EncFS provides an encrypted file system, layered on top of a normal
directory tree and encrypts individual files which are stored in the
hosting directory tree.

This has several advantages over the loopback encryption which
provided by the Linux kernel: - No space is and has to be
reserved, encrypted files only take the space that they really
occupy

- Backups: encrypted files can be individually backed-up on the host
filesystem

- Layering: Since it's hosted on a normal filesystem, encfs can be
used on filesystems which normally have no support encryption,
like NFS or other userspace filesystems.

EncFS is implemented as a userspace filesystem in an unprivileged
application using fuse (FUSE (Filesystem in USErspace)).