[HN Gopher] Our plans for Thunderbird on Android
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Our plans for Thunderbird on Android
        
       Author : HieronymusBosch
       Score  : 541 points
       Date   : 2022-06-13 13:15 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.thunderbird.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.thunderbird.net)
        
       | fartcannon wrote:
       | I wish companies like Mozilla offered simple email hosting.
       | Something I could use with a custom domain. Cheap, like tutanota.
        
         | mxuribe wrote:
         | Most days I'm 50/50 on that approach...On days when i support
         | that, i would be so happy to pay them which would sustain their
         | dev efforts, enable open source to persevere, etc. And, i trust
         | them tons more than other providers. But honestly on other
         | days, it would begin to feel like too many eggs into one
         | basket...maybe not as bad as Microsoft level...even still,
         | whether i would use them or not, i would certainly welcome a
         | world where there would be another, solid (trustworthy) email
         | provider - even if only to give folks an option beyond just
         | Microsoft, Gmail, etc.
        
       | pmontra wrote:
       | As a Thunderbird and K-9 user this is 51% good news and 49%
       | possibly bad new.
       | 
       | Good news because it should increase the chances that the two
       | products will live a longer life.
       | 
       | Possibly bad news because I'm one of the crowd that went back to
       | K-9 5.600 because the new version destroyed the UI that was the
       | primary reason why we picked K-9 over other apps. 100% self
       | selection bias here. There was maybe an ongoing effort to offer
       | the old interface as an option. I'm not sure Mozilla's going to
       | invest into that. On the other side, the way I'm using
       | Thunderbird is very close to the old K-9.
       | 
       | A wish: an IMAP server backed by Thundebird's local storage and
       | K-9 as client.
        
         | decrypt wrote:
         | May I ask what Thunderbird local storage means? Does that mean
         | that emails are delivered and stored on the device, vs on a
         | cloud server?
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | Yeah, to me, it sounds like a confusion in understanding what
           | IMAP and POP email accounts are and how they work.
        
         | jacooper wrote:
         | Honestly I'm totally the opposite. I had a very negative
         | impression on k-9 when I tried to use it a long time ago
         | because of it's old interface.
         | 
         | However I recently needed an email app, I tried Fairmail but it
         | has so many options, and its UI is very weird. I switched to
         | K-9 and its perfect!, yes its not fully modern looking but its
         | easy to use and simple to get started with. If K-9 stayed with
         | the holo UI I probably wouldn't have used it.
        
         | jeroenhd wrote:
         | I actually stopped using K9 because it stuck to the
         | ridiculously outdated, and honestly quite ugly, Holo interface.
         | Holo worked as long as the entire system was consistent, but as
         | soon as material design got fixed in Android 7 (took them a
         | while to cut down on the margins!) I was over Holo.
         | 
         | I don't feel like setting up my mail client again but looking
         | at the current design I'm pleasantly surprised. I'll probably
         | give it a go as soon as the Thunderbird team and the K9 team
         | have joined forces for an actual release.
        
           | throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
        
           | rollcat wrote:
           | How I miss Holo. It was simple, consistent, basic but still
           | elegant.
           | 
           | Personally, it was the transition from Holo to Material that
           | drove me off Android entirely. There was no such thing as
           | dark mode at the time Android 5 dropped; you had to set
           | brightness very low to stand a chance at reading anything in
           | the dark, and with many (almost all?) apps still using the
           | dark Holo, looking at and using the device was jarring. I
           | switched to Jolla, and later to iOS.
           | 
           | I'm happy Android users didn't have to suffer through another
           | platform-wide redesign in the meantime, but I personally
           | don't find Material appealing.
        
             | jeroenhd wrote:
             | I think Material done well looks quite attractive.
             | 
             | The problem is that very few developers seem to read the
             | Material Design guidelines on offsets and such and the
             | offsets often look cobbled together. Not even Google
             | themselves can consistently follow their own design
             | guidelines.
             | 
             | To be fair, as long as I can keep basic features (i.e. an
             | app drawer and placing my icons and widgets wherever I'd
             | like) I'd be fine with a Cupertino styles phone as well, as
             | long as the damn thing is consistent. Back in the Holo days
             | everybody but the game devs followed Holo because it was
             | quite easy to follow, there weren't a lot of subtle details
             | if you used existing components. Looking back at screenshot
             | it looked a bit clunky, but every app looking nearly
             | platform native was a huge plus that we don't seem to get
             | on Android anymore.
        
         | fnord123 wrote:
         | > A wish: an IMAP server backed by Thundebird's local storage
         | and K-9 as client
         | 
         | Isn't Thunderbird using some weird file based system? Wouldn't
         | an SQLite backed client be a better idea in general? What would
         | the advantage of thunderbirds local storage have aside from
         | maturity?
        
           | mook wrote:
           | The old format was basically "concatenate all mail together
           | in one giant file". I believe newer versions support Maildir
           | ("pretend you're an IMAP server"), partly to support
           | antivirus better (i.e. when things get quarantined under you,
           | hope only the bad message gets moved instead of all your
           | mail).
           | 
           | They do have a weird database format ("mork"), but that is
           | for state tracking, address books, etc. and not the actual
           | messages, I believe.
        
         | danShumway wrote:
         | I'll say that I personally thought the old interface was pretty
         | outdated and clunky, and I regularly wished it could be a bit
         | better. But, I do sympathize.
         | 
         | I guess it kind of depends on (sans acquisition) whether that
         | old UI would have actually been offered as an option. If so,
         | then yeah, this is probably bad news for you. If not, then...
         | at least there should be some new features coming out, and
         | maybe the eventual interface they go with won't be quite as
         | generic as the new one.
         | 
         | But yeah, I sympathize, I'm just not sure that with any long-
         | term OS project on Android that you'd be able to indefinitely
         | get away with having no interface changes regardless of whether
         | the project gets sold or not. Even though I do think it's
         | reasonable to want to stick with the existing interface.
        
         | cookiengineer wrote:
         | Note that Mozilla has nothing to do with Thunderbird anymore.
         | They abandoned Thunderbird and it's a totally separate
         | community project these days.
        
           | Fnoord wrote:
           | P=P is based on K-9 and had a material design UI long before
           | K-9 had it.
           | 
           | Postbox is based on Thunderbird with a more modern UI, but
           | its Windows and macOS only (does work in Wine).
           | 
           | I stick with FairEmail on Android for now. Its completely
           | FOSS and in active development.
        
             | brnt wrote:
             | I've seen P=P (or pEp) and even used it, but I've never
             | heard anyone mention it till now. Visually it's clear its a
             | fork of K9, but you can't find any trace of that on their
             | website or repo (it's self hosted). Seems to be no
             | community around it, while it seems a solid choice,
             | especially if you use openpgp. Have you used it?
        
           | mqus wrote:
           | I probably know less than you, but at least the linked
           | donations page https://give.thunderbird.net/en-US/k9mail/ has
           | heavy mozilla branding and also talks about "Mozilla
           | Thunderbird"...
           | 
           | thunderbird.net states at the bottom: Thunderbird is now part
           | of MZLA Technologies Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary
           | of Mozilla Foundation.
        
             | password4321 wrote:
             | Ha, Firefox should move out too!
        
             | conradev wrote:
             | Thunderbird operates independently within Mozilla:
             | 
             | > There was a time when Thunderbird's future was uncertain,
             | and it was unclear what was going to happen to the project
             | after it was decided Mozilla Corporation would no longer
             | support it. But in recent years donations from Thunderbird
             | users have allowed the project to grow and flourish
             | organically within the Mozilla Foundation. Now, to ensure
             | future operational success, following months of planning,
             | we are forging a new path forward. Moving to MZLA
             | Technologies Corporation will not only allow the
             | Thunderbird project more flexibility and agility, but will
             | also allow us to explore offering our users products and
             | services that were not possible under the Mozilla
             | Foundation
             | 
             | https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/
        
               | folkrav wrote:
               | Still a far ways from having "nothing to do" with it
        
               | rjzzleep wrote:
               | Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation are not the
               | same thing.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | dizhn wrote:
           | It's still part of mozilla the company and has a special
           | advantage in that they can actually receive donations
           | directly, unlike the browser project.
        
