This improved the quality of search results for public keys and increased control for users over their public keys stored on the server. 4y I def shouldve explained a little bit better.Ive seen several distributions link the gpg command to the gpg2 binary, so using gpg actually uses gnupg 2.x. Most distributions use 2.x now, but sometimes 1.4.x is installed as well. In August 2019 the default key server was switched to hagrid, a new verifying key server located at . There are two branches of gnupg, theres the older 1.4.x version and the modern 2.x version. While the licensing change was identified in the release notes for GPG Suite 2018.4, many believed that such a big change required more prominent notifications to avoid the perception of "bait and switch". A lot of users that relied on automated upgrades were caught by surprise, which prompted a significant backlash from the community.
In this release, the developer removed the free license option for GPG Mail.
On September 21, 2018, the developer introduced GPG Mail 3.0 as a part of GPG Suite 2018.4, a new software release that included support for macOS Mojave. While GNU Privacy Guard is free open-source software, use of GPG Mail requires purchase of a support plan.
Since 2010 GPG Mail is maintained by GPGTools. GPG Mail was first released on February 7, 2001, by Stéphane Corthésy. It integrates with the default email client Apple Mail under macOS and the actual cryptographic functionality is handled by GNU Privacy Guard. GPG Mail provides public key email encryption and signing. If you want to use Thunderbird with Enigmail for your encrypted email, you should create your first key pair using Enigmail as this has more relevant options to Thunderbird.GPG Mail is a commercial extension for Apple Mail which comes as part of GPG Suite, a software collection that provides easy access to a collection of tools designed to secure your communications and encrypt files. If you want to use Apple Mail for your encrypted email, you can create your first key pair using the GPG Keychain Access program that opened at the end of the GPG Tools installation process.Ĭreating a Key Pair with GPGTools on OS X This tutorial will go over basic key management, encrypting (symmetrically and asymmetrically), decrypting, signing messages, and verifying signatures with GPG. A program called GPG Keychain Access will also open, and will ask you to create your first OpenPGP key (see section below first before creating your key pair). GnuPG is a cryptography tool that helps you manage public and private keys as well as perform encrypt, decrypt, sign, and verify operations. Now that you have the vendor's key, click GPG Keychain Acess on the app menu bar (not sure how that's called, it's the top bar. Open PGP Keychain Access, click Import, select the file with the vendor's key. The website that opens is very good, but you don’t necessarily need to read it. Access the vendor's profile, copy his PGP key to a plain-text file (with TextEdit for example) and save it. You will the see a window with options to de-select components of the installation.Īt the end of the installation process a web page will open with further instructions about using GPGTools.
When you get to the screen below click on Customize. Note: As of September 2018 (release 2018.4) GPG Mail is no longer a free plug-in for Apple Mail, and comes with a $25 fee for support for the current version.
The GPGTools installer is easy to use, and will install the necessary components for encryption.īy default it will install an add-on for Apple Mail called GPGMail, if you don’t use Apple Mail and don’t want this add-on installed you can de-select it during the installation process. The GPG website suggests that GPGTools as an easy way to install GPG on a computer running Apple OS X.