4 ms·

Native PGP is something I'd be very happy to see. Enigmail is needlessly complex with long setup wizards that frequently fail and a lot of legacy code supported

by Boulth 8y ago

Native PGP is something I'd be very happy to see. Enigmail is needlessly complex with long setup wizards that frequently fail and a lot of legacy code supported for old distros. Services such as ProtonMail show that focusing on modern conventions and picking the right defaults can really bring encryption to normal users.

mapgrep 8y ago
Full-text indexing for PGP mail would be nice too once it's native (Mailpile and CanaryMail helped pave the way on this I believe).
- Boulth 8y ago
  Agreed. I used Mailpile for a while, a lot of interesting ideas there. As for PGP Thunderbird could use one nice idea that the browser extension Mailvelope uses: have bundled OpenPGP implementation in JavaScript (OpenPGP.js) for most users (guarantees easy setup) and a bridge to call GnuPG for experts.
teddyh 8y ago
Have you tried the latest version of Enigmail with P≡P and Autocrypt integration?
- Boulth 8y ago
  Actually Enigmail couldn't generate user's key (I wanted to do a clean install and see the provisioning process for normal users) and later got stuck on some silly, completely unnecessary step (generating revocation certificate). As for PeP I don't quite understand how it works and what is it for (and I'm quite proficient with OpenPGP in general). I don't mind Autocrypt, it's good for people on commodity mail providers, but I rather prefer Web Key Directory where possible.
- Canada 8y ago
  Yeah, it makes a real mess. It generates random numbers of key pairs for each user, breaks subject line encryption randomly, and just generally sucks. I hope it gets better, but it’s definitely not something you want to enable at this time, I regret doing it. At this point it’s easier to have one person help 50 people manually generate and exchange keys in an office setting.
  - Leace 8y ago
    I agree wholeheartedly! It's interesting that trying to make to process easier actually made it hard for both novices and experts. Too bad it's enabled by default and plagued by issues: https://pep.foundation/blog/enigmailpep-current-update-1024-fixes-bug-under-windows/index.html https://pep.foundation/blog/enigmailpep-current-update-1024-...
    - Canada 8y ago
      I really, really want it to work. I'm hopeful it will get better. I don't like PGP keyservers, they aren't very reliable, I wish I could remove all the old keys I've lost. And I don't like publishing my email address like that. Plus, the most of my GPG email use is with keys from people I know that we've sent each other directly. Overall I'm pretty satisfied with Enigmail running in the old PEP-free mode.
      - Boulth 8y ago
        I'm also running PeP-free mode and I'm satisfied with it. I'm thinking that maybe after initial configuration it just works so the problem is largely setup. As for keyservers even GnuPG is diminishing their role. Web Key Directory is promoted as a replacement for discovery and updates of keys. Coincidentally Enigmail will automatically fetch recipients keys using WKD when composing an email. For example kernel is using it (https://www.kernel.org/category/signatures.html#using-the-web-key-directory https://www.kernel.org/category/signatures.html#using-the-we...) so does ProtonMail.

by Boulth 8y ago

mapgrep 8y ago

Full-text indexing for PGP mail would be nice too once it's native (Mailpile and CanaryMail helped pave the way on this I believe).

Boulth 8y ago
Agreed. I used Mailpile for a while, a lot of interesting ideas there. As for PGP Thunderbird could use one nice idea that the browser extension Mailvelope uses: have bundled OpenPGP implementation in JavaScript (OpenPGP.js) for most users (guarantees easy setup) and a bridge to call GnuPG for experts.

teddyh 8y ago

Have you tried the latest version of Enigmail with P≡P and Autocrypt integration?

Boulth 8y ago
Actually Enigmail couldn't generate user's key (I wanted to do a clean install and see the provisioning process for normal users) and later got stuck on some silly, completely unnecessary step (generating revocation certificate). As for PeP I don't quite understand how it works and what is it for (and I'm quite proficient with OpenPGP in general). I don't mind Autocrypt, it's good for people on commodity mail providers, but I rather prefer Web Key Directory where possible.
Canada 8y ago
Yeah, it makes a real mess. It generates random numbers of key pairs for each user, breaks subject line encryption randomly, and just generally sucks. I hope it gets better, but it’s definitely not something you want to enable at this time, I regret doing it. At this point it’s easier to have one person help 50 people manually generate and exchange keys in an office setting.
- Leace 8y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly! It's interesting that trying to make to process easier actually made it hard for both novices and experts. Too bad it's enabled by default and plagued by issues: https://pep.foundation/blog/enigmailpep-current-update-1024-fixes-bug-under-windows/index.html https://pep.foundation/blog/enigmailpep-current-update-1024-...
  - Canada 8y ago
    I really, really want it to work. I'm hopeful it will get better. I don't like PGP keyservers, they aren't very reliable, I wish I could remove all the old keys I've lost. And I don't like publishing my email address like that. Plus, the most of my GPG email use is with keys from people I know that we've sent each other directly. Overall I'm pretty satisfied with Enigmail running in the old PEP-free mode.
    - Boulth 8y ago
      I'm also running PeP-free mode and I'm satisfied with it. I'm thinking that maybe after initial configuration it just works so the problem is largely setup. As for keyservers even GnuPG is diminishing their role. Web Key Directory is promoted as a replacement for discovery and updates of keys. Coincidentally Enigmail will automatically fetch recipients keys using WKD when composing an email. For example kernel is using it (https://www.kernel.org/category/signatures.html#using-the-web-key-directory https://www.kernel.org/category/signatures.html#using-the-we...) so does ProtonMail.