First off, I'm using Thunderbird, and so should you. It's pretty lightweight and it's free. I'm also using gmail and if you didn't know, you can actually configure gmail for Thunderbird. So after installing Thunderbird:
- Install GNU on your system gnupg-w32cli-1.4.3.exe, but if you're interested in security obviously you should check any link I give you to an executable file.
- Install the Enigmail extension for Thunderbird. If you're a firefox user, you may not be happy that you have to actually download the extension and save it first. Then you go to Tools > Extensions > Install on your Thunderbird menu. You can get the extension from this page: https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/71/.
- Now that you have that done, you have to restart Thunderbird, and once you've restarted it you should see OpenPGP on your menu. If not, go back to Tools > Extensions and make sure it's installed.
- Go to that menu, click on preferences, and under the basic tab you'll see an GnuPG executable path that you have to browse for. You're looking for a gpg.exe
If you've installed it into Program Files, it's probably located at C:\Program Files\GNU\GnuPG\ - Now go back to the OpenPGP menu and click into the Key Management, you'll see a menu item called Generate, go there. Generate a new key pair, throw in a passphrase. It's probably safe to set it so it doesn't expire.
- Now you can go ahead and set up a revocation certificate and put it somewhere safe.
- Write your friend a new, unencrypted email from Thunderbird. From that window click on OpenPGP menu and click attach my public key.
- Have others attach their public key for you.
- Once you have their public key, you can import those keys from the key management section
- Ok, so now you've set it up and you want to start sending encrypted emails out everywhere. The first thing you need to do is make sure you have some friends that are able to read them. Now, I haven't gone into this in too much detail, but let's suppose your friend has just gone through the same steps as you.