             | zerocrates wrote:
             | Though they aren't tax deductible. So I wonder how much
             | they actually get.
             | 
             | Having decided to just look while writing this comment,
             | apparently it was a couple million last year? Which doesn't
             | seem bad.
        
               | MatthiasPortzel wrote:
               | Yeah, the 3 million that Thunderbird specifically got in
               | donations last year is absurd. I suspect it's more than
               | any other user-facing non profit open source application.
        
             | johannes1234321 wrote:
             | > that they can actually receive donations directly, unlike
             | the browser project.
             | 
             | I would love to donate to the browser, while my small
             | donation won't make it independent from Google's money it
             | might be a small step towards it.
             | 
             | I don't especially mind their political agenda, however
             | that's not what I want to donate to, I have other political
             | orgs I prefer.
        
           | avian wrote:
           | > Note that Mozilla has nothing to do with Thunderbird
           | anymore.
           | 
           | Mozilla the non-profit owns the for-profit corp who owns
           | Thunderbird.
           | 
           | In their own words from the footer of
           | https://www.thunderbird.net:
           | 
           | > Thunderbird is now part of MZLA Technologies Corporation, a
           | wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation.
        
             | cookiengineer wrote:
             | ... which is in conflict with the Thunderbird FAQ [1]:
             | 
             | > Who makes Thunderbird?
             | 
             | > Thunderbird is developed, tested, translated and
             | supported largely by group of dedicated volunteers, plus
             | paid staff. Thunderbird is an independent, community driven
             | project. Therefore its paid staff, budget and fundraising
             | are entirely managed and overseen by the Thunderbird
             | Council, which is elected by the Thunderbird Community.
             | Thunderbird development is made possible by funds donated
             | by the Thunderbird community. (Mozilla Corporation, the
             | makers of Firefox, and Mozilla Messaging no longer develop
             | Thunderbird. But Mozilla still supports Thunderbird by
             | hosting many of the Thunderbird resources.)
             | 
             | [1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-
             | faq#w_who-m...
        
               | bobajeff wrote:
               | I wonder if the future of Firefox is becoming primarily a
               | community driven project. I kind of hope so.
        
         | Groxx wrote:
         | Given how SMS on Android is basically just a database that's
         | shared between all SMS apps... it does seem like there should
         | be an email equivalent. Not having to plug my password into
         | every email app would be a good thing.
         | 
         | Or does IMAP cover that sufficiently well, e.g. not requiring
         | duplicating a ton of data? I haven't dug into the spec before,
         | I've just always used it with "download everything all the
         | time" configs, but I know it has remote searching and a few
         | other things that'd fit reasonably well with a content
         | provider.
        
           | tjoff wrote:
           | So that more apps can snoop on your email? Why would you want
           | to use more than one email-app _for the same accounts_? (I
           | get that you might want to use the gmail app for a gmail
           | account, but then using the same account in K9 doesn 't make
           | much sense to me)
        
             | kroltan wrote:
             | As far as I understand, there is still exclusive access to
             | 1 app at a time, it's just that the accounts and
             | sending/receiving is handled by the OS, and apps call into
             | the OS to do operations, rather than maintaining their own
             | credential stores and talking POP/IMAP/whatever directly to
             | servers.
        
               | tjoff wrote:
               | Not being forced to enter your credentials in android
               | itself is a feature.
               | 
               | Back in early android-days many email-apps actually added
               | an android account for IMAP/POP accounts. Which felt
               | quite awkward. And I suspect that it was trivial for any
               | app to list your accounts and get all of your registered
               | email-addresses.
        
               | Groxx wrote:
               | Yeah, android's "accounts" thing really has not worked
               | out in practice. It always felt half-complete and
               | strange, and it's still a very rough experience.
               | 
               | In principle it... might make sense? A system-provided-
               | and-presumably-more-secure login method isn't inherently
               | a bad idea. But without a deeper commitment from them / a
               | better way to _actually_ trust it  / more consistent
               | updates from OEMs (lol, yeah right), apps really have
               | ended up generally better and more trustworthy.
        
             | Groxx wrote:
             | Content providers can require app signatures, approval,
             | whatever they want. So... no? Unless you build something
             | that allows everyone to read your email. But don't build
             | that if you don't want that.
             | 
             | As far as "why": why not? Some apps do some things better
             | than others. You can already do this with IMAP, it'd just
             | be deduplicating the download cost / connections / etc,
             | which is generally a good thing for mobile use.
        
       | johntony678 wrote:
        
       | darkwater wrote:
       | Oh I was just going to finally configure K9 on my Android to
       | replace the "native" Fastmail client, which sucks A LOT when you
       | don't have internet connection, so this is great news. I really
       | don't understand why it cannot work without internet connection,
       | I'm no Android developer but locally caching the last month /
       | 500MB of messages can't be that complicated.
        
       | 0des wrote:
       | Completely off topic, but did anybody spot the actual fed in the
       | comments? Didnt know people just post on random nerd forums
       | trying to sell drugs. That's wild.
        
       | longrod wrote:
       | If there was one product where Mozilla could have really shined,
       | it was Thunderbird. There's nothing like it in the FOSS world.
       | Sadly they deprioritized it over Firefox resulting in the death
       | of both.
        
       | javajosh wrote:
       | As an aside, Thunderbird occupies that uncomfortable space of
       | software that is libre, but seems so bloated and complex I don't
       | want to install it, let alone work on it. I'm not sure if that
       | perception is "accurate" (which of course depends on how you
       | define things). But think of OpenOffice/LibreOffice. It's a huge,
       | classically written C++ blob that is hard to check out hard to
       | build and hard to contribute to. Yet, its very existence
       | undermines the motivation to start something new.
       | 
       | Surely there is a space for minimalist office suites and email
       | clients, written starting with a _browser_ as a jumping off
       | point, rather than a compiler? I guess I 'm arguing for an
       | Electron-based docs/sheets/email/calendar using modern software
       | best practices, and great components. An email client should be a
       | webview + sql-lite, no? And (for office docs) maybe with a more
       | thoughtful file format, like a simple html subset. Does this
       | exist? And if so where do I get it? (And maybe there are better
       | "jumping off points", like VSCode, which is itself a
       | specialization of Electron).
        
         | jcranmer wrote:
         | > Surely there is a space for minimalist office suites and
         | email clients, written starting with a browser as a jumping off
         | point, rather than a compiler?
         | 
         | As far as email clients go, Thunderbird is _literally_ what you
         | are suggesting. Thunderbird is essentially the Firefox web
         | browser, with all of the browser front-end code stripped off,
         | and an email client dropped in its place.
        
         | mempko wrote:
         | Thunderbird is built on top of a browser. Most code for it's
         | functionality isn't C++. Correct me if I'm wrong.
        
           | mook wrote:
           | Last I checked (which was a while ago), while the UI is in
           | XUL / JavaScript, the bulk of the mail handling
           | (POP/IMAP/SMTP, MIME parsing, etc.) was still in C++ that was
           | extremely complex and hard to port to JavaScript. There was
           | an attempt to rebuild a mail client in JS for FirefoxOS (the
           | mobile phone thing that is now mostly KaiOS), but that's not
           | used in Thunderbird as far as I know.
        
             | jcranmer wrote:
             | The backend stuff is being (slowly) ported to JS from C++.
             | SMTP should be implemented in JS now, I don't know about
             | the other parts.
        
