BestCrypt Preferences

This chapter describes configurable BestCrypt Preferences menu. To access the Preferences menu, start the BestCrypt Control Panel, click BestCrypt Menu on the system menu bar and select Preferences. The Preferences menu is divided into three pane sections: General, Algorithms and Advanced.

General Preferences

The General preferences pane deals with most basic BestCrypt configuration. Available options are illustrated in the screenshots below and described in further detail:

• Check for updates when BestCrypt starts (default). This ensures that every time BestCrypt starts, it will quickly check for any possible software updates available from Jetico's website. If you wish to disable this feature, you can alternatively check for updates manually through the BestCrypt menu item on the System Menu bar by clicking Check for Update
.
• On mount locate mount point in new Finder window (default). This option will prompt a new Finder window to open automatically when you mount a BestCrypt container, in order to show you the contents of the newly mounted container. Disable this option to suppress this behavior.
• Suppress expired licence warnings. Enable this option if you don't want to see any warnings about an expired licence
• Hide taskbar icon. Enable this option if you don't want the BestCrypt Menu bar icon to be visible. The system-wide hotkey to eject all mounted containers will still work.
• Eject all mounted containers after user inactivity timeout. This option will make BestCrypt automatically eject all currently mounted containers if no user events were generated during the specified timeout value. User events include moving the mouse and pressing keys on the keyboard.
  • User inactivity timeout in minutes. Specify timeout period in minutes in this field.
  • Force eject even if container is busy. Enable this option to eject containers on timeout even if there are files opened from it.

Algorithm Preferences

The Algorithms preferences pane shows information about encryption algorithms available for new containers and allows you to benchmark their performance and configure any options related to encryption:

• Available encryption algorithms table. This function displays information about encryption algorithms that can be employed when creating new containers.
  • Name. This column lists the names of available encryption algorithms. These names also appear in container creation dialog.
  • Key length. This column shows each algorithm encryption key's length in bits. It is strongly advised to choose algorithms with at least 128 bits of key length.
  • Block size. This column displays each algorithm's single encryption block size in bytes. This value usually does not affect security or performance. XTS encryption mode, which is recommended for new containers, is supported only for algorithms with 16 bytes of block length.
• Enable AES-NI hardware acceleration. AES-NI hardware acceleration is a feature of the advanced Intel processors. If your system has one of these processors (e.g., the latest models of MacBook Pro) then this option will be enabled by default to significantly boost AES's (and only AES's) performance. You can disable it if you don't trust Intel processors with your encryption keys. This option takes effect only after reboot.
• Benchmark. This function will run speed tests for all available algorithms.

Advanced Preferences

The Advanced preferences pane contains configurations for two supporting utilities: Keyboard Filter and Container Guard. See the Additional Utilities chapter for more information.

• Enable keyboard filtering. This checkbox enables or disables Keyboard Filter, BestCrypt's anti-keylogging feature. See the Keyboard Filter section for more information. The Test button runs a keyboard filter testing dialog to help you observe the Keyboard Filter in action.
• Enable container guard. This checkbox enables or disables BestCrypt's Container Guard monitoring utility. See the Container Guard section for more information.

See also:

Additional BestCrypt Utilities