Gpg4win
Gpg4win is an email and file encryption package for most versions of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Outlook, which utilises the GnuPG framework for symmetric and public-key cryptography, such as data encryption, digital signatures, hash calculations etc.

History of Gpg4win 
The original creation of Gpg4win was initiated and funded by Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) in 2005 to 2006, resulting in the release of Gpg4win 1.0.0 on 6 April 2006; however Gpg4win and all included tools are free and open source software, and it is typically the non-proprietary option for privacy recommended to Windows users.

As Gpg4win v1 was a much overhauled derivate of GnuPP, both were using GnuPG v1 for cryptographic operations and thus only supported OpenPGP as cryptography standard.

Hence in 2007 the development of a fundamentally enhanced version was started, also with support from the German BSI (Federal Office for Information Security); this effort culminated in the release of Gpg4win 2.0.0 on 7 August 2009 after a protracted beta testing phase, which was based on GnuPG 2.0, included S/MIME support, Kleopatra as a new certificate manager, the Explorer plug-in GpgEX for cryptography operations on files, basic support of smart cards, a full set of German dialogue texts in a addition to the English ones, new manuals in English and German, plus many other enhancements.

In contrast to Gpg4win v2, which focused on new features and software components, the development of Gpg4win v3 focused on usability, plus consolidation of code and features: This resulted in the release of Gpg4win 3.0.0 on 19 September 2017 with proper support for Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) by utilising GnuPG 2.2 (instead of 2.0), broadened, stabilised and enhanced smart card support, a fundamentally overhauled Outlook plug-in GpgOL for Outlook 2010 and newer, support of 64-bit versions of Outlook 2010 and newer, supporting dialogues in all languages which KDE supports etc.

Gpg4win 4.0.0, released on 21 December 2021, switched to using GnuPG 2.3 (from 2.2) and continued to refine and enhance the feature set of Gpg4win v3. It is also distributed as GnuPG VS-Desktop with commercial support and approval for handling NATO RESTRICTED, RESTREINT UE/EU RESTRICTED and German VS-NfD documents, which in turn has become the major source of revenue for maintaining and further developing the GnuPG framework and Gpg4win.

Contents of Gpg4win Installer 
 GnuPG: the core cryptography framework
 Certificate managers
 Kleopatra: certificate manager for OpenPGP and X.509 
 GPA: an alternative certificate manager (GNU) for OpenPGP and X.509
 Plug-ins for email and file cryptography
 GpgOL: a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook to provide email encryption and signing
 GpgEX: a plug-in for the Windows Explorer to provide file encryption, signing and hash calcucations
 Gpg4win Compendium: an introduction to encryption (OpenPGP and X.509) and user manual for Gpg4win

See also 

 E-mail privacy

References

External links
 

Free security software
Cryptographic software
OpenPGP
Email
Privacy of telecommunications
Windows security software