Steganos OnlineSafe

Some things are simply best kept safe and private, from information on bank accounts, passports and passwords, through to ‘just in case’ things like photos of your valuables for insurance purposes. All of these things and more can benefit from being held in a secure place, where they’re safe from being lost and nobody else can get at them. Steganos OnlineSafe is like a web version of a safety deposit box in a bank – rent a bit of space and it’ll keep all your important files and personal information in a highly secure box that you can access any time you like.

Features
To access the service you need to download the program and enter a registration key. You can then set up a password and a connection can be made between the software and your online safe, which starts at 500MB of space. A drive letter is assigned to it, so it can be accessed directly through My Computer. Of course, all this is useless if the computer it’s stored on goes out of action, so Steganos provides two separate servers that you can back up your data to in its entirety, which should be more than sufficient to ensure that you never lose anything.

Performance
Your data is only as secure as your password, so OnlineSafe gives advice on how good yours is when you set it up. Alternatively, you could use Steganos’s excellent picture passwords, which let you choose a sequence of images from a selection on screen – perfect for outwitting keyboard loggers. The software uses 256-bit AES encryption (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard), which is widely considered to be excellent.Even if someone could get access to your safe, the data inside would still be gobbledegook without the password.

Ease of use
Unlike recent rivals that we’ve reviewed, this also lets you work on documents without downloading them from the web. The space works just like a hard disk, so you can run documents and files directly from the safe. This saves a lot of bother if you want to make a quick update to a file. Because of the way the encryption works, you can only get to your files by having the software running. This makes it slightly less easy to use – you couldn’t use it to access your files from a different PC, for example, unless you’ve installed the software there too – but it does add another layer of protection to your files.

Value for money
A highly encrypted place on the web to store your files isn’t cheap. You can hire 500MB of space for a monthly £3.95; commit to a year for £39.95 (or £3.33 per month); double up on space and get 1GB for £69.95 per year (£5.83 per month); or go crazy and get 10GB for £169.95 per year (£14.16 per month). If you’re looking for standard back-up you could certainly do better by shopping around. However, it probably wouldn’t provide the privacy and safety that Steganos offers.