PGP or S/MIME

[Nadejda Fudulska, MobiSystems, AquaMail support]

Hi guys,

We began research on a new feature (PGP & S/MIME encryption), requested by many for quite some time now.

This will be a time consuming effort, therefore we'd like to hear your opinion.

[drjat]

What are the pros and cons of each please?
Also - any plans to introduce ActiveSync (in addition to or instead of EWS)?

[Michael Maslarov, Aqua Mail]

So I found this summary for everybody to check out from here:
http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/software-technology/difference-between-pgp-and-smime/

Summary:
S/MIME and PGP protocols use different formats for key exchange.
PGP depends upon each user’s key exchange S/MIME uses hierarchically validated certifier for key exchange.
PGP was developed to address the security issues of plain text messages. But S/MIME is designed to secure all kinds of attachments/data files.
Nowadays, S/MIME is known to dominate the secure electronic industry because it is incorporated into many commercial e-mail packages.
S/MIME products are cheaply available than for PGP.

And alternatively more info here too:
https://www.thesecuritybuddy.com/pgp-and-gpg/smime-vs-pgp/

[HeikoE]

What is the way to get a certificate to be used with s/mime?
I used PGP by now and here you simply create a pair of keys. You share the public part and keep the private part in a safe location.
For s/mime I read about "authorities" where you get the keys from, and that did not seem to be free of charge. Correct me, if I am wrong.
Maybe the s/mime certificates from authorities provide more safety, who the author of a signed mail is. Anyway just using own PGP certificates seems to be more convenient for me.
In conclusion I would vote for PGP.

[btrc]

I would definitely vote for the open PGP, as  you typically have to buy a certificate for S/MIME.  Thawte offered free certificates for this before, but they have discontinued the service.

[chris122380]

Any news at where we are at in getting one of these added to Aquamail?

[mikeone]

Here is a brief statement from the MobiSystems team:

https://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=2897.msg44889#msg44889

[btrc]

Thanks, looking forward for PGP.

[Radoslav Stoyanov]

Hi all,

We've published a new beta on Google Play which has added support for S/MIME message encryption and signing. We'd appreciate all user feedback for the new feature, so that we can fix any issues, if such are found. You can contact us at support /at/ aqua-mail /dot/ com with a detailed description of the issue, your Android version and a debug log.

https://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=8077.0

Regards,
Radoslav
AquaMail Team