GNU Privacy Guard
Key pair generation process in Unix terminal emulator | |||||
| Original author(s) | Werner Koch | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Developer(s) | GNU Project | ||||
| Initial release | 7 September 1999 | ||||
| Stable release(s) | |||||
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| Preview release(s) | |||||
2.5.6
/ 9 May 2025 | |||||
| Repository | dev | ||||
| Written in | C | ||||
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows, macOS, RISC OS, Android, Linux | ||||
| Type | OpenPGP | ||||
| License | 2007: GPL-3.0-or-later 1997: GPL-2.0-or-later | ||||
| Website | gnupg | ||||
GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG or GPG) is a free-software replacement for Symantec's cryptographic software suite PGP. The software is compliant with the now obsoleted RFC 4880, the IETF standards-track specification of OpenPGP. Modern versions of PGP are interoperable with GnuPG and other OpenPGP v4-compliant systems.
November 2023 saw two drafts aiming to update the 2007 OpenPGP v4 specification (RFC4880), ultimately resulting in the RFC 9580 standard in July 2024. The proposal from the GnuPG developers, which is called LibrePGP, was not taken up by the OpenPGP Working Group and future versions of GnuPG will not support the current version of OpenPGP.
GnuPG is part of the GNU Project and received major funding from the German government in 1999.