Most security and privacy products evolve over time, adding new features or enhancing features they’ve already got. It’s a little sad when, instead, a product dwindles from a full suite of tools down to a simple bundle, but that’s just what has happened to Steganos Privacy Suite. With all other privacy features gone, it’s currently just a bundle of the Steganos Safe encryption tool and Steganos Password Manager, and the password manager component is weak. Only the file encryption component is worth your attention.
How Much Does Steganos Privacy Suite Cost?
These days you pay for most security products with a yearly subscription. That gets you all updates to the security software, and it also pays for the encrypted online storage of your passwords and other secrets. With Steganos, your $49.99 payment lets you install the product on up to five PCs and keep using it indefinitely. You only pay again if you want to upgrade to a newer version.
The suite includes fully functional instances of Steganos Safe, which costs $34.99 as a standalone, and Steganos Password Manager, which goes for $24.99. Buying the suite instead saves you about $10, presuming you wanted to purchase both products. On the other hand, buying Steganos Safe alone, without the unimpressive password manager, saves you $25.
Encryption-specific products Folder Lock and CryptoForge cost just under $40, while Cypherix PE and CryptoExpert go for $45 and $59.95 respectively. These are also one-time prices, but they just give you a single installation. Considered strictly on a per-license basis, the five-license package that Steganos offers is a bargain. Abine Blur offers a wide range of privacy features (but not encryption). You pay $39 per year for Blur.
Getting Started With Steganos
After the quick, simple installation, Steganos displays its simple main window. If you haven’t looked at this product in a few years, you’ll find it’s changed quite a bit. Previously, the left side of the main window contained a matrix of eight icons representing the suite’s features: Safe, Password Manager, Shredder, Trace Destructor, Crypt & Hide, Private Favorites, Portable Safe, and Privacy. On the right was a kind of security progress report, encouraging you to make use of those features.
The current suite’s main window is smaller and simpler. Large icons at the left open Steganos Safe and Steganos Password Manager. Two of the four buttons on the right serve to open a safe or create a new one. The other two let you open a keychain (meaning a password collection) or create a new one.
As with the other Steganos products, you now have several choices as to the overall appearance. You can choose a Modern or Classic layout, and you can select Light, Medium, or Dark color schemes. The screenshots in this article use a mix of different themes.
Steganos Safe
As noted, you get the full Steganos Safe utility as part of your privacy suite. You can read my review of Steganos Safe for all the juicy details. I’ll summarize here.
The Steganos Safe utility lets you create encrypted containers, called safes, for your important files. You can store safes on a local drive, on a removable drive, or in your cloud storage account (Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive). You can also convert an entire disk partition into a safe; note that doing so necessarily formats the partition, wiping out all existing data.
Like Editors’ Choice tools CertainSafe, AxCrypt Premium, and Folder Lock, Steganos uses government-approved Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) for all encryption. However, it cranks the key size up from the usual 256 bits to 384 bits.
The company’s name, Steganos, comes from the word steganography, which means the art of hiding something so well it’s not obvious that anything was hidden. Indeed, you can hide a small enough safe inside a video, audio, or executable file. There’s also an odd feature called Safe in a Safe, whereby you devote a certain percentage of an existing safe to another safe within it. Which safe opens depends on which password you use. However, you can lose your Safe in a Safe simply by putting too much data in the “host” safe, so this feature is a bit iffy.
There’s not much point in putting a secret document into a safe if you leave an unprotected copy lying around. Steganos adds a Destroy item to the right-click menu for files and folders. Invoking this command overwrites the item’s data before deletion, which is enough to foil forensic recovery software.
You can also invoke a comprehensive secure deletion utility by clicking the File Shredder icon in the main window. This tool can overwrite all free space, effectively shredding previously deleted files. It can also completely wipe a drive, partitions and all.
Steganos Safe is a capable encryption utility. It doesn’t offer all features found in some competing products, but it’s easy to use and offers a wide range of ways to protect your sensitive files.
Steganos Password Manager
If all your passwords are “123456” or “Kamala,” you’re a security accident waiting to happen. A breach that exposes one of your accounts effectively exposes them all. You really should use a different password for every site, one that’s complex enough that nobody could guess it. And the only practical way to do that is with a password manager.
We put Steganos Password Manager to the test and found it seriously lacking in several areas. Please read the full review for information beyond the summary that follows.
As with most competing products, you start your Steganos experience by creating a strong master password. But unlike most competing products, Steganos doesn’t automatically sync between devices. If you want syncing, you must configure it to use your own cloud storage service (Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive). Once you’ve done that, you can set up read-only password access for any number of Android or iOS devices; these don’t count against your five licenses.
With all your passwords stored in one password manager, protecting that treasure trove becomes extremely important. Steganos supports two-factor authentication using Google Authenticator or a compatible Time-based One Time Password (TOTP) utility.
