GnuPG is the GNU project’s complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC4880 . GnuPG allows to encrypt and sign your data and communication, features a versatile key management system as well as access modules for all kinds of public key directories. GnuPG, also known as GPG, is a command line tool with features for easy integration with other applications. A wealth of frontend applications and libraries are available. Version 2 of GnuPG also provides support for S/MIME.
Features
GnuPG itself is a commandline tool without any graphical stuff. It is the real crypto engine which can be used directly from a command prompt, from shell scripts or by other programs. Therefore it can be considered as a backend for other applications.
However, even when used on the command line it provides all functionality needed – this includes an interactive menu system. The set of commands of this tool will always be a superset of those provided by any frontends.
- Full replacement of PGP.
- Does not use any patented algorithms.
- GPLed, written from scratch.
- Can be used as a filter program.
- Full OpenPGP implementation (see RFC4880 at RFC Editor ).
- Better functionality than PGP and some security enhancements over PGP 2.
- Decrypts and verifies PGP 5, 6 and 7 messages.
- Supports ElGamal, DSA, RSA, AES, 3DES, Blowfish, Twofish, CAST5, MD5, SHA-1, RIPE-MD-160 and TIGER.
- Easy implementation of new algorithms using extension modules.
- The User ID is forced to be in a standard format.
- Supports key and signature expiration dates.
- English, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (Portuguese), Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish language support.
- Online help system.
- Optional anonymous message receivers.
- Integrated support for HKP keyservers (wwwkeys.pgp.net).
- Clears signed patch files which can still be processed by patch.
Supported OS:
MS-Windows , Mac OS X , Debian GNU/Linux , POSIX-like , RISC OS
