It`s not a secret that you can un-delete files very effective with special programs for that unless you used secure deletion.
Let`s assmue you travel with your usb stick or usb harddrive. You trust the admin not to have installed keyloggers or something similar on purpose.
Now if starting apps from your usb device which was not portable by default but have been ported to portable by a launcher (like portableapps.com is doing so).
Temporary files are written to the local disk of the computer you are using. After the program got terminated the launcher will move all files from local device to your usb device.
Now imagine the admin sells this box. The new owner could with some luck still un-delete your files and read them. I think this is a big privacy problem.
I did thought about workarrounds for that. I think programs with launcher are always with low privacy. For example for firefox/thunderbird it`s better to start the "non portable" version and to use -profile command line switch. That way files are not saved temporary on harddisk.
But still much things may happen, them may be written to windows swap file. I think there is no good way to secure delete everything on temporary files you have written on guest computer.
From that view it would be even saver to use web applications. You just travel with your browser, login over an encrypted connection, work online, shut down browser. That way you shouldn´t leave informations which can be restored years ago.
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How do you think Firefox Portable et al work? They use the built in abilities of apps to redirect the profile. Your FF profile is stored on your portable device. Same with TB. We make use of the -profile switch to do the redirection. (The launcher does lots of other stuff, too, of course). The only thing FF stores locally is files you open directly in another app (ex: you have FFP configured to open SumatraPDF Portable when you click on a PDF file), and this is noted right on the mimetypes topic on the support page.
And web apps have their own issues. First, they're not over encrypted connections (it adds to bandwidth and hence expense), so everybody can see what you're doing. Second, they keep stuff locally in the browser's cache. Third, you have to trust some random outside company to keep your data safe... will they?
Please don't go off half-cocked making assumptions about the way something works.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
to an untrusted application/system (the web?).
As in Google? Who is known to save EVERYTHING for EVER. Sure maybe no-one will ever get it, but 100 years from now your great grandchildren could, potentially, find out everything you ever did on Google.
Is it likely? No. Is it possible? Definitely.
Have an Awesome Day!
You are worried about things like that? Why would anyone bother with that hassle? You can have all your data copied without even knowing it just from connecting your drive to the "wrong" machine. No need to recover it. Trust me, there are far easier ways of getting your data than farking with undelete tools.
~Lurk~
if the system admin was smart he would use hard drive wiping software before selling it or giving it away, since reformatting it is not enough. If you are throwing it away I would simply destroy the hard drive.
I wouldn`t really use google web apps.
But rather host it on my own comp and to connect thought an encrypted connection. Indeed this would also not be a perfect solution.
However, many valid arguments have been given.