How to use GnuPG to encrypt emails in Gmail

Until about a year ago, i used Thunderbird as my favorite email client. I loved the fact that i could use it from both Windows and Linux, and the nice plugins it has. I dropped it in favor of Gmail for several reasons:

• It consumes a lot of memory (yes IE consumes much more, but who uses IE? another tab weighs less than a full email client)
• Mozilla, Thuderbird developers, shows no interest in Thunderbird any more. I guess they don't make enough money to justify it's development. That means that you won't see any significant improvements in Thuderbird anytime soon.
• It is somewat sluggish - especially i hate the lag when pressing the Send button.
• No calendar integration - true, the is the lightning project, but it looks horrible.

So now, i use Gmail. It is perfect, almost. The thing i missed the most was the Enigmail Thunderbird plugin, that enabled email encryption using GnuPG.

Now, it is possible to do the same with Gmail. Download the FireGPG plugin for Firefox. What it does is it extends the Gmail interface (using greasemonkey?) to support Encrypt and Decript ops.

While such a greasemonkey-like solution will probably not win the 2009 software elegance award, and i wonder how it will continue to work when Google updates Gmail next time.... But i have to say that it worked 100% for me and this is great!