Most secure GPG combination for Mac OS X

[stefan.claas at posteo.de]

Am 06.11.2018 12:48 schrieb Nicholas Papadonis:
> Does anyone have suggestions on the most secure and reviewed
> combination for bits for sending secure email on OS X?
> 
> I noticed that there are two OSX packages for GPG:
> 
>           Mac GPG Installer from the gpgtools project
>           GnuPG for OS X Installer for GnuPG
> 
> Is any one preferred, have more eyes reviewing source, better release
> management in terms of security concerns?  Any details?  Am I better
> off building from source?

Well, i never have read that GnuPG had a security audit, regardless
of platform used, nor the plug-ins for various apps.

For example recently Enigmal for Thunderbird had a fatal security
bug which send encrypted email unencrypted under Windows.

You can build from source, which i did also in the past or use for
example MacPorts GnuPG distribution.

> I'm considering using the Mac Mail.app, however am interested if
> Thunderbird is better integrated from a security standpoint.  At the
> lowest level, my assumption is that the command line tools can be used
> to encrypt / decrypt blocks of text, which I will also be interested
> in using.

I used Mail.app in the past too and later switched to 
Thunderbird/Eingmail.

Currently i use the GnuPG package from Patrick Brunschwieg (Enigmail
developer) in combination with Claws-Mail (MacPorts). I also use GnuPG
often as commandline tool.

> Appreciate a security experts guidance immersing myself into more
> secure communication.

While i am no security expert and only a Mac dummie i like the fact that
one can build from source and use it on an off-line computer, even
if the email received is in PGP/MIME format, because scripts are 
available
which allows a conversion.

Regards
Stefan