         | gspr wrote:
         | > Surely there is a space for minimalist office suites and
         | email clients,
         | 
         | FWIW, my email life improved massively when I left the likes of
         | Thunderbird and KMail behind for the simplicity of mu/mu4e [1].
         | I hear similarly stellar things about Notmuch [2]. I'm never
         | going back to an email client that even thinks about itself in
         | relation to "office suites".
         | 
         | (For casual reading, and very rare composing, on a phone, k9
         | works passably well for me [3])
         | 
         | [1] https://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/
         | 
         | [2] https://notmuchmail.org/
         | 
         | [3] https://k9mail.app/
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | throwaway892238 wrote:
         | I will not use an Electron app if I can find literally any
         | other kind of app. Bloated, slow, buggy, difficult
         | desktop/Linux integration.
        
         | will0 wrote:
         | Arguing for electron on hn? Brave.
         | 
         | (I like electron fwiw, it's enabled me to have a desktop
         | experience with applications that would've otherwise never come
         | to linux)
        
           | ape4 wrote:
           | Email clients need to display full html/css/js now
        
             | subsection1h wrote:
             | Which email clients don't block JavaScript by default? I
             | quickly searched just now and couldn't find any.
        
           | javajosh wrote:
           | _> Arguing for electron on hn? Brave._
           | 
           | Thank you for recognizing this. I admit I had a moment of
           | doubt before pressing "submit". :)
        
             | viraptor wrote:
             | Keep in mind electron is just one way to go. There's Tauri
             | for example, offering a very similar solution.
        
         | subsection1h wrote:
         | > _An email client should be a webview + sql-lite, no?_
         | 
         | I strongly prefer Maildir.
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir
        
           | sam_lowry_ wrote:
           | Maildir vs mbox is like emacs vs vim.
        
           | mxuribe wrote:
           | I'm not a Thunderbird expert...but I seem to recall hearing
           | some where that some desktop mail clients - especially
           | Thunderbird - who use Maildir tend to also leverage sqlite
           | (as an over-layer) to aid with content indexing and
           | search...? If my recollection is right, that's kinda the best
           | of both worlds: separate files (maildir) but speedy content
           | search. :-)
        
         | TheFreim wrote:
         | > but seems so bloated and complex I don't want to install it
         | 
         | I don't use thunderbird currently, but have for /very/ short
         | amounts of time in the past. What seems bloated about it? For
         | reading and writing e-mail it worked fine and other features
         | seemed to stay out of the way in menus I didn't need to use.
        
         | e12e wrote:
         | > Surely there is a space for minimalist office suites and
         | email clients
         | 
         | It might be interesting to try and port/rewrite siag/scheme in
         | a grid to racket (or Julia...)?
         | 
         | It's the only "light-weight" office suite that comes to mind...
        
         | uneekname wrote:
         | I agree with you. It seems like the self-hosting community is
         | getting a decent bit of attention right now, and the ability to
         | deploy browser-based applications is the way to go for many
         | FOSS projects.
         | 
         | I think NextCloud [0] has a few apps that do G Suite-type
         | stuff, but I don't have experience using them. Etherpad [1]
         | also seems really good, I've used it in a few Zoom calls and
         | the experience was smooth. Personally, I'm looking for a Google
         | Photos alternative that's stable enough for my parents to use.
         | 
         | [0] https://apps.nextcloud.com/
         | 
         | [1] https://etherpad.org/
        
         | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
         | > Yet, its very existence undermines the motivation to start
         | something new.
         | 
         | Does it? There was just an article about claws mail on HN. Or
         | on the office side, gnumeric and abiword seem decent enough.
        
         | the__alchemist wrote:
         | How about a minimalist office suite and email suite written in
         | modern C++ or Rust? Performance and responsiveness are
         | important!
        
           | javajosh wrote:
           | Sure, it's just there's a lot of distance between compiler
           | and browser. I'd argue the first thing to do is write a
           | browser in Rust (I know Firefox has real components in it).
        
         | lkxijlewlf wrote:
         | > I guess I'm arguing for an Electron-based
         | docs/sheets/email/calendar using modern software best
         | practices, and great components.
         | 
         | Nope. Totally not interested in anything Electron...
        
         | ssl232 wrote:
         | I don't personally find Thunderbird to be bloated, especially
         | compared to e.g. KMail (which even a few years ago was still
         | buggy and unstable for me). "Complex" might be reasonable but I
         | expect a lot of that comes from email protocols themselves
         | being convoluted and weird. In fact, I think email's own
         | complexities are what destroy most peoples' motivation to make
         | a shinier, more modern tool.
         | 
         | I will say I do have a massive, single gripe about Thunderbird,
         | and while it's a trivial thing it's also - and in part because
         | it would be so easy to fix - massively infuriating: the default
         | keybindings for archiving, deleting, marking read emails etc.
         | are, astonishingly, single characters. I've lost count how many
         | times I didn't correctly highlight the filter textbox and
         | started to type a search query, which instead had the effect of
         | randomly archiving, deleting and marking read the top N emails
         | in my inbox before I notice. This is literally why we have
         | control characters, so I find it incredible that this is not
         | only the default behaviour but _unchangeable without a plugin
         | [1]_. I still find the tool very useful in every other way but
         | I can 't believe something so obviously wrong has not yet been
         | fixed after what must be at least 20 years of this software
         | tool being available.
         | 
         | [1] https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-
         | GB/thunderbird/addon/tbkey...
        
           | zasdffaa wrote:
           | Same (edit: no permanent damage done yet but now I keep tbird
           | minimised to prevent this kind of bad stuff from
           | keybindings).
           | 
           | And I went back to webmail for 6 weeks because when tbird
           | upgraded itself, the new OAuth (I think) stuff needed
           | cookies, which I didn't allow so just couldn't connect and
           | just kept failing without any explanation. That took half a
           | day of chasing down.
           | 
           | And if I get a calendar invite it just tells me "all
           | calendars are currently disabled. Enable an existing calendar
           | or add a new one..." without 1) saying why or 2) saying how
           | (and why would it not just use the one it's literally showing
           | me while saying they're disabled).
           | 
           | And it doesn't recognise domains correctly, and it strips out
           | inline attachments (yes, really), and fucks up formatting
           | (turns html mails into messed up plain text), and it's caused
           | me so much grief since its install, can anyone suggest a
           | competent, reliable email client that has a focus on quality
           | and not a focus on stupid UI crap that makes it feel like
           | someone's personal side-project. I'd gladly pay .
        
         | xg15 wrote:
         | > _Surely there is a space for minimalist office suites and
         | email clients, written starting with a browser as a jumping off
         | point, rather than a compiler?_
         | 
         | As a user, I'd prefer a minimalist office suite that still
         | doesn't have the browser as a starting point.
         | 
         | I think a browser is actually not a good UI for an office
         | programs, because it really awkwardly competes with your own
         | document model: HTML at its core still wants to be a document,
         | except probably not the document you want to have. So you have
         | to reimplement document APIs on top of already existing
         | document APIs.
         | 
         | E.g., tracking and working with selected text is extremely
         | important in office programs, but a browser already has built-
         | in management of text selections: Except, the built-in
         | management doesn't know which part is your chrome and which is
         | your document, making you to either implement your own
         | selection mechanism in addition to the browser's or handle all
         | kinds of really weird special cases.
         | 
         | And so on...
        
           | javajosh wrote:
           | It _is_ interesting how people serious about text editing
           | always seem to end up throwing away most of the DOM and use
           | Canvas or SVG (e.g. CodeMirror). But even then the browser
           | brings a lot to the table in terms of a common runtime.
        
