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Comment by aborsy | Hacker News Reader

It’s straightforward to use GPG via command line. I don’t find its CLI more complex than, say, SSH’s.

I use it daily (with secret keys on a hardware key) for passwords, back up, file encryption, some email (admittedly most recipients don’t use encryption), software verification etc.

Newer tools are simpler, but GPG is also workable.

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For me the problem is that I use ssh way more often, so it’s easier to remember all the commands. I need to encrypt/decrypt something with GPG only a few times a year, and every time I struggle remembering the commands to do so.

   gpg --help

provides an one line description of necessary commands. And ecrypt/decrypt is just `gpg --encrypt/decrypt`. You don't even have to specify an output file. Encrypt automatically creates a new file and decrypt outputs result in console so to put it new file a redirection is enough.

As pointed out elsewhere in these threads there are now much better alternatives available. It’s time for PGP to retire.

What are these better tools?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27331942

None of these are alternatives to PGP. There is nothing that comes functionally close to replacing it.

The current wisdom is to have specific tools/constructions for specific purposes, so as to eliminate/reduce footguns and to incorporate modern cryptography.

Edit: https://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/16/the-pgp-problem.html

Current wisdom != a single blog post.

I disagree with every single one of his points btw and from the looks of it, so do a lot of others.

It's not just him.

With tour logic , Keurig exists so get rid of teapots? No thanks.

No need to get rid of good tools, such as teapots.

But PGP is simply not a good tool.

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