorse is already installed, but seahorse is not. To install seahorse-plugins open up your Add/Remove Software tool, search for “seahorse” (no quotes), mark both for installation (if seahorse is already installed only mark seahorse-plugins), and click Apply to install.

Once this is install you will need to log out and log back in to apply the changes to Nautilus. After you have logged back in open up Nautilus and right click on a file or folder. You should now see, in the action menu, an entry for Encryption. You can either encrypt a single file or folder. You will, of course, have to already have created your gpg key in order to do this. But don’t worry, you can create your gpg key from within Seahorse. Upon encrypting a file or folder, the only people that can  see the contents of that file or folder will be those with your encryption key.

Final thoughts

There are so many ways to protect your files/folders in Linux. Some of the above methods are much more secure than others, but each method will get you to where you want to be – safe.

Desklock is a simple application for the Windows operating system that can be used to password protect programs. It places an icon in the system tray after startup which can be right-click to open a context menu with option to configure the programs that should be password protected. The default password to access the settings and password protected programs is 2.

The main menu with all password protected programs will be displayed after entering the right password in the form. The same password prompt will be displayed if a user tries to open a protected program.

Additional options can be configured for each program including hotkeys, transparency and to hide the program icon when the program gets minimized by the user. How safe is the password protection? Desklock appears in the Windows Task Manager from where it can be killed easily with the appropriate rights. Terminating the process would enable access to all password protected files. It is therefor recommended to install this software on limited user accounts that do not have admin rights to kill processes.

Desklock is available at the developer’s website.

The only way to password protect data is to use encryption. It would theoretically be possible to zip or compress the files and use a password to protect them which would however mean that the data would need to be uncompressed before it could be used.

All you need to password protect CDs or DVDs is True Crypt (or another software that can create encrypted containers). The Open Source encryption software can create so called containers that can be filled with data. These containers are password protected and can only be accessed if the correct password is supplied. The user does need True Crypt on the other hand to access the CDs and DVDs.

Start by downloading True Crypt from the official website. Click on the Create Volume button after installation. This opens a wizard that can be used to create an encrypted file container.

Select to create a standard True Crypt volume.

Now select a filename and location on the hard drive for the container.

Keep the algorithms and select an appropriate size for the container. You might need to experiment with the sizes a bit. If sizes do not matter that much select 650 Megabytes for a CD container and 4000 Megabytes for a DVD container.

Now select a password and use the format button to format the container.

Now that the container is created it needs to be mounted which basically means to use the password to make it accessible in Windows. Click on the select file button in the True Crypt main menu and locate the created container. Now select the Mount button. True Crypt will ask for a password. Just enter the password supplied to access the container. The container becomes available as a drive letter in Windows then. You can now transfer data in the container. Once all data has been added it can be burned to CD or DVD depending on the size of the container.

The user then needs to select the file on the CD or DVD whenever data on the disc should be accessed. Everything else will remain the same.

Androsa FileProtector is a software to password protect files in the Windows operating system. It can be downloaded as a portable version or one that has to be installed on the computer system. Three different encryption algorithms can be selected to password protect the files including 256 bit AES encryption.

Using the software program is actually pretty straightforward. Files can be added by the file browser. The files that have been added can then be password protected in the next step. The FileProtector will then encrypt the selected files and change their file extension to .afp. That file extension is automatically assigned to the software if it was installed on the computer system. Portable users will have to assign it or select the program from a list if they want to decrypt protected files.

The software can also delete files securely by overwriting them a number of times. This is an important step as the original files will be deleted after the encrypted copy has been created. Androsa FileProtector will display a password prompt if the file is executed on the computer system.

Game Protector could be the solution here. (There are many others like creating separate user profiles for example). The application can password protect any executable that you select. While it is called Game Protector it can virtually protect any other executable as well. Usage is simple and straightforward.

The user browses to the folder the executable is in and selects it in the file browser. He then enters the password to protect the file from users who do not have the password. It is also possible to change the icon of the executable and to rename it.

A click on Protect will protect the executable with the password. The main interface contains options to create a backup first and to unprotect an executable again.

A password box is displayed whenever a protected executable is launched. Entering the password will start the executable normally while a false password will simply display the form again. One advantage of this service is that Game Protector does not have to be running in the background to protect the executable.

I use it mainly to secure certain directories on my websites from being accessed without the proper authorization. This is the admin directory in the case of WordPress for instance but could also be used to secure a directory that hosts some valuable files.

I would like to point out two possibilities that secure a directory with .htacess. The first is to protect the directory by only allowing users with a certain IP or IP range access to it. Everyone else would receive an access denied error message.

The second possibility would be to create usernames and passwords that have to be supplied before accessing the content.

IP Protection:

Create a .htaccess file and add the following code to it:

AuthName "Protected Content"
AuthType Basic

order deny,allow
deny from all
#Comment
allow from 255.255.255.255


Change the IP address in the last line to the one used by the user / users. You can use wildcards * if the user is receiving dynamic IPs from his ISP. It is possible to add as many allow from lines to the .htaccess file as you want. Place that htaccess file in the directory that you want to protect. (all subdirectories are affected as well.

The problem with this kind of protection is twofold. If your IP changes, say you are on holiday or accessing from a different location, you need to add or change the IPs in the htaccess code. Users who happen to have a IP of that range can access the content without problems. This is usually a user from the same ISP.

A more secure protection is the basic auth protection.

Password Protection:

Whenever a user tries to access a directory or file a popup will appear asking the user for a username and password. This method requires two files, a htaccess file and a htpasswd file. The htpasswd file stores the usernames and encrypted passwords and should be placed outside of the root directory of the website.

AuthName "Restricted Area"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /path/to/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
require valid-user

Since the passwords are encrypted you need to use a script to do that. A working one is the htpasswd Content Generator. Just enter a username and password and click on encrypt. Paste the line on the results page into the htpasswd file and place it exactly in the path that you specified in AuthUserFile.

It is possible to combine both protections for added security. I would begin by evaluating if your webhost is allowing those kind of files.