After two years of development, a new large update for the Enigmail extension for Mozilla Thunderbird is in the latest stage of beta releases. The extension offers Thunderbird users a user-friendly way to sent and receive encrypted emails.
Version 2.0 of the Enigmail extension adds Pretty Easy Privacy (pEp). Pretty Easy Privacy is a project that aims to make emails private and secure. The new update adds a pEp mode to Enigmail and users can use it depending how an account is configured. If neither Enigmail or S/MIME are configured for an account, then pEp will be enabled by default. As soon as Enigmail detects that pEp has to be used, it will download the required pEp binaries that are available on Windows, Linux and macOS. From then on, all outgoing mails will be automatically encrypted.
Also the encryption and signing buttons will work for both OpenPGP and S/MIME in Enigmail 2.0, where Enigmail will chose between S/MIME or OpenPGP depending on whether the keys for all recipients are available for the respective standard.
It will also be possible to encrypt the subject of an email and to replace it with a dummy subject. Currently only the contents of an email are encrypted, and not the subject of the email. Enigmail 2.0 should also add support for Autocrypt and Web Key Directory.
Users interested in the new features can download beta 2 of Enigmail 2.0. Depending on the feedback of that beta-release, it will be decided whether a third beta is required or that the definitive version of Enigmail 2.0 will be released.
