The Bottom Line
PGP Desktop Home provides strong public key encryption with a comfortable interface and easy to use plug-ins for popular email clients. Unfortunately, they can't be used with the free version.
Pros
- PGP Desktop Home offers strong, tested encryption
- PGP can encrypt automatically when a key is found or based on recipients and content
- Easy to use plug-ins
Cons
- Free version of PGP Desktop Home lacks plug-ins
- OpenPGP, PGP/MIME support is weak
Description
- PGP Desktop Home provides strong public key encryption and message signing.
- Includes plug-ins for Eudora, Outlook Express, Outlook, Lotus Notes and Novell GroupWise.
- PGP Desktop Home offers a graphical interface to key management including key server connections.
- Offers a system tray icon to easily encrypt and decrypt the current window or clipboard contents.
- PGP Desktop Home supports the AES, CAST, TripleDES, IDEA and Twofish algorithms.
- Integrates Smart Cards including on-card key generation.
- PGP Enterprise includes tools to enforce encryption and storage policies.
- Advanced key features: key reconstruction, additional corporate decryption keys and split keys.
- PGP Mail supports Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/3/XP.
Guide Review - PGP Desktop Home 9.0 - Email Security Program
PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) has long been a synonym for strong encryption, and it still stands for high-grad public key encryption today.
PGP Desktop Home makes key management particularly comfortable, and it includes some advanced features like split keys that require multiple people for decryption, additional corporate decryption keys and key recovery.
The plug-ins that integrate PGP Mail with several email clients — Outlook 2000/2/3, Outlook Express, Eudora and Lotus Notes — are easy to use, too. Unfortunately, their support for OpenPGP is surprisingly weak, and the free version of PGP Desktop Home does not even offer the plug-ins at all.
In spite of its ease of use and strong (corporate) feature-set, PGP Desktop Home is a bit limited when it comes to securing email, especially if you rely on the free version.