         | mid-kid wrote:
         | > written starting with a browser as a jumping off point
         | 
         | That's thunderbird for ya.
         | 
         | Really the only web-browsery thing a mail client needs is
         | rendering of the email itself (if it's not just plain text,
         | HTML email is an extension!), for which, sure, it's a better
         | idea to use an existing webview. But for the rest of the
         | interface and logic? No.
        
           | sph wrote:
           | To be fair, if you're bundling a web browser to render
           | emails, you might as well write your whole UI out of it. Of
           | all use cases of Electron, an email client is probably the
           | least offensive.
        
       | rvz wrote:
       | So adding two disasters together makes it magnificent news? Oh
       | dear.
       | 
       | I don't think Thunderbird is that relevant today since that it's
       | essentially abandoned and still no Android or iOS app for
       | decades. I'd say that ship has already sailed and it would be a
       | long way to go to support iOS.
       | 
       | It has gotten this bad that they needed something like K-9 to
       | have Android support, and you would have thought that even with
       | Google's money they would have already funded an effort like this
       | on their own. Well now lots of Mozilla fans are going to realize
       | that their 'donations' _don 't_ actually go to Firefox, or
       | Thunderbird, etc but are really wasted on other schemes.
       | 
       | An opportunity thrown away for years and now they come back again
       | with this announcement decades later and coming very late to the
       | party after Thunderbird getting deprioritised.
       | 
       | A giant mess.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Can you please stop posting snarky/fulminatey comments? It's
         | against the site guidelines, and unfortunately nearly
         | everything you've posted recently has this quality.
         | 
         | HN is for _curious_ conversation.
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
       | ekianjo wrote:
       | Not thrilled. I use K9 and I don't really want Thunderbird to
       | have anything to do with it :/
        
         | prmoustache wrote:
         | You realize it is the same developer and can leave thunderbird
         | whenever he is not happy with the direction it takes?
        
           | wallmountedtv wrote:
           | Yeah but they cannot take Thunderbird mobile back. Its now
           | Mozilla property, which is the actual scary part.
        
             | goodusername wrote:
             | Thunderbird mobile will be open source, so they, or anybody
             | else can fork it, and continue development independently of
             | Mozilla, using a different brand. It will not be "Mozilla
             | property".
        
       | Qub3d wrote:
       | As a user of Thunderbird on desktop and user/donor to K-9 on
       | Android this is incredible news.
       | 
       | Super excited to see cketti's work get a major FOSS organization
       | behind it. Contrary to some other comments, I have actually been
       | really happy with the new interface updates and I think giving
       | K-9 a light thunderbird skin would be fantastic.
        
       | aidenn0 wrote:
       | I hope that someday I will understand why people like
       | Thunderbird. It is unequivocally the _worst_ e-mail client I have
       | ever used, excepting some early, extremely buggy versions of
       | alpine. I tried it again recently as it is only one of only 3
       | e-mail clients I found that could do exchange oauth2[1].
       | 
       | It's possible that its interface isn't as objectively terrible as
       | it seems, but it is gratuitously different; if you are going to
       | be different, it should be to some purpose, but after 6 months of
       | using it I still don't see any purpose. There are still some
       | vestiges of its previous Eudora-like interface, but everywhere it
       | is different from Eudora, it is to no purpose I can fathom.
       | 
       | 1: The other two I could find are Evolution and davmail (which
       | bridges EWS to imap). There may be more now; I last looked about
       | a year ago. I can unreservedly say that using Evolution is better
       | experience than Thunderbird, though its underlying architecture
       | is a bit bizarre.
        
         | miedpo wrote:
         | Hmmm... let me try and answer this, as someone who likes
         | Thunderbird quite a bit (and is cool with people not liking it,
         | but just wants to provide their own perspective).
         | 
         | For traditional business email, you are pretty much stuck with
         | two options - Outlook or Thunderbird. You can try and use
         | webmail of various types - and there are some decent webmail
         | clients out there - but it's just not quite the same as using a
         | good Desktop client.
         | 
         | For the newest Outlook versus the newest Thunderbird, Outlook
         | wins feature wise - it does a lot of things and all of it is
         | pretty well integrated. But if you don't need all the bells and
         | whistles, Thunderbird, in my opinion, is oftentimes better than
         | Outlook.
         | 
         | For example, I find that Thunderbird has a better search than
         | Outlook, and better conversation capabilities (threading and
         | open message in conversation) than Outlook. It's tagging system
         | and archiving system are better than Outlook's. It's add-on
         | system is easier to use then Outlook's (partly because most
         | everything is free). It also allows much more manipulation of
         | the UI than Outlook does as far as I'm aware. All of these
         | things add up, and Thunderbird becomes a much more efficient
         | email client than Outlook for me, which is important if I need
         | to deal with 100 or so emails a day.
         | 
         | On top of these things, in my opinion, Thunderbird is really
         | good and not causing issues down the line. Part of my job is to
         | manage workplace computers (probably no where near as many as
         | some folk here on this site, but not a really small amount
         | either), the amount of trouble Thunderbird gives me compared to
         | the amount of trouble Outlook gives me... well, it makes me
         | want to make everyone use Thunderbird. There are only two
         | things I really have to worry about with thunderbird (they
         | relate to the calendar and mass moving large amounts of
         | emails), but with Outlook... well... I've had to repair
         | people's email enough that I never want to do it again. It
         | sucks. I hate repairing .pst files.
         | 
         | Mmm... I personally have never tried Evolution or davmail, so I
         | can't speak to them, unfortunately. I will have to try them
         | later probably. As for Exchange OAuth, yeah, I can see you
         | having some troubles with it in Thunderbird. I was having
         | Microsoft 365's IMAP implementation give us trouble (ended up
         | dropping it). On the other hand, it was also giving older
         | versions of Outlook trouble... so I'm not sure I can put the
         | blame solely on Thunderbird for this one. I do hope you find
         | something that does what you want it to though.
        
         | jraph wrote:
         | I don't know. I've been using it since 2005. Its UI is stable
         | and efficient. Gets the job done and does not get in the way.
         | And it's free software.
         | 
         | You are not actually saying what you don't like about
         | Thunderbird so it's hard to oppose anything to your comment.
         | Why Thunderbird should change its UI if it works okay?
         | Gratuitously different from what by the way?
         | 
         | And to me, the UIs of Evolution and KMail don't seem that much
         | different from Thunderbird's and from what I've seem from
         | Outlook, same thing. There's a pane listing inboxes and
         | folders, there's a pane showing the content of the selected
         | folder and there's a pane showing the selected email's content.
         | ?
        
           | oblib wrote:
           | I've been using it for a few years now. The UI is outdated
           | and a bit clunky but it's worked great for me on my old Mac
           | Mini and the old Apple Mail app is pretty much unusable now.
           | My next best option is Roundcube Webmail, and it's pretty
           | good too.
           | 
           | I have a hard time with complaining about free software. I
           | either use it or don't, but I won't complain about it.
        
           | sph wrote:
           | People do not appreciate good UIs enough. I think many
           | software engineers might be UI-blind, actually.
           | 
           | Thunderbird is ugly, atrocious on 4K screens, does not group
           | messages by conversation like mail client have in the past 20
           | years, and insists on listing emails in side-by-side columns
           | instead of using a more compact and space-effective layout
           | like many mail clients in the past 20 years. It's got a
           | menubar, 3 level of toolbars and a burger menu; unnecessary
           | tabs, cramped spacing, and two search fields. It offers XMPP
           | chat and in-browser junk filtering when the former is pretty
           | much dead, and the second is not needed anymore since GMail
           | and its modern competition.
           | 
           | Someone mentioned LibreOffice elsewhere in the comment, and
           | both projects seems stuck in the 2005 UI, UX and feature
           | wise. I actively avoid using them even if I have to resort to
           | using subpar web applications.
        
