Secure Data On Android With B-Folders

Ever since I started using Android phones full time, I have been looking for a replacement to eWallet, which is a secure database that runs on the iPhone and Windows Mobile phones but not on Android. I have been using eWallet to securely store passwords and other information that I need to carry with me but want to keep secure. My solution with Android has been to store new information in Evernote and use Evernote's encryption to secure it, use the eWallet viewer on my Android phones to view my older information. Ideally, I would like to get everything into one repository and while I really like Evernote it isn't the fastest way for me to store and retrieve information like this because Evernote only supports encryption of snippets of text rather than total file or even notebook encryption. (Note to Evernote: notebook level encryption would be really, really cool.) I recently discovered B-Folders for Android and find it to be a worthy replacement for eWallet. B-Folders uses the same 256-bit AES encryption on the data store as eWallet and it uses SSL to encrypt network communication while data is being synchronized with desktops. When encrypting data it is important to be able to access that data in multiple ways otherwise the encryption could make it impossible to retrieve the information. For example, eWallet stores information in a file that is then encrypted. I could copy that file to a desktop computer as a backup, but if I lost my phone and there is no way to open that file on a desktop then I couldn't retrieve the information in the file until I had a new phone with eWallet. In short, I think it is important that these type of encryption database programs have a desktop companion for accessing and entering information. B-Folders meets my requirement by having Windows, OS X, and Linux desktop equivalents and it supports synchronization of data between Android phones and the desktop via a local area network. Unlike Evernote, which uses a server in the middle between desktops and mobile devices for synchronization, B-Folders uses a peer-to-peer method for synchronization, so you cannot sync over the Internet. The B-Folders Android app discovers the B-Folders desktop app running on a home network, which you then select to synchronize with. In my use so far I have found synchronization to work very quickly and very well, and while an Internet-based sync solution would be more convenient, the peer-to-peer solution is good enough. Another nice thing is that B-Folders supports importing data from eWallet, and I was able to move all of my eWallet data to B-Folders. One difference between the two programs is that eWallet has more data types than B-Folders, which has five: Note, Bookmark, Login Password, Contact, and Credit Card. When I did the import some of my eWallet password data appear in B-Folders as notes rather than passwords, so the import is not perfect, but it is good enough for me and saves the time of having to manually enter the information. B-Folders supports simple and complex passwords and has a timeout feature so that the database is automatically locked, which is an important feature for multi-tasking phones. The program also supports local backups of the data file to storage cards and it encrypts the file to secure it in case the storage card is lost or stolen. Search is very fast within the program, and data can be copied to the Android clipboard to be used in other programs. The B-Folders Android app is free and available in the Android Market, while the desktop client costs $29.95, but can be used on multiple computers. You will find the desktop version on the developer's web site. A free, 30-day trial is available for the desktop apps so that you can try the total solution for free to determine whether you like it.

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Secure Data On Android With B-Folders

Frank McPherson

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Frank McPherson