GPGMail plug-in returns with Snow Leopard support

The GPGMail Project Team have announced the release of version 1.3.0 of their open source GPG plug-in for Apple's Mail.app email program. The plug-in provides a front-end to the open source GnuPG (GNU Privacy Guard) software and allows users to compose and receive encrypted and signed email messages.

After some delay, version 1.3.0 of GPGMail now adds support for Mac OS X 10.6 systems – Snow Leopard, as 10.6 is also known, was released nearly one year ago on the 28th of August, 2009. The release includes updates to the Sparkle framework used by the plug-in for its automatic update function.

Additionally, the plug-in now has a new site to call its home and a new project structure, complete with a fresh team of developers. Its original author, Stéphane Corthésy, gave up on the project after Apple changed the plug-in API yet again and, as there's no 'official' API, the changes were not documented, making it difficult for the developer to update it.

GPGMail doesn't actually contain any encryption code as it's a client for a GPG executable. Mac GNU Privacy Guard, a port of GnuPG for Mac OS X, is required for GPGMail to run and provides the needed encryption functionality. Users running Mozilla's Thunderbird email client can use Enigmail, a simple interface for OpenPGP.

Further details about the release can be found in the change log. GPGMail 1.3.0 is available to download for Mac OS X 10.6.4 Snow Leopard or later and installation instructions are provided. Users running Mac OS X 10.5.x Leopard must use the 1.2.0 branch of GPGMail. GPGMail is licensed under the LGPL.

See also:

• Security firms lag behind at the launch of Snow Leopard, a report from The H.

(crve)