PGP Criticisms

Discussions focus on the flaws of PGP encryption, including its obsolescence, poor usability, lack of adoption, and security shortcomings like missing forward secrecy, with frequent references to critical articles.

➡️ Stable 0.6x Security
3,085
Comments
19
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#829
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2008
7
2009
15
2010
20
2011
29
2012
43
2013
243
2014
133
2015
241
2016
203
2017
187
2018
244
2019
275
2020
345
2021
314
2022
126
2023
293
2024
110
2025
218
2026
39

Keywords

E2EE IT TL XMPP filippo.io AEAD CLI SSH moxie.org UX pgp gpg crypto tech people encrypt suffers use cases encryption browser discussion

Sample Comments

tptacek Oct 27, 2024 View on HN

No, PGP isn't much better.

NotEvil Nov 9, 2021 View on HN

Because pgp is broken and obsolete

lifeisstillgood Dec 16, 2020 View on HN

A good resource on why PGP is too complicated - definitely opened my eyes and seems pertinent to this discussionhttps://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/16/the-pgp-problem.html

tempest_ Mar 27, 2023 View on HN

PGP exists, it is just no one uses it

rectang Dec 28, 2021 View on HN

There was a link posted elsethread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29715664 ) which reviews a lot of the issues with PGP: https://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/16/the-pgp-problem.html

rixrax May 18, 2018 View on HN

Surely this is sarcasm. Just in case it isn't, it's only fitting to link back to what Moxie Marlinspike wrote about PGP/GPG: https://moxie.org/blog/gpg-and-me/ (HN commentary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9104188 ).TL;DR: When will people start using gpg:

kache_ Apr 7, 2021 View on HN

PGP doesn't have this problem

noman-land Jun 6, 2025 View on HN

PGP suffers from lack of forward secrecy, no? It also suffers from the fact that no one uses it :D.

remx Mar 13, 2017 View on HN

There's a big discussion about PGP here and why so many fail to use it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13114538Some of the comments are worth reading if not for the sheer size of the discussion. It could take an afternoon or two to fully digest that thread.The comments are in response to this: <a href="https://blog.filippo.io/giving-up-on-long-term-pgp/" r

joepie91_ Feb 7, 2015 View on HN

PGP is extremely hard to use, so no, it's not "fine". Usability is just as important as (if not more important than) cryptographical correctness!