             | krylon wrote:
             | I like Thunderbird's UI. It doesn't get in the way, and
             | more importantly, I have used it for a long time, so I know
             | my way around it quite well. A lot of attempts to "improve"
             | UIs end with things like Microsoft's Ribbon interface
             | (which I really dislike).
             | 
             | > does not group messages by conversation
             | 
             | Thunderbird _can_ group messages by conversation. One has
             | to ask for it specifically in the Sorting menu, which
             | admittedly is annoying and should be the default. But it is
             | there.
             | 
             | > [client-side spam filtering] is not needed anymore since
             | GMail and its modern competition.
             | 
             | It kind of is, though. Not everyone is using GMail, and my
             | idea of what does or does not count as Spam might differ
             | significantly from what some email provider thinks.
             | 
             | I'm sure there are prettier mail clients around, and by all
             | means, if you prefer one of those, use it. I used Apple's
             | Mail.app when I using a Mac, because I needed to access an
             | Exchange mailbox at the time, which sucks on Thunderbird.
             | The UI looked shiny, I never got upset about it (UI or
             | functionality), but I happily went back to Thunderbird when
             | I got back to Linux.
        
               | sph wrote:
               | > Thunderbird can group messages by conversation. One has
               | to ask for it specifically in the Sorting menu, which
               | admittedly is annoying and should be the default. But it
               | is there.
               | 
               | It's not a unified conversation view like Gmail or
               | Fastmail. There's a plugin that does that, but it's not
               | very pleasant either.
               | 
               | I'm on Linux, all other email clients are pretty bad or
               | similarly stuck in 2005 in appearance. I am very happy
               | with the Fastmail webapp, but Mozilla is against PWAs so
               | I have to resort to using Chromium to keep it around as a
               | standalone app. I would like to use Thunderbird, but I
               | have tried getting comfortable with the UI a dozen times
               | in as many years, and I uninstall it in frustration 30
               | minutes later. These days it is also very sad to open its
               | extension store and see that most of its plugins are
               | unmaintained and haven't been updated in years. There's a
               | true feeling of abandonware every time I give it another
               | chance.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | Macha wrote:
         | Have you used the gmail web interface?
         | 
         | How do you do bulk actions on emails? Clicking a checkbox for
         | every single one? Having to write an run a query for each set
         | of emails you want to operate on in bulk?
         | 
         | Here's how I do it in thunderbird. Sort by sender (or other
         | thing). Click first email. Shift click last email. Do whatever
         | I want (usually archive or move to a folder).
         | 
         | My employer turned off IMAP access a few years ago and I've
         | basically given up managing my github/jira/mailing list spam.
         | Filters turn out to be surprisingly fragile.
        
           | aidenn0 wrote:
           | I used the Gmail web interface once in 2005 I think? I didn't
           | include webmail in my assessment, or the office 365 mail
           | client would have "won" this award.
        
           | forgotpwd16 wrote:
           | >Here's how I do it in thunderbird. Sort by sender (or other
           | thing). Click first email. Shift click last email. Do
           | whatever I want (usually archive or move to a folder).
           | 
           | This is pretty basic functionality for an email client to
           | have. In GMail (Proton and Yandex too; probably any modern
           | web client) works by clicking the checkbox. Click first
           | email's checkbox. Shift click last email's checkbox.
        
             | Macha wrote:
             | Great, speaking of basic functionality, how do I sort?
             | 
             | I don't believe gmail supports this.
        
         | mixedCase wrote:
         | Geary is too buggy/lacks e-mail refresh, KMail is also too
         | buggy although I haven't tried it in a few years, Evolution
         | assumes too many GNOME parts, Mailspring is electron-based,
         | TUIs are right out, Claws is even more 90s than Thunderbird.
         | 
         | So yeah. For handling multiple e-mail accounts, Thunderbird
         | works best.
        
           | aidenn0 wrote:
           | > Geary is too buggy/lacks e-mail refresh, KMail is also too
           | buggy although I haven't tried it in a few years
           | 
           | Indeed, my reaction to Geary was "wow, they managed to make
           | KMail look good!"
           | 
           | > Evolution assumes too many GNOME parts
           | 
           | I don't like this about Evolution either; I haven't run a
           | GNOME desktop for at least a decade, and (depending on the
           | distro) it can be a tiny bit fiddly getting Evolution working
           | without a GNOME desktop. It "just works" on recent NixOS
           | versions though. Once it's installed though, it's a joy to
           | use, while Thunderbird feels like a drag. I'm not a UI
           | expert, so I can't put my finger on what the difference is.
           | 
           | > Mailspring is electron-based
           | 
           | I hadn't heard of mailspring previously, but I suspect we
           | have similar views of what at typical electron-based app is
           | like...
           | 
           | > TUIs are right out
           | 
           | I have no problem with TUIs, I use a TUI along side a gui
           | mail client, but the latter is necessary when dealing with
           | non text-only messages (particularly responding to).
           | 
           | > Claws is even more 90s than Thunderbird
           | 
           | Maybe I'm just old, but Claws is _way_ more usable than me
           | than Thunderbird. The only thing it lacks for me is an html
           | e-mail editor, which is necessary for responding and quoting
           | to non text-only e-mails. There are plenty of good TUIs that
           | can handle text-only e-mails, so claws isn 't really
           | something I currently have a use for.
        
           | jraph wrote:
           | That's my experience as well. And I would like to use KMail
           | since I use KDE anyway. I haven't tried Mailspring but I
           | don't feel like running another Electron app when Thunderbird
           | does the job amazingly well.
        
         | thepangolino wrote:
         | I fully agree with your comment. Thunderbird is just plain
         | terrible.
         | 
         | Over the weekend I migrated to a 100% Linux/open-source
         | environment. So of course I went through a series of
         | alternative apps. While you'd never find feature parity (eg.
         | with MS Office and the Adobe Suite) existing alternatives are
         | mostly good enough.
         | 
         | Thunderbird has been tooted to me as THE alternative to MS
         | Outlook. What I found was a total mess of a software stack
         | needing countless addons and customization to even get close to
         | Outlook. Then I discovered Evolution. It was certainly
         | different but worked pretty much flawlessly out of the box.
        
           | jraph wrote:
           | I vouched for your comment.
           | 
           | Congratulations and good luck for your migration!
           | 
           | It's good you found a solution in Evolution. I don't use many
           | extensions in Thunderbird, just one to show different colors
           | in the new mail window depending on the account used to send
           | the mail. I'd be interested in knowing which specific
           | features of Outlook you needed that required extensions in
           | Thunderbird (and that Evolution has by default).
        
       | danielEM wrote:
       | Been waiting and asking for it for years!!! Need this and desktop
       | version of Firefox for Android to be able to use phone for work.
        
       | FollowingTheDao wrote:
       | Hoping it will be on F-Droid...
        
       | zecg wrote:
       | I'll be certain to use whatever fork of K-9 is available rather
       | than anything Mozilla. WHERE'S THE SAVE TO PDF OPTION on mobile
       | Firefox?
        
         | Vladimof wrote:
         | The worst thing with Firefox Mobile is that they still force
         | you to use addon collections to use the most basic addons.
        
         | gnomewascool wrote:
         | You'll be happy to know that Thunderbird is for better or worse
         | now mostly independent Mozilla's leadership.
        
         | prophesi wrote:
         | Same way you have to do it on Chrome iOS; Share the page,
         | select print, and zoom in on the thumbnail to have it generate
         | a PDF you can save.
        
           | Vladimof wrote:
           | I don't see that option on mine...But I use Fennec from
           | Fdroid, so maybe that's why.
        
       | smdotdev wrote:
        
       | who_is_mr_tux wrote:
       | My favorite mobile email app now working with my favorite desktop
       | email app. Love it!
        
         | sam_lowry_ wrote:
         | It does not support IMAP at first glance. The wizard has only
         | POP3 config option.
        
