If you use an EaSecure plug-in for your email program, the email account in your email program does not have to have an EaSecure key for you to send out EaSecure messages, as long as you have at least one key in your computer. For example, you may have an email account myemail@mycompany.com that allows you to send out emails through an Exchange server, but that email address does not have a key. However, you have a web based email address mywebmail@yahoo.com that has a key in your computer, but cannot send emails out through the Exchange server. In this case, you can still send out EaSecure messages using your account myemail@mycompany.com through the Exchange server. EaSecure messages sent out this way will appear to be from myemail@mycompany.com on the outside, but when the message is decrypted, the recipient will see that the message is truly from mywebmail@yahoo.com.

If have keys for several email addresses on your computer, you need to indicate to the plug-in which key you want to use for sending out EaSecure messages in case the email address in the "From:" field does not have a key (or in some cases, the "From:" field is not available - on some Exchange servers the "From:" field is inserted by the Exchange server and is not available to the email client). This email address is called the "default signer" (the associated key will be used for digitally signing out going messages in case the "From:" address is not available or does not have a key). To view which email address is the default signer, select "EaSecure Key Manager" under the "Tools" menu to start the EaSecure Key Manager:

The email address marked with "(default signer)" is the current default signer. To change the default signer, select an email address listed in the above dialog box and click the button. The selected email address will become the default signer. Please note: The default signer is used to sign the outgoing message only when the email address in the "From:" is unavailable or does not have a key. If the "From:" email address is available and has a key, that key is always used to sign outgoing EaSecure messages.

The Default Signer feature is only available to plug-ins. In the standalone client, all email addresses that can be selected in the "From:" field have keys. Therefore, it does not need and does not have a Default Signer feature.