Hi, I'm not a techie and I want to encrypt my stuff. I searched for old threads and found <i>old</i> threads [1] (2016) and [2] (2010). This is what I compressed:<p>- MacOS: FileVault2<p>- Linux (which I don't have): luks/ dm-crypt<p>- Windows: Bitlocker<p>- Hard drives: VeraCrypt (TrueCrypt back then)<p>Is this fine these days? Are there other, better (and user-friendly) options?<p>Protecting myself against three letters or anything is not the requirement here. I want my diary, notes, pictures, etc. safe from people (not institutions).<p>[1] Ask HN: How do you encrypt your laptops? (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11761491)<p>[2] Ask HN: Do you encrypt your laptop's hard disk? (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1683255)
Practically all famous Linux distro's offer built in encryption when setting up a new system using luks/dm-crypt. But you don't have to worry about it.<p>To encrypt a Windows 10 system u can use Veracrypt to boot the whole OS or just a container.<p>For Windows (Enterprise) you can also use BitLocker by Microsoft although the source code isn't trusted and I believe you have have a more expensive license in order to use it.<p>Yes you should encrypt your laptop. It's worth it in case you lose a laptop or it gets stolen nobody can read the data.
One additional note about VeraCrypt is that it's not just for encrypting hard drives. You can also create encrypted file-based volumes that mount to your OS like an external drive.<p>It's an easy and unobtrusive way to get started with encrypting your files, and it's cross-platform to all the OSes VeraCrypt supports (macOS/Windows/Linux/etc).
One extra vote for Veracrypt (<a href="https://www.veracrypt.fr" rel="nofollow">https://www.veracrypt.fr</a>). It's safe, has passed security audit, gets updated frequently, multi platform support with downloads for all OSes and it's free. Although it supports whole disk encryption, it's more suited for a virtual encrypted disk within a file.