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I used to use Apple's Keychain to store passwords, but I got tired of trying to figure out how to transfer them when I changed computers, so I switched to using a text file encrypted with gpg symmetric encryption:

$ gpg --symmetric my_passwords.txt

Is this any less secure than the Keychain app?

The file has 0600 permissions, and it seems like even if I was using gpg w/ a public/private key, if someone got access to the my_passwords.txt file they'd have access to my private key anyway.

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As far as I know, PGP encryption has never been broken.

So my answer would be: PGP is as least as pretty good as Apple's Keychain.

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ha! funny pun :) – Michael Pryor Jun 25 '10 at 12:58
@Johannes Rössel: Sorry - will try to improve in the future. – harrymc Jun 25 '10 at 13:38
Tropes aren't bad ;-) – Joey Jun 25 '10 at 20:07
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The default symmetric cipher used by gpg is CAST5 while Mac OS X encryption tools (File Vault) use 128-bit AES cipher.

Both ciphers are considered secure against "cryptographic breaks" so their security for encription is related only to the security of the password.

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