3 questions about TOR and anonymity

I am on a second hand laptop getting wireless via unknown router
so my only give away as far as remaining anonymous are my email accounts.

1) Does it make sense to only use TOR for emails
so I could avoid having to change a bunch of settings since I do not handle graphics with my emails ?

2) Can I use TOR with Safari on windows XP rather than a MAC
because I dislike Mozilla ( specially 3.0.3 )

3) a week ago I installed TOR for a couple of days,
prior to this all my ports were stealth, and most closed.
After TOR a bunch were no longer stealth, is this normal and OK ?
because I uinstalled it until I would figure this out.

Thanks folks

 

1) TOR is a poor choice for email, very few exit nodes allow it and those whom do are not considered very 'trustworthy' and could be using your email for spam etc. Maybe try JAP instead, is much more secure and has known third parties (whether this is a good thing is up to you, also its not so anonymous but still very private)

2) I haven't had much experience with safari, firefox is still a better choice is its very customizable. If you don't like it, try sea moneky or Kmelon instead, both have addons that can be used to increase usability and security.

3) Remember that when using TOR, that when you preform a check with something like Shields UP firewall test, that its scanning the TOR exit node and not your computer, and should reveal some open ports that the server will be listening too for any inbound/outbound connections.