{"slug": "pgp", "name": "PGP", "category": "security", "category_name": "Security and passwords", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 5, "warners": 1, "score": 2.367, "rising": 1.67, "first": "2025-12-12", "latest": "2026-10-16", "why": "I never encountered any significant difficulties and could successfully exchange messages with my peers", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I never encountered any significant difficulties and could successfully exchange messages with my peers", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.openpgp.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["PGP"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 801760144, "item_id": 50110009, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50110009", "by": "oger", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I never encountered any significant difficulties and could successfully exchange messages with my peers", "excerpt": "To be honest: I keep hearing that PGP was / is difficult to use. That couldn\u2018t be further from the truth - but somehow it has become an urban myth. From the very first versions that I used on my first Mac up to GPG Mail or Proton Mail I never encountered any significant difficulties and could successfully exchange messages with my peers - both in business and private contexts.", "context": "", "use_case": "encrypted email", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why I Wrote PGP (1991, revised 1999)"}, {"id": 772540320, "item_id": 48283770, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48283770", "by": "lrvick", "date": "2026-05-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "PGP is not going away any time soon, and it is more relevant than ever.", "excerpt": "Everyone is trying so hard to re-invent PGP, while parroting that PGP is dead because some security influencers said so. Well, there is a LOT of PGP modernization work on both specifications and implementations in recent years and my team and I at Distrust will be publishing a writeup on it any day now, as well as organizing yet another key generation and signing party in San Francisco next month. PGP is not going aw", "context": "works at Distrust", "use_case": "signing and web of trust", "switched_from": "", "story": "Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 740036098, "item_id": 46252256, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252256", "by": "laserbeam", "date": "2025-12-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I don\u2019t even want to think about pgp when I have to manually take care of this problem.", "excerpt": "Someone needs to design a super dumb and robust system where I can safely store all my keys on all devices I use an account. The fact that whatsapp, signal and other platforms tend to have a primary device for keys is bonkers to me. A primary device that can randomly die, get stolen or fall in a lake. I have lost chat histories more times than I can remember, and I have to be extra diligent about this these days. I d", "context": "", "use_case": "encrypted communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Poor Johnny still won't encrypt"}]}], "who": [{"by": "lrvick", "context": "works at Distrust", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48283770", "date": "2026-05-26"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["email encryption", "notes and email encryption", "encrypted email", "signing and web of trust", "encrypted communication"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50084674", "title": "Why I Wrote PGP (1991, revised 1999)", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48229776", "title": "Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46251952", "title": "Poor Johnny still won't encrypt", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"warn": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 801846336, "item_id": 50115396, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50115396", "by": "Steve44", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used it for a little while", "excerpt": "I used it for a little while and Turnpike email software from the UKs Demon Internet integrated it pretty well. The problem was only one other person I knew actually used it, it didn't really have a justifiable use for most people. I did use the encrypted mountable drives for a while, that worked very well. I since moved to TrueCrypt and now onto Vercrypt and haven't used a PGP product for probably over 15 years. Sha", "context": "", "use_case": "email encryption", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why I Wrote PGP (1991, revised 1999)"}, {"id": 801801360, "item_id": 50112585, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50112585", "by": "WolfeReader", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "It's easy to explain. \"I use PGP for my personal notes (symmetric) and for e-mailing my security conscious friends (public-key)\". That's sufficient and not awkward.", "context": "", "use_case": "notes and email encryption", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why I Wrote PGP (1991, revised 1999)"}, {"id": 801760144, "item_id": 50110009, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50110009", "by": "oger", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I never encountered any significant difficulties and could successfully exchange messages with my peers", "excerpt": "To be honest: I keep hearing that PGP was / is difficult to use. That couldn\u2018t be further from the truth - but somehow it has become an urban myth. From the very first versions that I used on my first Mac up to GPG Mail or Proton Mail I never encountered any significant difficulties and could successfully exchange messages with my peers - both in business and private contexts.", "context": "", "use_case": "encrypted email", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why I Wrote PGP (1991, revised 1999)"}, {"id": 772540320, "item_id": 48283770, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48283770", "by": "lrvick", "date": "2026-05-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "PGP is not going away any time soon, and it is more relevant than ever.", "excerpt": "Everyone is trying so hard to re-invent PGP, while parroting that PGP is dead because some security influencers said so. Well, there is a LOT of PGP modernization work on both specifications and implementations in recent years and my team and I at Distrust will be publishing a writeup on it any day now, as well as organizing yet another key generation and signing party in San Francisco next month. PGP is not going aw", "context": "works at Distrust", "use_case": "signing and web of trust", "switched_from": "", "story": "Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?"}, {"id": 740036098, "item_id": 46252256, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252256", "by": "laserbeam", "date": "2025-12-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I don\u2019t even want to think about pgp when I have to manually take care of this problem.", "excerpt": "Someone needs to design a super dumb and robust system where I can safely store all my keys on all devices I use an account. The fact that whatsapp, signal and other platforms tend to have a primary device for keys is bonkers to me. A primary device that can randomly die, get stolen or fall in a lake. I have lost chat histories more times than I can remember, and I have to be extra diligent about this these days. I d", "context": "", "use_case": "encrypted communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Poor Johnny still won't encrypt"}]}