Android Privacy Guard

Android Privacy Guard (APG) is a free and open-source app for the Android operating system that provides strong, user-based encryption which is compatible with the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) and GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) programs. This allows users to encrypt, decrypt, digitally sign, and verify signatures for text, emails, and other files.

This article is about the OpenPGP compatible Android app. It is not to be confused with the permission management app Privacy Guard in Cyanogenmod and LineageOS.
Android Privacy Guard
Initial releaseJune 3, 2010 (2010-06-03)
Stable release1.1.1 (March 24, 2014 (2014-03-24)[1]) [±]
Written inJava
Operating systemAndroid (operating system)
LicenseApache License 2.0p
Websitegithub.com/thialfihar/apg

The application allows the user to store the credentials of other users with whom they interact, and to encrypt files such that only a specified user can decrypt them. In the same manner, if a file is received from another user and its credentials are saved, the receiver can verify the authenticity of that file and decrypt it if necessary.

The specific implementation in APG relies on the Spongy Castle APIs.

APG has not been updated since March 2014 and is no longer under active development. The development has been picked up by OpenKeychain.

Reception

After its initial release in June 2010,[2] it has gained a strong following with over 2000 reviews and over 100,000 installs from the Google Play store.[3] Several tutorials have been written which instruct new users in how to set up APG on an Android phone.[4][5] These tutorials generally reference APGs interaction with the K-9 Mail Android e-mail client.[6][7]

OpenKeychain

Between December 2010 and October 2013 no new version of APG was released.[8] In the light of the global surveillance disclosures this lack of development was viewed critically by the community.[9] In September 2013 a fork of APG was released, version 2.1 of OpenKeychain.[10] Some of the new features and improvements were subsequently merged back to APG. However, this process stopped in March 2014, while the OpenKeychain project continued to release new versions.[11] As of February 2016 the development of OpenKeychain is more active than that of APG.[12] Notable features of OpenKeychain include a modern user interface, support for NFC and the YubiKey NEO.[13]

References
  1. "Android Privacy Guard". 2014-03-24. Retrieved 2014-07-22.
  2. "Release Announcement". Android Privacy Guard. Developer of Android Privacy Guard. 2010-06-03. Archived from the original on 2013-04-16. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  3. "APG - Android Apps on Google Play". Android Play Store. 2015-01-21. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  4. "Setting up Android Privacy Guard + Bouncy Castle from scratch". I'm Curious. HaoQi Li. 2011-04-13. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  5. "Android Privacy Guard (APG) for Android Devices". Security in a Box. Security in a Box Project. 2015-01-21. Archived from the original on 2015-01-21. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  6. "K-9 Mail and APG for Android Devices". Security in a Box. Security in a Box Project. 2015-01-21. Archived from the original on 2015-01-21. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  7. "How To: Lockdown your mobile e-mail". The Guardian Project. The Guardian Project. 2010-07-09. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  8. "APG release history". The APG Project. thialfihar. 2015-03-26. Archived from the original on 2013-04-16. Retrieved 2015-03-26.
  9. "Filed bug against APG at the PRISM Break project". PRISM Break. Retrieved 2015-03-26.
  10. "OpenKeychain release history". Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  11. "Releases · open-keychain/open-keychain". Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  12. "Readme of APG at Github". thialfihar. Retrieved 26 March 2015. APG definitely has some catching up to do. :)
  13. "About OpenKeychain". Archived from the original on 27 March 2015. Retrieved 26 March 2015.

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