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PGP Desktop 9.5 beta

by Anthony Dhanendran

19 Jul 2006

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Verdict

A simple method of securing your files and email. However, it's now very expensive as a commercial release.

Review Rating: rating

Type: Time limited demo

Platform: Windows XP

Manufacturer: PGP Corporation

Size: 34.3MB

Number of Downloads: 2611

Price: £71

PGP

If you're worried that people might be reading your email, use PGP to encrypt it so that only its intended recipient can read it.

The mathematics behind public-key cryptography are quite complex, but using PGP is much easier. It integrates with Windows, and allows you to easily encrypt and decrypt files.

It also works seamlessly with most email clients, letting you encrypt and decrypt messages on the fly. You type in a 'pass phrase' which the computer uses to generate a pair of keys. You use public keys to encrypt a message, and private keys to decrypt them.

Alternatively (or in addition) you can 'sign' a message with your key to prove that it came from you. The recipient can check the signature against a public database.

Don't worry if this all sounds confusing, as the program takes care of it all. You just click a button and type in your pass phrase.

PGP went commercial from v9 onwards and this is a time-limited demo.

Note: you need to enter a serial code which will work until October 31st 2006. Get your beta serial code by heading to this page and scrolling down for information.

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