Age: A simple, modern and secure file encryption tool
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Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderThis is great, it fills a gap that I've long defended as PGP's remaining legitimate use case. Of course, now we just need to work on the adoption problem. Despite the fact that PGP adoption is a well-known joke in itself, all the tools designed to replace it (with the exception of the IM space) have somehow managed to achieve even lower use rates. It's been almost five years since Magic Wormhole first released, and about half a year since…
It would be fantastic if Age (or at least something similar) could become standard on Unix machines. I'd love a more Unix-philosophy following tool than GPG/PGP to be around for encryption. That said, I don't think new standard tools for Unix machines are very common. The closest thing I can think of in the last while is `jq`, but it's not "preinstalled on your machine" kind of standard, just "my script might just use it and expect you to have…
Age is great and all but it has a huge footgun. It encourages the user to encrypt material with a public key in a way that is entirely unauthenticated. So an attacker with access to that public key can simply overwrite the file with whatever they want. If ensuring that you end up with the same stuff as you encrypted is important than that can be a big problem. Fixing this involves the use of a separate signing utility and…
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The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 3
- Total points
- 897
- Total comments
- 376
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-10-07 | Alpha release of Age-tool – A small command line encryption utility made in Go | playeren | 4 | 1 |
| 2019-10-08 | Age - The PGP Replacement (alpha) | mises | 2 | 2 |
| 2019-12-27 | Age: A simple, modern and secure file encryption toolFirst breakout · Best thread | nahikoa | 466 | 197 |
| 2021-04-10 | Age: A simple, modern and secure file encryption tool, format, and library | bassdropvroom | 3 | 0 |
| 2021-09-08 | Age – simple, modern and secure encryption tool (and Go library) | ChrisArchitect | 1 | 1 |
| 2022-03-25 | Age: simple, modern and secure file encryption tool | modinfo | 4 | 0 |
| 2022-09-26 | Age – a simple, modern and secure file encryption tool, format, and Go libraryHall induction | talonx | 126 | 54 |
| 2024-02-26 | Age: A simple, modern and secure encryption tool | udev4096 | 2 | 0 |
| 2024-08-04 | Age is a simple, modern and secure file encryption tool, format, and Go libraryLatest 20+ point return | gjvc | 289 | 121 |