When you log in to a secure site, the password manager’s Chrome, Edge, or Firefox extension captures your credentials without waiting for confirmation, sliding in a small notification at the bottom right of the screen. At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen. In testing with common sites, Steganos didn’t capture anything, and manually choosing Save Form to Keychain didn’t work.
In addition to passwords, Steganos can store bank accounts, credit cards, private favorites, and identities. Private Favorites are simply bookmarks that sync along with your passwords, so you can use them on all your devices. Think of them as login entries minus the login credentials. The last item, Identities, refers to a limited set of private data for use filling web forms. In testing, we couldn’t make it fill any forms, and our Steganos contact confirmed that this feature is not working at present.
Steganos Password Manager does offer some interesting features. You can create a read-only portable edition to carry with you. A virtual keyboard prevents keyloggers, even hardware-based ones, from capturing your master password. And it includes the expected password generator, with true randomization based on user activity. Overall, though, it’s disappointing. Editor’s Choice free password managers LastPass and Myki Password Manager & Authenticator are more effective, and the best commercial ones leave Steganos in the dust.
What’s Not Here
Some years ago, this suite included the Steganos Online Shield VPN. This product currently costs $49.99 per year as a standalone, so it’s understandable the company decided not to give it away with the suite, which goes for a one-time price of $49.99. In any case, when PCMag’s VPN expert Max Eddy reviewed an earlier edition, he rated it just two stars.
Since that time, many other features have vanished from Steganos Privacy Suite. The Crypt & Hide component worked something like Steganos Safe’s ability to hide a safe inside an audio, video, or executable file. Crypt & Hide would take individual files and hide them within a BMP, WAV, or JPG file. But it’s no longer included.
Trace Destructor no longer appears in Steganos Safe or this suite. This was a simple tool to foil snoops by wiping traces of your browsing and computer use.
Under Privacy, Steganos used to offer webcam protection, ad blocking, active Do Not Track, and “fuzzing” of browser details to avoid fingerprinting, similar to what TrackOFF does. These features proved troublesome in testing, with some crashes and some silent failures. Now the troubles are gone, because the features are gone.
Another Take on Privacy
Abine Blur Premium is another suite of tools aimed at protecting your privacy. Its active Do Not Track (DNT) component goes way beyond just sending the DNT header, which websites can ignore. Furthermore, unlike what Steganos used to do, it makes its DNT activity visible. It includes a simple password manager that goes beyond Steganos in many ways, including a safety report that flags weak and duplicate passwords.
Blur protects your privacy by masking email accounts, credit cards, and (on a smartphone) phone numbers. Suppose you make a purchase from a merchant using a masked email account, and a masked credit card. Mail from the merchant reaches your regular email inbox, even though the merchant doesn’t have that address. If the masked account starts getting spam, just delete it (and find a merchant with better practices). Likewise, a merchant who doesn’t have your real credit card number can’t sell the card data or overcharge you. Read my review for a full explanation.
Blur doesn’t block ads, and it doesn’t include file encryption, but its components are all directly aimed at protecting your privacy. Even if you do install the Steganos suite, consider trying Blur’s free edition for additional protection. Note that the $39-per-year premium subscription lets you use Blur on all your devices.
Do You Already Have Privacy Protection?
You may also find that you’ve already got significant privacy protection courtesy of your security suite. For example, Kaspersky Internet Security and Bitdefender Antivirus Plus include an active Do Not Track system, like what Blur offers, and Kaspersky can block banner ads. Webcam protection in Bitdefender, Kaspersky and ESET goes farther than what you used to get with Steganos.
As for encrypted storage, the core of Steganos Privacy Suite, you can find a similar feature in many security suites, among them Bitdefender Total Security, Kaspersky, and Trend Micro. Admittedly, none of the suites build out this feature into the comprehensive encryption system that is Steganos Safe.
Password management is becoming a common bonus feature in larger suites. McAfee comes with all the multi-factor authentication glory of True Key. Norton 360 Deluxe, Trend Micro, ESET, Kaspersky, and Bitdefender are among the other suites with a password manager built right in.
Before you purchase a set of privacy tools, check to see what you already have right in your existing security suite.
Stick With Steganos Safe
Steganos Safe is the best part of Steganos Privacy Suite. It offers multiple locations for encrypted file safes, along with the ability to convert a whole partition to a safe. It can also conceal the very existence of a safe, and it supports two-factor authentication. Steganos Password Manager covers basic password tasks, but it had trouble capturing common websites that competing products handle with ease. The remaining privacy components that used to round out this suite are simply gone. That being the case, there’s no reason to buy this suite. If you want Steganos encryption, just get Steganos Safe.
There are many different approaches to protecting your privacy. These include encrypting your email messages, hiding your actual email address, blocking ad trackers, and more. Among the tools we’ve examined, Abine Blur offers the broadest set of privacy tools. It remains an Editors’ Choice for privacy protection. Protecting privacy in a completely different way, the free and simple Preveil email encryption system is also an Editors’ Choice for privacy.
