Can someone give me the names of suitable Linux software I should be looking for to enable me to password protection/encrypt folders/files in Linux? In Windows, the program Winzip enabled the user to select a password for any file/s or folders to be zipped. Then the only way to open the archive was to enter the password.

I have ARK and File Roller for Gnome (I am running Ubuntu 7.10) but cannot see any password protection built into these...

The gpg program can encrypt files. I use kde so I would install the kgpg front end. Decrypting a file would entail simply double clicking on it and entering a password. You can also use openssl to encrypt/decrypt files. If you want to have a directory that is encrypted, you can create an encrypted filesystem and have it mounted on a directory. Then just use it as a normal directory. You can even have your /home partition encrypted. Then you enter the passphrase when you boot up. You probably have the option to do this when you install.

You could do it one of two ways:

1) Use an archive type that supports encryption, such as 7zip (or p7zip for linux).
2) Use an encryption program such as gpg (with kgpg) as suggested or I use mcrypt (no nice frontends for it tho, gotta use the command line of make yourself a script).

EDIT: Oh, and don't use zip with password protection, it has very weak encryption, takes minutes or sometimes seconds to crack.

In Nautilus, the Gnome file manager, there is an option where you right-click on a folder or file and choose encrypt. I am not sure which package provides this functionality but I believe it is the seahorse package for Fedora 8. The method of encryption used is pgp:

$ apropos pgp
gpg (1) - OpenPGP encryption and signing tool
gpg2 (1) - OpenPGP encryption and signing tool
gpgparsemail (1) - Parse a mail message into an annotated format
gpgv (1) - Verify OpenPGP signatures
gpgv2 (1) - Verify OpenPGP signatures
seahorse-tool (1) - PGP/GnuPG file encryption for the GNOME Desktop

Thank you all for your prompt replies - you've certainly given me a few leads to try.