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FireGPG plug-in setup

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rab040ma
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FireGPG plug-in setup

I don't know if FireGPG works completely yet with Firefox Portable (I'm still testing), but This blog entry (which is really just a screen shot) shows one way to manage the setup, using a {$FXFolder} variable to point to GnuPG and the GNUPGHOME, whether they are located in CommonFiles or under Thunderbird Portable.

I'm guessing it isn't quite needed, if the launcher updates all the drive letters in the about:config file. But it does show how to reference the --home command line parameter and the path to gpg.exe. I've not tested exhaustively.

So mainly this is just a reference so if I need to find it again, it will come up in forum search. I think I've used enough of the key words that it will get found.

If I figure out other tricks to get it working, I'll post them here.

Frank D. Hubeny
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Portable Settings Question

Hello rab040ma

I did look at FireGPG's site but I did not understand what they were saying about the settings needed to make it work with Portable Firefox.

Can you help. I would be using GPG in a non standard location on my USB drive. This works fine now. But I would like to try FireGPG because I have to use WEB mail interface at work. My company will not allow me to use my own pop3 mail service it is blocked. I understand that FireGPG allows a person to highlight the singed text to check using GPG. IF this and just the ability to sign works it would be a great benifit for me.

Frank D. Hubeny

ottosykora
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I tried

and did not succeed on the portable FF.

Better use some other portable gpg client, winpt does fine work for me.

It will work with your webmail client too, no problem there, it has the current windows and clipboard encrypt decrypt functions in it, certainly much better and stable product .

Get it from the winpt site , unpack all and you will see it is the thing you are looking for.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

rab040ma
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Examples

There are basically two locations on your portable drive where the GNUPGHOME folder might be: under CommonFiles, or under PortableApps\ThunderbirdPortable\Data\gpg. The latter is the more likely, especially if you want to use GPG with Thunderbird.

My GNUPGHOME is PortableApps\ThunderbirdPortable\Data\gpg, and the FireGPG preference setting that works is

--home {$FXFolder}\..\..\..\ThunderbirdPortable\Data\gpg

This uses a "relative path", that is, relative to the path where firefox.exe is located (usually PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox -- that is, from the Firefox folder you have to go up ( .. ) once to App, another time to FirefoxPortable, then another time to PortableApps; then down into ThunderbirdPortable, down again to Data, and down once more to gpg.

Since this is relative to where Firefox.exe is located, if the drive letter changes, it will still work.

If your GNUPGHOME is somewhere else on the portable drive, you'll have to figure out the number of ..'s to put in there to get from the folder where firefox.exe is located to the one where your secring.gpg is located. You can tell when you have the right path by going to Tools | FireGPG | Key Manager. When you have the right setting, your keys will show up; if you don't, it will be empty. You could start by putting in the non-relative (absolute) path, that is, something like x:\Somefolder\AnotherFolder\GnuPG\keys to see if it finds your keys then.

I note that the rubric says that you have to use {$SPACE} if any of your folder names have spaces in them. If you have spaces in your folder names, you might want to test with names that don't have spaces, to see how it looks, then gradually add a space to the name and {$SPACE} in the the corresponding place in the Options field, testing at each step. I prefer not to use spaces in folder names when I am using relative paths, saves headaches.

For right now, the Thunderbird location is the only one that seems to work consistently among the other GnuPG applications. If you put your GnuPG keys somewhere else, it might take a bit more work on your part to figure out how to get things working.

MC

ottosykora
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during the test firegpg

crashed, and crashed also the browser few times, the reasons I did not discover.
It tried to do some work, but later crashed again and did again freeze the browser, that was why I have given up that and went for simple gpg operated by the front end winpt.

For that I am using tha same gpg and home.. as for the TB, have also the IDAE algo in it for my old keys and all works this way better and works nice also on webmails etc. In fact, on webmails it works better then the current version of original pgp, since this one has some small problems when encrypting mail in a webmailer and html formatin of the mail.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

rab040ma
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IDEA?

Are you saying that you are using Enigmail in ThunderbirdPortable? Or only the WinPT method?

I thought GPG would let you use any algorithm that it supports, including IDEA.

Sorry to hear that you are having trouble with FireGPG. Glad you are able to find that WinPT works for you.

MC

rab040ma
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POP3

I don't want you to go against a clearly stated policy at your work, but have you tried alternatives to POP3? For example, IMAP sometimes works, as well as the "secure" versions of POP and SMTP. For example, if your mail service is any good, it supports secure SMTP on port 465 or 587, and secure POP on port 995 (for example). (You should go for the secure version anyway, to protect your password and mail from prying eyes.)

If there is a clear policy that you not use your private mail at work, you probably should not use web mail, even if it is not blocked.

MC

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