Pocket Desktop launched on Friday its flagship product which allows users to surf the Internet and manage files on anyone's desktop or laptop without compromising the privacy and security of both the user and the host PC. Called Pocket Desktop, it's a USB drive with a bootable Linux-based OS that combines web privacy, file security, virus protection, file backup and file recovery all on one pocket-sized device.
“As technologies became smaller in size, we set out to create an all-in-one solution to enable people to load not just their individual files onto a drive, but their entire computer, complete with the most sophisticated privacy, security, protection and recovery software available," said David Hayek, technology officer for Pocket Desktop. "The second task was to offer this all-in-one solution for the same price as an old-fashioned storage drive."
According to the company, the user simply plugs the device into any computer's USB port and restarts the machine. If the PC is configured to use a USB stick as a bootable option, it will load up the built-in Linux-based Pocket Desktop OS. There users have access to more than 40 popular pre-installed apps like Skype, Open Office and Firefox.
"From this point, the user can perform any routine function on their computer – from word processing to web surfing, chat and more – all with complete privacy, security and back-up ability," the company said on Friday. "The Pocket Desktop is platform-agnostic and works with both Apple and Windows machines."
The tech specs reveal that the USB drive uses 256-bit encryption to protect all files that are created and saved on the device. The core of the Linux-based Pocket Desktop OS is supposedly read-only, preventing viruses and malware from loading. However the device comes with an anti-virus solution pre-installed so that the user can scan and clean the host computer.
Pocket Desktop said on Friday that external files can be backed up to the device as well, and an additional file recovery app can repair and retrieve corrupt files from any computer. Everything that resides on the USB-based pocket PC and cannot be accessed unless the host PC is rebooted into the Pocket Desktop OS.
Pricing for Pocket Desktop is $19.95 for the 4 GB version, $39.95 for the 8 GB model, and $59.99 for the 16 GB model. For more information, check out what Pocket Desktop has to offer here. Now the question is this: will anyone actually let you reboot their desktop or laptop to use this PC-in-a-pocket?
