When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works

Home / Hot Stuff / Tablets & computers / Keep Stick is the safest thumb drive around

Keep Stick is the safest thumb drive around

Security on a stick

As USB sticks go, the Keep Stick (£89.94, keepstick.com) doesn’t look like a very interesting one. There’s no novelty shape, like a taco or a toothbrush, and the 32GB of storage inside is paltry compared to the 2TB monsters we’ve seen for sale. But plug the Keep Stick into your Mac or PC and it lets you boot into a completely secure Linux-based operating system, with its own VPN, PGP-encrypted email, Firefox for web browsing and LibreOffice for work stuff, meaning everything you do is protected from online baddies. Perfect if you’re not sure you can trust the Wi-Fi in this hacker cafe. That OS only leaves you with 18GB of usable storage, and there’s a £9.96 monthly subscription charge to pay, but if simple plug-and-play security is what you’re after, what’s the price of peace of mind?

Profile image of Tom Wiggins Tom Wiggins Contributor

About

Stuff's second Tom has been writing for the magazine and website since 2006, when smartphones were only for massive nerds and you could say “Alexa” out loud without a robot answering. Over the years he’s written about everything from MP3s to NFTs, played FIFA with Trent Alexander-Arnold, and amassed a really quite impressive collection of USB sticks.

Areas of expertise

A bit of everything but definitely not cameras.