Arten Science announced Monday the release of R10 Cipher 3, an upgrade to the company's file and text encryption and decryption tool. The new version features the addition of Key Management, and increases the encryption strength from 128 bit to 384 bits.

R10 Cipher allows users to exchange fully encrypted information through the use of a "shared secret" key. Once encrypted, a file can be sent to another R10 Cipher user on Mac OS X, Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, Linux, and if they have the "shared secret," the file can be opened, even if it was created on a different platform.

The new version not only dramatically increases the encryption strength from 128 bit to 384 bit, it adds a key management feature that allows users to maintain and manage all of their "shared secret" keys.

R10 Cipher also does not require itself it be installed on the system it is being used on -- for instance, it can be installed on a USB thumb drive and used on whatever host computer desired. The software offers drag-and-drop ease of use.

A client that can decrypt-only is free to use, which allows recipients to decrypt your files without having to pay. A client that can encrypt is priced at £18 (US$30.47) for a single user license and £140 ($237.05) for a corporate site license.