Probably easier and more secure to just boot in a tails live system (usb, cdrom). This system uses tor and has everything installed and configured to protect your privacy.
Good suggestion. Also as a warning, don't (!) just use TOR as a proxy, through your everyday browser. Your everyday browser has probably enough configuration to be easily identifiable. That's why the torproject now emphasizes the use of the whole tor browser bundle.
You still need to create an email account with a host who is at least semi-aware of the importance of privacy and cryptography (e.g., not Google). You can't make new Google Accounts from Tor nodes without additional verification (your phone number); same is likely to be true of all major email services.
Accessing your Gmail through Tor and thinking that makes you "anonymous" is just going to tell everyone that you failed at being sneaky.
>Accessing your Gmail through Tor and thinking that makes you "anonymous" is just going to tell everyone that you failed at being sneaky.
Thats a great slogan for a T-shirt :).
Oki, for a bit more seriousness... One could in theory create an account on google through tor, verify the account with a burn phone, and be rather unidentifiable. Its just kind of costly, so just bad guys with anonymous cash that can do this and not journalists.
https://tails.boum.org/