File Guardian

File Guardian is a software program that enables you to prevent other users from modifying your files without permission by monitoring them, in accordance with the rules you define. It sports several advanced settings that are intuitive enough to be figured out by users.

Outdated application

Before proceeding any further, you should know that the program hasn't been updated for a very long time, and it's not compatible with later Windows editions. This aspect can be clearly noticed when judging its interface.

Plain and simple interface

File Guardian adopts a classical window with an outdated look, which allows you to easily tinker with settings.
You can select a drive and folder to monitor, browse a list with all containing files, and select the ones you want to add to the monitor list.

Select the file to monitor and set the checkup frequency

As far as configuration settings are concerned, you can specify the time frequency for quick and thorough file checks as well as for verifying unidentified files, ask the app to show warnings on suspicious events or if it's unable to check files, as well as save the new file with modifications for examination.
The automatic protection module can be disabled any time, and you can also manually check the monitored files.

Evaluation and conclusion

No error dialogs were displayed in our tests, and the software utility didn't hang or crash. Its impact on system performance was minimal, thanks to the fact that it required low CPU and RAM to work properly.
On the other hand, File Guardian hasn't been updated for a long time, so it's useless for modern Windows. However, if you're still running older OS editions, you can definitely give it a shot for monitoring and protecting personal files.