How secure and portable are Cryptkeeper encrypted folders?

I have some questions about Cryptkeeper.

1. Is it safe to use Cryptkeeper for password protecting folders in ubuntu?Is there a chance that using Cryptkeeper causes data loss?(in cases other than loosing your password)
2. what happens to encrypted folders when Cryptkeeper is uninstalled?
3. Are encrypted folders just encrypted in Linux distros or are they encrypted on Windows operating systems too?

1 Answer

Regarding the 1st question: How secure the data is largely depends on the user. EncFS works with a private and public folder where the public folder is the encrypted version that can be used to upload to an on-line service or across machines. If for example you place an unencrypted file inside the public folder it will be shared making the contents visible to anyone.

If you log in the private folder will not be mounted. A user that would assume something is broken and starts messing with it, instead of just mounting the private folder will loose data. Mind though that "user" here might not be "you".

Is there a chance that using Cryptkeeper causes data loss?

Here you are probably misunderstanding and also as an answer to your 2nd question: Cryptkeeper is a tool to make it easier to mount/unmount encypted folders. It has nothing to do with the actual encryption. That is done with EncFS.

Question 3 is off topic but as a general answer: EncFS is not Ubuntu specific and can be used on all Linux systems. It will act the same on all those systems; only the method of installation will differ (rpm, yast instead of apt-get). Regarding Windows: there is an experimental implementation of EncFS call EncFSWin. To me an indication to stay away from it unless you make sure to keep the originals away from it (if "experimental" means you someday face an unrecoverable bug you still have the originals).