Google Launches Official Gmail Add-On Program (pcworld.com)

Google is making it possible for developers to bring their services into Gmail using new integrations called Add-ons. From a report on PCWorld: It's built so that developers can write one set of code in Google's Apps Script language and have their integration run in Gmail on the web, as well as inside Google's Android and iOS apps for the service. For example, a QuickBooks add-on would let users easily send invoices to people who they're emailing. Google already offers Add-ons for its Docs word processing and Sheets spreadsheet software. This sort of system could be useful for users because it helps them get work done without leaving Gmail. It also helps draw users into Google's official email app, rather than use one of the many other clients that can access the service, including Microsoft Outlook.

Comments

PGP/GPG webmail plugin : Mailvelope

[DrYak]

Have a look at Mailvelope.

- It's generic (not GMail specific, should work on lots of webmail website, simply by encrypting/decrypting their TextArea)
- It's multi-platform (Chrome Extension, Firefox plug-in, most OSes)
- Enables PGP signing and encryption.
- All the crypto is done locally on your computer inside the plug-in. The webmail site only sees encrypted blocks in the editor's input field.

It has a few shortcomings :
- Only works on "textarea" form field, so won't work for encrypting attachments.

BUT:
- You can still encrypt/decrypt files on your computer (this can be facilitated by by Mailvelope) and upload the *encrypted file* as an attachment.
(This is a work around for GMail, Outlook, etc.) You get the security of encryption, at the cost of a few extra step.
- Mailvelope provides an API and some provider (GMX.de) do integrate with the API and thus provide full support for attachment encryption (done by Mailvelope) without disturbing the end-user experience

With the GMail Add-On program, Mailvelope developers could implement the necessary things on the GMail side of things as a Gmail Add-On, so it will correctly cooperate with the Mailvelope extension and provide seamlessly encrypted files *without* needing Google to spend time integrating vanilla Gmail with Mailvelope's API (integration done at the Gmail Add-on level isntead).