The best alternative to Windows 8 BitLocker

BitLocker Disk Encryption is a full-disk encryption system provided by Microsoft in recent versions of Windows. Windows 8 BitLocker also supports disaster recovery for encryption systems and data. BitLocker also integrates many management tools such as Active Directory.

What is the best BitLocker replacement?

There is also a shortage of convenient and powerful BitLocker. The biggest limitation is that it only supports a subset of Windows: Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista Enterprise /Ultimate, Windows 7 Enterprise /Ultimate and Windows 8 Professional /Enterprise.

BitLocker also requires Trusted Platform Mode (TPM), although it can be changed by editing Group Policy settings, but in reality the biggest limitation is that only specific versions of Windows are supported.

The most common and widely used alternative to Windows disk encryption is a free program called TrueCrypt. TrueCrypt is based on an earlier program called E4M (Encryption for the Masses). TrueCrypt was launched in 2004 and the latest version is 7.1a. Like BitLocker, it supports encrypting entire volumes, including system volumes.

Unlike Windows 8 BitLocker, TrueCrypt supports all versions of Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and Windows Server (from 2003 onward). It does not support Windows RT or any IA-64 version of Windows.

TrueCrypt also has some features that BitLocker doesn't have. One of them is that TrueCrypt allows you to install an arbitrarily sized file as an encrypted drive. For example, a 20GB file can be used as a 20GB encrypted disk. This file can be placed anywhere —— network share, USB hard drive or local file system.

Another alternative to BitLocker is FreeOTFE—— OTFE means on the fly encryption—— both conceptually and functionally similar to BitLocker. It also has features that are not available in both BitLocker and TrueCrypt, such as the ability to allow users to access encrypted disks without the need for a FreeOTFE driver. However, FreeOTFE has not been updated since 2010, so TrueCrypt is the default alternative.

On the other hand, neither TrueCrypt nor FreeOTFE have the ability to host or centrally manage the same key for Windows 8 BitLocker. This greatly reduces their appeal to administrators, but end users can take advantage of them, especially when they run Windows systems that BitLocker does not support.