           | sam_lowry_ wrote:
           | Ah, nope. Manual config has it. I wonder whether IDLE command
           | is supported, but we'll see.
        
       | danShumway wrote:
       | I get skeptical about acquisitions, but from what I can tell this
       | actually seems like decent news.
       | 
       | Thunderbird isn't acquiring K-9 to kill it or merge with an
       | additional product, they're buying it so they can increase its
       | development speed and then put their name on it. That seems to me
       | like about the best acquisition goal that they could have --
       | basically saying, "what exists is good, instead of building our
       | own thing let's just pour resources into what exists."
       | 
       | It doesn't seem that conceptually different from what companies
       | do with products like Blender, where sponsoring more development
       | on an existing product is better than rolling an in-house
       | version. The main difference being that K-9 is not independent
       | now, the companies that do this with Blender don't end up owning
       | Blender.
       | 
       | So with any acquisition there's some cause for caution, but
       | overall I am inclined to be pretty optimistic about this. I use
       | K-9 today, and I would like to see K-9 get more resources and to
       | get more parity with other clients. I'm a little bit hesitant
       | about my primary email client on my phone entering an
       | experimental phase where its interface is going to change a lot.
       | Again, concerns, but overall this seems like actually pretty good
       | news.
        
         | II2II wrote:
         | If anything, the merger makes Thunderbird more accountable for
         | the future of K-9 than they would be if they sponsored it. It
         | is probable a net positive.
        
       | ycombinator_acc wrote:
       | I hope they get rid of the dreaded hamburger menu and other
       | Gingerbread-era design patterns and just generally make the app
       | less ancient-looking and more usable on modern gesture-based
       | Android.
       | 
       | Fairemail is much better in that regard, which is why I stick to
       | it, but still quite dated.
        
         | Macha wrote:
         | My one wish for K-9 is swipe-to-archive (or like the fastmail
         | app, swipe to custom selected action).
         | 
         | Other than that, while it's generally just... a bit ugly, it
         | functions fine for me.
        
       | imalerba wrote:
       | Long time Thunderbird in Linux user, had to switch to Mutt a few
       | months ago. Having 3 inboxes configured was taking, for some
       | reason, +10Gb of disk and several Gb of RAM, plus being painfully
       | slow and freeze pretty often.
        
         | abdullahkhalids wrote:
         | Disk space is as much as you have mail. If not, there is
         | something wrong with your profile.
         | 
         | I have 15 GB of mail across 5 email accounts and Thunderbird is
         | currently sitting at 350 MB RAM. Rarely crosses 500MB, I think.
         | 
         | I am encountering some freezes and occasional crashes which are
         | annoying, but on linux there is nothing better.
        
         | sillystuff wrote:
         | With several 10s of thousands of messages (~70 GB) in my
         | accounts, I also had issues with TB using tons of disk space
         | even when set to not copy messages locally. The issue was TB's
         | global search index. If you disable global search indexing in
         | your config, then manually delete the global-messages-db.sqlite
         | file, you can free up those 10+ GB.
         | 
         | My fix for most annoyances was to copy mail locally, and run
         | dovecot locally on the same box as TB (TB doesn't support
         | standard maildir). I also added a wrapper script that does a
         | VACUUM on all the sqlite dbs in the profile when starting TB.
         | 
         | With the above, TB has worked well for me.
        
         | alyandon wrote:
         | I eventually had to switch off Thunderbird as well for similar
         | reasons and just live with mutt. TB just really didn't perform
         | well at all on large mailboxes (dozens of folders, thousands of
         | messages per folder) without freezing the UI, gobbling
         | gigabytes of ram, etc - it is obviously not targeted at my use
         | case.
        
       | andrewshadura wrote:
       | Can we please have JMAP support in both? Thanks!
        
       | emodendroket wrote:
       | Hate to be a stick in the mud, but I worry about a loss of focus
       | when Thunderbird is one of the few in a dying category on the
       | desktop, which is much less true on mobile.
        
         | AdmiralAsshat wrote:
         | The two work in tandem, though. I use Firefox on mobile because
         | I use Firefox on desktop. That and it being the only Android
         | browser that runs uBlock Origin, of course.
         | 
         | I currently use Thunderbird on desktop, but use a combination
         | of Gmail and Outlook on Android. If Thunderbird picks up K-9
         | mail and turns it into a first-class mobile client, I'll
         | probably use Thunderbird instead of the Outlook app. People
         | like consistency.
        
           | ekianjo wrote:
        
             | AdmiralAsshat wrote:
             | Works great! That's three more than Chrome supports.
             | 
             | Plus, I'm at two now. Your post reminded me to check how
             | many add-ons I actually have installed, and I realized that
             | HTTPS Everywhere is no longer needed because Firefox itself
             | rolled out an HTTPS-Only setting.
        
             | sanitycheck wrote:
             | I only need 1: NoScript.
             | 
             | I hate what they've done with Mobile Firefox but it's still
             | better than the alternatives.
        
             | maleldil wrote:
             | Even if Firefox for Android had only one extension (uBlock
             | Origin), I'd still use it. Using an ad blocker is the
             | single best thing you can do to improve your user
             | experience on the web.
        
             | nvrspyx wrote:
             | Why be so condescending?
             | 
             | Also, they could use Firefox on mobile to keep their
             | history and bookmarks in sync across devices in addition to
             | some extensions they find useful, like uBlock Origin as
             | they mentioned. Just because the number of extensions is
             | less than desktop doesn't mean the extensions that do exist
             | aren't game changers for them.
        
             | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
             | uBlock by itself is enough to justify using Firefox on
             | Android. Still sucks that they made it so limited, sure,
             | but Mozilla's really good at nailing "somehow the least
             | awful awful browser".
        
             | pritambaral wrote:
             | Hey, 3 > 0.
             | 
             | How many do you enjoy?
        
               | ekianjo wrote:
               | You missed the good old days of firefox on android
               | supporting hundreds of extensions.
               | 
               | progress, I guess?
        
               | input_sh wrote:
               | Ah yeah, back when page load lasted 3x as long as Chrome
               | (on a lower end device at least). I've installed the
               | rewrite back when it was called Firefox Preview.
        
               | binarysneaker wrote:
               | Long time Android Firefox user here, mainly because of
               | Ublock. Syncing with my Mozilla account was a plus, I use
               | Firefox on desktop because of its container tabs. Lately
               | I switched to Brave (Android), which is noticeably
               | faster, and supports extensions too.
        
             | jeltz wrote:
             | Yes, I enjoy them a lot. They, especially uBlock, are the
             | reason I switched to Firefox Mobile from Chrome. No more
             | annoying ads for me.
        
             | NoGravitas wrote:
             | Most of the recommended extensions on Firefox Mobile are
             | also the most widely used and most needed (in particular
             | uBlock Origin). But if you _really_ need more extensions,
             | you can jump through a bunch of hoops in Firefox Nightly to
             | get any extension you want. Some of them even work pretty
             | well (I use Privacy Redirect, Stylus, and Bypass Paywalls
             | Clean in addition to some of the recommended ones).
        
           | Zak wrote:
           | > _That and it being the only Android browser that runs
           | uBlock Origin, of course._
           | 
           | There's also Kiwi. It runs pretty much any extension
           | available for Desktop Chromium.
        
             | Macha wrote:
             | Though once manifest v3 is the only option, it's hard to
             | say that'll really be as effective as uBlock Origin on
             | Firefox: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-
             | Origin-works-b...
        
               | Zak wrote:
               | That's an issue. I'm really puzzled my Mozilla's sudden
               | aversion to an open repository of extensions on Android.
        
