The verdict
While all the tools in this Roundup work as advertised, we’re on the lookout for the one that’s intuitive to use. EncFS doesn’t score well here because it’s CLI-only, so you’ll have to switch to the terminal to create folders to house your encrypted data. However, it isn’t all that tricky to do so. Once you’ve created the encrypted folders, you do get graphical tools to manage interactions with them. While it’ll grow on you, it loses out to the others because it lacks a graphical interface.
Its diametric opposite is AESCrypt. The program is simple to use and poses no learning curve whatsoever. If you want to reap the benefits of encryption with the least amount of time investment, then use AESCrypt. However, its simplicity and lack of configurability limits its appeal.
KGpg, being a KDE program, doesn’t suffer from the lack of configurable options. But it comes in last because symmetric encryption isn’t its strongest suit. Yes, KGpg is perhaps one of the best frontends to GPG. But GPG is mainly used for its implementation of public key cryptography that involves two keys and uses the recipient’s public key for encryption.
It’s a close contest between VeraCrypt and zuluCrypt. Both programs employ easy-to-use graphical interfaces and make light work of creating and using encrypted silos for securing any kind of data. VeraCrypt is a fork of the popular but controversial TrueCrypt program and retains its familiar interface. You can also install it on Windows and Mac OS X besides Linux which makes it cross-platform unlike the Linuxonly zuluCrypt.
That said we’ll award first place to zuluCrypt for a variety of reasons. First, it can work with multiple container types including those created with TrueCrypt, which makes it more versatile. Furthermore, zuluCrypt is more intuitive of the two. Its menus are better labelled and offer a clearer starting point that more than makes up for its weak support infrastructure.
“zuluCrypt’s menus are better labelled that makes up for its weak support infrastructure”