Add-ons
Reviews for Enigmail
260 reviews for this add-on
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Don’t be put off by the review below! With a willingness to learn a little about encryption and secure and trusted communication, and a bit of common sense, you can set up encrypted e-mail on Thunderbird practically by selecting the defaults.
As pointed out in the details above, you will need GnuPG, so the first thing to do is go to http://www.gpg4win.org/ and download GPG4Win (this is for Windows, obviously). After installing it, you will find a folder on your desktop containing the GPG4Win Compendium PDF. This contains an excellent simple explanation of the principles behind secure and trusted communication, and why you should care about it. I have put the PDF on my tablet and read it repeatedly. You have to know a little about the fundamentals before you can understand what the e-mail setup is actually about.
Now start Thunderbird, and you should see an OpenPGP menu item. There is a setup wizard to get you started. I just selected defaults where I wasn’t sure, and had the whole thing set up in less than half-an-hour. Nothing to do with the command line. It was simpler than setting up Outlook to do the same. But you have to know what’s going on, so read the Compendium first.
If all you want is to send someone an encrypted message once a month, I recommend the Simple Text Encryptor tool from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/simpletextenc/; you just copy and paste your message into the top box and it comes out encrypted to AES 128-bit standard at the bottom – not quite as simple as pressing “E” but not far off!
You don’t need to attend a seminar to use this tool, but you do need to be prepared to learn something new, and to do a little more than press E.
We may not take it particularly seriously at the moment, but there are countries where tools like this are an absolute necessity to maintain the human right of privacy, so it’s great that they are available free. And the way the UK and US governments are heading, we may need such tools sooner than we think. Thank you, Patrick Brunschwig and the GnuPG team!
Finally, as a REVIEWER, you NEED to be AWARE that if you type INANE reviews with LOTS of CAPITALS, and “inappropriate use” of quotation marks, and odd *placement* of *star* symbols, it’s going to REALLY HACK some people OFF, as well as GIVING them SERIOUS DOUBTS about your LEVEL of MATURITY. Verb. Sap.
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
I suppose if you're using PGP already, use it on the command line, this does something to facilitate its use in Thunderbird?
The fact is that I had to stop looking at this add-in with "PGP servers" option.
There is simply no way in the name of anything that I'd ever be able to convince anyone to use this without taking a SEMINAR on encryption and PGP.
Add to this that most of people (in population numbers, not by emails) who would *like* to send out an encrypted email would probably want to do it MAYBE ONCE OR TWICE A MONTH TOPS.
I want to send my computer-stupid friend a single message ENCRYPTED, but this is RIDICULOUS. It would be easier to type up a text file and put it in an encrypted Zip file.
Do you know how STUPID this whole thing is in this "computer age" of iPhones and iTablets? There should be an "E" button BUILT IN to Thunderbird and THAT'S IT.
The closest I've come is some "service" which wants $10 a month FROM EACH OF USER to use OPEN SOURCE software so we can send a HANDFUL of messages to each other a YEAR.
THIS is why no one uses encryption.
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Update: Thanks for the quick reply, appreciated. Postbox wrote: "contact the original add-on developer directly or disable the add-on". So I had hope they did not lie. Anyway thanks. Giving you for the TB version a 5/5
This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.5.1).The Postbox version of Enigmail are provided by Postbox. It's not the fault of Enigmail that Postbox doesn't publish their source code, such that official releases of Enigmail don't work on Postbox ...
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Seriously, Mozilla should integrate this plugin into mainline.
This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.5).Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Having a S/MIME certificate is hard but having a GnuPG keypair is easy. On the other hand using OpenPGP signing without using PGP/MIME messes the email message for those who doesn't have OpenPGP compatible client.
So the best part of this add-on is "OpenPGP Signing + PGP/MIME"
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Wenn man OpenPGP einsetzt, natürlich sehr sinnvoll!
Funktioniert sehr gut!
Danke!
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Enigmail is a definitely a top-notch OpenPGP integration for Thunderbird. I installed the first iterations of this add-on when it first came out years ago but didn't have much need for it back then. It has gotten much more refined from what I can remember of the first versions. The smooth integration into Thunderbird makes it simple to encrypt and decrypt emails, once you understand the basics of OpenPGP.
I probably won't have too much need for Enigmail and OpenPGP, until the U.S. Congress decides it has the authority to snoop in my boring emails to family and friends without a lawful warrant. That is when Enigmail and OpenPGP will come into their own for me.
Recently, CNET ran a story about the Senate Judiciary committee tacking on riders to a bill which would have given the government access to peoples' emails without warrants. Luckily, that draft was publicly exposed and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D)-VT was forced to publicly proclaim that these riders wouldn't make it to the floor for a vote.
Google: "Leahy scuttles his warrantless e-mail surveillance bill" to read more about this most recent attempt by Congress to abrogate your privacy rights.
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
jó
This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.4.4).Rated 2 out of 5 stars
Hoping he will not sue me for stealing his title ;) I follow chengiz.
We should be able to change the enigmail options on the fly. It's not usable for noobs or pro users. This could have been perfect.
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
Enigmail breaks the flowed format for *all* emails you send out, whether or not you encrypt or sign them. For me about 1% of my emails need to use PGP, so I cannot have the other 99% be wrapped weirdly. This bug is known but developers refuse to fix it, which makes this add-on a subtract-off in my book. A pity, because it really works well otherwise.
This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.4.2).Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Without any problem using add-ons on latest Thunderbird.
This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.4.2).Rated 5 out of 5 stars
This is the best integrated solution I have found. Mac, Linux, PC, it works with whatever system GPG client you have, and is PURE AWESOME.
This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.4.1).Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Excellent gpg mail solution and also a nice keymanager.
This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.4).Rated 3 out of 5 stars
When it works it is excellent but, for me at least, very rarely does work.
This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.4).Rated 5 out of 5 stars
That add on is the easiest way to sign/crypt your mails and, even if sometimes you have to spend a few minutes to configure it, it always works !
This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.4).Rated 5 out of 5 stars
very useful!
This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.4).Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Enigmail makes the combo Thunderbird+Enigmail the favorite of PGPNet members.
And if you can't copy/paste the passphrase, then it is very likely it is due to pinentry, not an Enigmail issue.
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
I am really astonished how this addon improved for I hadn't used it quite some time. My rating is four stars,
I have a very complex passphrase on my key with many special letters using KeePass. Unfortunately it is not possible to do a Copy/Paste from the KeePass, so I have to enter a 24-digit passphrase manually, although there is caching, that's really annoying with today's password managers.
On top of it I have to use 5 email accounts. So I hope you can at least offer an option in the future that allows the Copy/Paste if wanted.
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
I write the same ol' review about Enigmail as the last four times.
Works great with any thunderbird-version that I have ever used, 10.0.2 included, and 64bits included and what not.
Dear users, try to install the right version and do not ask for simple deliverance. We all must learn and keep our eyes open to survive. I had made the same mistake once, but at least came back to apologize.
ENIGMAIL WORKS AS IT ALWAYS DID.
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
A very usefull addon and a very explanatory website.
I only want to said that I had to configure where the pgp was to make it run.
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