I have read about encryption and I think it's a good idea for me to encrypt my email. I run ubuntu 12.10 and use Firefox for browsing.
In my quest for learning how to use gmail/hotmail to send and receive encrypted emails, a couple of older tutorials point to firegpg a firefox addon but the projects homepage says that it is no longer under active development.
I also read that encrypting within the browser is also dangerous as javascript running on the page can transmit the unencrypted data, so it is better to have a separate program that does this job.
Is there a fairly recent howto or guide available on the internet which has all the details so that even a beginner like me can follow along. If so it would be nice if someone can point me to them otherwise if someone could explain how their email encryption workflow works.
I have no problem composing my email in a text editor and then encrypting them and sending that text in the mail body but I don't fully understand how I'd manage all the public keys of my contacts. Is there some program that does this?
I'm not looking for email clients like thunderbird, I want to use a web browser for email it works out much better in my experience.