I have been using Enigmail since Thunderbird 0.7. Never had any problems. One of the best features I found out recently is that it automatically finds the key associated with the mail account you are using automatically :)

However, it was on Debian GNU/Linux :)

GnuPG is compatible to pgp. That means, you can exchange mails with pgp users too. S/MIME, the other encryption standard is already built into Thunderbird -- you don't need an extension for that. It might be a good idea to export your public key to one of the public key servers. This way other persons can send you encrypted mail and validate your signed mail without having to ask you for your public key.

For the crash: my TB for OS X plays nicely with enigmail (although the Apple Mail plugin has the better user interface for encryption).

I've been using Thunderbird with enigmail since 0.6 both under windows and linux (debian) which btw is very nice, having only one folders directory both of them accessing it.

But about enigmail+gnupg, no problems, ever, not with any Thunderbird, not with any Enigmail, not under any of the above OS's.

Take care and check your emerge settings, and compile flags, and try again. It should work flawlessly.

Oh, and regarding the gpg message parts showing up at people not using gpg.

1). convince them to use gpg (no joke, doing so myself)

2). use the mime option when sending gpg-signed e-mails, this way most modern e-mail reader applications can easily tell the difference and not display the gpg part (just showing up as an attachment).

Mind you, the latter doesn't work with Outlook & O. Express. I didn't know until some guys using them mentioned. But I don't really care about that: use crap, eat your troubles.

I always wonder why those PGP dudes are putting rubbish in the message's body, as opposed to putting their information in the header, and serving encoded messages as a multipart message or something.

~Grauw