I'm considering making my default hash RIPEMD160: does anyone have any opinions on how this compares to SHA-2 algorithms in terms of both security and availability?
The new SHAs have the benefit of about a dozen years of cryptanalytic research behind them. RIPEMD160 is very similar to SHA-1, and the recent attacks against SHA-1 are likely applicable to RIPEMD160. Those same attacks do not apply against the newer SHAs.
I have no problem looking past this bit of romanticism.
"Romanticism" is exactly the right word to use.
I'm especially curious if RIPEMD160 is commonly available in popular PGP clients.
Yes. It's been in PGP since 6.5.8, and in GnuPG since 1.0. (Probably since long before 1.0, but since 1.0 was the first official release, that's where I trace things back to.)
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