GPG Mail
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2017) |
 | |
| Original author(s) | GPGTools |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 4.1 (part of GPG Suite 2020.1)
/ June 8, 2020[1] |
| Operating system | macOS |
| Type | Cryptography |
| License | GPLv2 |
| Website | gpgtools |
GPG Mail is an 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. GPG Mail provides public key email encryption and signing. It integrates with the default email client Apple Mail under macOS and the actual cryptographic functionality is handled by GNU Privacy Guard.[2]
GPG Mail was first released on February 7, 2001, by Stéphane Corthésy, and since 2010 is maintained by GPGTools. GNU Privacy Guard is free open-source software, but use of GPG Mail now requires purchase of a support plan.[3]
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. In this release, the developer removed the free license option for GPG Mail. A lot of users that relied on automated upgrades were caught by surprise, which prompted a significant backlash from the community. While the licensing change was identified in the release notes for GPG Suite 2018.4, many believed that such a big change required a more prominent notification to avoid the perception of "bait and switch".[4]
On November 15, 2019 GPG Mail 4 was introduced[5], supporting macOS High Sierra, macOS Mojave and macOS Catalina.
See also
- Email encryption
- OpenPGP standard for encrypting and decrypting data
References
- ^ "GPG Suite Release Notes". Retrieved June 11, 2020.
- ^ http://www.sente.ch/software/GPGMail/English.lproj/GPGMail.html
- ^ https://gpgtools.org/
- ^ Ilascu, Ionut (September 25, 2018). "GPG Mail Update Surprises Mac Users with Paid Plan". Bleeping Computer.
- ^ "GPG Suite 2019.2 Release Notes". GPGTools. November 15, 2019.