Forums Community AxCrypt 2.0 and 1.7 Reply To: AxCrypt 2.0 and 1.7

#3415 Reply

Svante
Spectator

Thanks for interesting input everyone!

A few quick comments:

– Self-decrypting archives. They may or may not come back. In the meantime, it’s so simple to just send the full standalone install-free version along with the encrypted files, or include a link to it. No installation requried, just the ability to run a .exe .

– Blocking of .exe and extension renaming. I do that sometimes, and it works about 50% of the cases. Lots of mail software today will actually look inside the file, and do a risk analysis from that.

– Different passwords for different files for *personal* use, please see my blog post here. The other scenarios I think would be quite well supported by key sharing by password, see here .

– Decryption of documents without installing special software: That’s not going to happen unless some cross platform encryption software (on all major platforms: Android, iOS, Windows, OS X etc) takes a similar position as PDF for document facsimilies. Remember – it’s *all* about special software. The only thing that is different between *special* software, and software you don’t need to install is that it’s already installed. All software is installed. Some as part of the OS. Some as part of the distribution of the OS. Some packaged by the device manufacturer. Some installed by the user.

– Key sharing – i.e. the ability to have multiple recipients of an encrypted file à la PGP. We do think that AxCrypt does this pretty well, and that it’s really easy to use compared to specifically PGP. Nothing wrong with PGP technically – except it’s not easy to use. The original impulse to write AxCrypt came from PGP and it’s not-so-easy to use aspects.

– AxCrypt 1 development: AxCrypt 2 will hopefully remain in active development for many years now, so there’s plenty of opportunity to tweak, fine-tune, add, remove and revise features and requirements. AxCrypt 1 will not be actively developed, it’s simply not practical. It’s based on 15 year old C++ code specifically made for the Windows Win32 API. It just can’t be made for anything else without a complete rewrite. Which is what AxCrypt 2. It’s a new freshly built C# platform, that we can continue to develop and run on different platforms.

There’s more to be said (and done), but another time.