               | woojoo666 wrote:
               | I think a lot of Firefox extensions are still broken on
               | mobile. For example, I can't find a single tab manager /
               | session manager that works on mobile
        
               | Macha wrote:
               | Yeah, me too. My best guess is that it's PM's who are
               | overprotective of their idea of how it should work and
               | feel they don't have to open the box as wide as on
               | desktop.
               | 
               | But 20 > 0, all the same.
        
           | longrod wrote:
           | Firefox is a dying horse on its last throes before Hades
           | claims it for its own. Mythology aside, I find it truly sad
           | to see the state Firefox is in. A browser is an incredibly
           | complex piece of software and what Mozilla did with Firefox
           | is nothing short of brilliant. Alas, they have been left too
           | far behind [0] I am afraid they'll no longer be relevant in a
           | few years.
           | 
           | Every few months Mozilla tries to overhaul it's UI and
           | succeeds only to try again later. What are they trying to do?
           | What's the real reason behind their slow descent into
           | irrelevance?
           | 
           | Last time I tried Firefox on Android, it was a mess. Crashing
           | every few minutes, unpredictable. I hear its a lot better now
           | which is great! But why did they ditch the old one?
           | 
           | [0] https://caniuse.com/?compare=firefox+101,chrome+102&compa
           | reC...
           | 
           | edit: added link to caniuse.com
        
             | lock-the-spock wrote:
             | I find Firefox absolutely marvelous in the state it is in
             | now. There certainly is no mystical death.
        
             | itintheory wrote:
             | I'm not sure which Firefox you're using, but the
             | description you've laid out here doesn't match my
             | experience at all. I've been using FF on desktop and
             | android for years and have had no issues whatsoever. In
             | what way do you feel firefox has been "left too far behind"
             | ?
             | 
             | There was a time when Chrome was faster by an ample margin,
             | but it's no longer enough to be an important distinction.
             | Between the privacy respecting features, and plugin support
             | on mobile - Firefox is the best choice.
        
               | longrod wrote:
               | A full detailed list: https://caniuse.com/?compare=firefo
               | x+101,chrome+102&compareC...
        
               | Phelinofist wrote:
               | I find the lack of nonsense API implementations to be a
               | good thing
        
               | prophesi wrote:
               | I don't think this proves Firefox is dying. A better
               | indicator would be Chrome's past decade of 90%+ browser
               | market share. It's also worth noting that a good amount
               | of the features not implemented in Firefox are either
               | Chrome-specific experiments, or features purposefully
               | unimplemented for privacy purposes.
               | 
               | If anything, it shows the damage of a browser-tech
               | monopoly which Edge and Brave aren't helping with.
        
               | longrod wrote:
               | I don't think features such as Web USB, Web Bluetooth are
               | privacy invasive. Chrome's huge market share is the very
               | reason Firefox isn't trying very hard here. They are
               | playing catch up. Take Manifest v3 for example; Chrome
               | introduced it quite a while ago and made it mandatory for
               | new extensions in 2022. Firefox just started catching up.
               | 
               | This is bad for Firefox because developers will
               | eventually (and some still do) will simply stop
               | supporting Firefox due it being so slow to catch up.
               | Chrome already has such a huge market that a lot of web
               | devs already don't care (e.g. Microsoft Teams).
               | 
               | What does this signify? It's the death of Firefox unless
               | Firefox pulls a miracle here. Chrome is leading, all the
               | devs are following, and they leading by leaps and bounds.
               | Firefox is forced to catch up which causes frustration
               | among users.
               | 
               | How long before Firefox gets tired of playing catch up
               | and simply becomes irrelevant?
               | 
               | I am not happy about this. This is clearly bad but
               | inevitable. The only other real competitor is WebKit
               | which is restricted to Apple only. A huge market still.
               | But Google's monopoly over the browsing market will only
               | cause harm in the long run. Even though it will make devs
               | jobs a lot easier.
        
               | prophesi wrote:
               | > I don't think features such as Web USB, Web Bluetooth
               | are privacy invasive.
               | 
               | Coincidentally, Brave believes they are privacy-invasive
               | and don't support those features either (last paragraph
               | in the article)[0].
               | 
               | Firefox, as with all other browsers aside from Safari,
               | will remain with less than 5% market share for the
               | foreseeable future. But I'd much rather continue
               | supporting different browser engines than use a skinned
               | Chromium to uphold the status quo.
               | 
               | [0] https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/google-plan-for-
               | chrome-c...
        
               | NoGravitas wrote:
               | > I don't think features such as Web USB, Web Bluetooth
               | are privacy invasive.
               | 
               | Mozilla, Apple, and Brave all disagree (as do I).
        
               | stonogo wrote:
               | You are misinformed. Firefox had their own
               | implementations of WebUSB and WebBluetooth years and
               | years ago -- they were necessary for FirefoxOS.
               | Deprecating and removing them was a conscious decision
               | because the privacy risks were deemed too great. This is
               | also the case for Manifest v3; Mozilla is trying to
               | determine the 'safe' (i.e. user-friendly) characteristics
               | to implement and ways to mitigate the rest. Some parts of
               | v3 directly conflict with Firefox architecture. As an
               | example, v3 requires service workers, while Firefox
               | permits entirely disabling them.
               | 
               | The overarching theme of your writing on this topic is
               | that Chrome can just spit out Web 'features' at random
               | and unless Firefox implements all of them immediately it
               | is dying. I hope you can try to understand that not only
               | is this not an accurate assessment, but maybe also that
               | Firefox has value beyond being a copy of Chrome.
        
               | fabrice_d wrote:
               | The security model used in Firefox OS to gate access to
               | these APIs was very different. We never exposed these web
               | bluetooth to the web at large, only to signed apps.
               | 
               | Mozilla needs to step up and find ways to expose such
               | APIs though, because they are useful. Just saying "no"
               | without proposing a solution is a sure way to lose.
               | There's a bit of hope recently with the implementation of
               | WebMIDI in Gecko.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | >I don't think features such as Web USB, Web Bluetooth
               | are privacy invasive.
               | 
               | It's telling that the only browser vendor that feels this
               | way has the logo of one of the two most privacy invading
               | companies in existence.
        
               | longrod wrote:
               | Brave is a way better choice. As for plugin support on
               | mobile, yes that's missing but I use extensions mainly on
               | desktop. Brave comes with an adblocker built in and if
               | that doesn't work, you could use something like Adguard.
        
         | ekianjo wrote:
         | its mostly dying because its so poorly optimized it chokes on
         | mailboxes that have more than hundred emails and cant do search
         | properly. One of the worst FOSS out there.
        
           | jfk13 wrote:
           | I have mailboxes with tens of thousands of emails in them,
           | and it works pretty well for me.
        
           | aiisjustanif wrote:
           | Are we talking about Thunderbird because it performs very
           | well.
        
           | tssva wrote:
           | Hacker News users are much more likely to have vast email
           | archives organized into folders which must be regularly
           | searched than the general public. Most people have no choice
           | regarding work email. Web email clients and the default
           | mobile clients meet most people's personal email
           | requirements. In other words 3rd party email clients are
           | dying because there is a lack of demand.
        
           | emodendroket wrote:
           | The search functionality definitely could use work. But
           | that's my point. What other desktop email clients are you
           | going to use instead?
        
         | NoboruWataya wrote:
         | There are basically two good, actively developed FOSS email
         | apps for Android: K-9 and FairEmail. Development of FairEmail
         | almost ceased recently, as the developer was having issues with
         | Google Play and no longer felt it was worth his time to work on
         | the app. Thankfully he ultimately decided to continue
         | development. I remember last year there was also a big campaign
         | to get more donations for K-9 as the developers badly needed
         | more resources to continue development.
         | 
         | The category of FOSS email apps may not be dying, but it is
         | small, and never far away from death. Having a large,
         | established project with decent resources backing K-9 is
         | definitely a good thing for the health of the category IMO.
         | Personally I use FairEmail and hope that it will continue to
         | thrive as well.
        
