I often hear that I should authenticate the signatures of important files I download, like Linux .iso 's and import applications like browser’s But it seems very confusing so I have a few questions: Are .PGP files bound to a specific file they can authenticate or could the same .pgp file authentif…

PGP/GPG is bound to person/organization. With it you can check if file/message is from that person/organization and it integrity. .asc - it is message encrypted with private pgp key - having public pgp key of that person/organization you can certify it is from that person/organization and see it’s…

One small correction: an .asc file is usually an ASCII-armored OpenPGP message or signature, not necessarily encrypted. The filename alone doesn’t tell you whether it contains a signature or encrypted data.

To preface I am not 1000% sure on this stuff so please anyone who knows more correct me. AFAIK there’s no such thing as a .pgp file. PGP is a program developed in the 90’s, which was proprietary and made use of ciphers like RSA so every day people could actually use it. Before that, two normal peo…

[image] not-wittingly: AFAIK there’s no such thing as a .pgp file. If you download an PGP signature from the page of an F-Droid app with your phone, it will give you a .pgp file, if you download with your desktop, it gives you an .asc file

[image] john.982387487: PGP/GPG is bound to person/organization. With it you can check if file/message is from that person/organization and it integrity. Is a .PGP file bound to a specific file that it authenticates? [image] john.982387487: asc - it is message encrypted with private pgp…

[image] Anon46442: What is ASCII Armored? This simply means human readable. ASCII Armor is binary to text conversion. So when you see a PGP encrypted message as it’s encrypted, it’s not ones and zeros or any crazy characters, it’s just recognisable, human readable text.

Yeah, signature files are really useful for verifying that a download hasn’t been altered. I’d make sure to verify the signature against the project’s official signing key, not just rely on a checksum posted on the same download page.

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Expert4870 August 20, 2026, 12:53pm 5

It’s very simple on Android. "Verified Apps" app for Android pre-release

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