         | andyjohnson0 wrote:
         | > Thunderbird is one of the few in a dying category
         | 
         | I reluctantly agree. I think that the continuing relevance of
         | email is largely a consequence of open standards and
         | interoperability - things that Google et al are getting less
         | and less keen on. As well as Thunderbird allowing me to have a
         | copy of _my_ emails on _my_ desktop /laptop, rather than in
         | someone's cloud, I think its good to have an open-standard
         | success story to point to.
         | 
         | But in reality I use the Fastmail web client on desktop and
         | Fastmail's app on my Android devices. Despite using Thunderbird
         | for over a decade, nowadays I really only use it to sync a
         | local email archive. I wish it were otherwise.
        
         | NoGravitas wrote:
         | In the Free Software space on mobile, though, there are not so
         | many usable mail apps. Basically just K-9 Mail and FairEmail,
         | as far as I know.
        
       | btdmaster wrote:
       | I really hope this leads to an improvement (reduction) to the
       | stuff Thunderbird pings[0].
       | 
       | [0] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/thunderbird/
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | warabe wrote:
       | This is a wonderful news! Finally, k9 mail will come with OAuth
       | functionality!! or won't they?
        
         | forbiddenlake wrote:
         | Yes; this work was started even before the latest FairEmail
         | kerfluffle, and is slated for K-9 6.200.
         | 
         | https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/issues/655#issuecomment-113165...
        
       | ephbit wrote:
       | K-9 has served me pretty well over the last 8ish years.
       | 
       | It has remained beautifully lightweight (quite an exception for
       | apps nowadays) and the biggest (yet perfectly tolerable)
       | annoyance has been long lines not wrapping automatically.
       | 
       | I'm 9/10 sceptic about this cooperation and I'll be positively
       | surprised if the future versions _do not_ introduce lots of
       | unnecessary bloat.
        
         | ephbit wrote:
         | Ah, here it's already announced, the bloat:
         | 
         | > Account setup using Thunderbird account auto-configuration.
         | 
         | Perfectly unnecessary.
         | 
         | > Syncing between desktop and mobile Thunderbird.
         | 
         | Duh, what exactly does IMAP do?
         | 
         | *shakes head*
        
           | brnt wrote:
           | Thunderbird auto-config just means a domain lookup in a
           | database though (even better would be that everybody
           | configures .well-known correctly).
        
       | ThatGeoGuy wrote:
       | This is fantastic news all around!
       | 
       | I recall the K-9 developer needing additional funding in the
       | past, so this is great news for that project [0]. In addition,
       | I'd much rather use "thunderbird" on mobile as an extension of
       | K9, since it has thus far been my favourite mobile client. Work
       | in the most recent years has been wonderful, and it's a pleasure
       | to use (although I've vastly cut down on mail on mobile because
       | hey, a keyboard is better).
       | 
       | Overall, this seems like it makes a lot of sense. Hopefully this
       | will mean that the shift to supporting a mobile client won't
       | detract from the good stuff desktop Thunderbird is doing as well.
       | 
       | [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26131509
        
       | xg15 wrote:
       | I'm continually creeped out by all the PR sugarcoating on what
       | essentially are simple notices of acquisition. So all this is in
       | effect saying is that K9 got acquired by Mozilla and will be
       | integrated into the suite of Mozilla products.
       | 
       | The justification given in the post is just non-information,
       | because you could say this for almost any pair of software
       | products if you define the terms fuzzily enough:
       | 
       | > _The Thunderbird team had many discussions on how we might
       | provide a great mobile experience for our users. In the end, we
       | didn't want to duplicate effort if we could combine forces with
       | an existing open-source project that shared our values. Over
       | years of discussing ways K-9 and Thunderbird could collaborate,
       | we decided it would best serve our users to work together._
       | 
       | I don't want to say this is bad for K9, bit I still wonder what
       | will happen to existing K9 installs.
       | 
       | If you install Android app X and, due to an acquisition, the app
       | suddenly morphs into app Y which has a different branding,
       | different UI, different features, a different backend and a
       | different development team (but still has your data), isn't this
       | exactly one of the things that the app store rules are supposed
       | to protect against?
        
         | happyopossum wrote:
         | > isn't this exactly one of the things that the app store rules
         | are supposed to protect against?
         | 
         | Umm, no? There's never been a rule about an app developer
         | selling their app/company - that'd be pretty badly restrictive.
        
           | xg15 wrote:
           | I don't think the selling part is the problem (per se), I
           | mean the app becoming something completely different after
           | the acquisition, which users never consciously installed.
        
             | notRobot wrote:
             | While not commonplace, it's not unheard of for app UI/UXes
             | to be changed completely over an update.
        
             | iggldiggl wrote:
             | I've just learned (one benefit of _not_ automatically
             | updating everything) that the app I 've used for syncing
             | music from iTunes to my Android phone [1] plus the
             | associated music player app have been sold to some
             | unscrupulous developers who have apparently proceeded to
             | immediately re-add ads into the paid-for (!) versions, re-
             | adding the the file sync limits that originally only
             | applied to the free trial version and things like that and
             | (instead of the former one-time purchase) are now demanding
             | something on the order of 30 $ or so per month (!!) in
             | order to unlock the former paid-for features again.
             | 
             | It'd be nice if there actually was a rule against something
             | like that...
             | 
             | [1] The key features for why I didn't just use a simple
             | file sync was that it supported bi-directional syncing of
             | play counts, ratings and for podcasts also the playback
             | position.
        
               | gripfx wrote:
               | Is it iSyncr + Rocket Player? I am in the same boat if
               | so. Have the paid versions and don't see ads at the
               | moment, but the "Rate Me" popups are a bad sign.
        
               | iggldiggl wrote:
               | Good guess, yes. :-) From a brief look it seems that
               | these days (I don't think it was around when I first
               | looked a few years ago) MusicBee instead of iTunes on
               | desktop and GoneMAD Music Player might work as a similar
               | combo with bi-directional play count and ratings sync
               | (although I've found somebody saying that this didn't
               | actually work on a latest Android version [1], so
               | hmm...), but it seems the podcasts handling might not
               | work as it currently does.
               | 
               | The problem is that while I don't need the podcasts
               | syncing for regular podcasts (for which a separate
               | podcasts app on my phone would be perfectly fine, and
               | besides I don't listen all that much to podcasts that way
               | anyway), I'm also managing my collection of radio
               | comedies I've scrounged together from all sorts of places
               | as podcasts in iTunes (by simply manually setting the
               | media type to "Podcast" - luckily on Windows, where
               | iTunes hasn't been split up into its components this is
               | still possible), so that
               | 
               | a) they're all together in one place and not cluttering
               | up the music part of my library
               | 
               | b) especially to get the nice at-a-glance listened/not
               | listened/partially listened display, and
               | 
               | c) while iTunes allows setting the "Remember my playback
               | position" for any kind of file, Rocket Player apparently
               | supports remembering the playback position _only_ for
               | podcasts
               | 
               | I've got no idea how GoneMAD and MusicBee's file syncing
               | behave in that regard, but a quick test installation of
               | MusicBee showed that while I could get used to it as an
               | iTunes-replacement for my general music library, it
               | _doesn 't_ allow manually importing files as podcasts,
               | meaning I'd have to resort either manually hacking the
               | database, or setting up some sort of fake Podcast running
               | on a local HTTP server in order to import new episodes...
               | :-/
               | 
               | At least for now the old versions will keep working, and
               | if some future Android version does break things, I guess
               | I'll decide what to do about it in terms of a replacement
               | at that time and not now...
               | 
               | Though I guess it does mean that my personal main bug in
               | iSyncr [2] won't ever get fixed now, so maybe I need to
               | resort to APK hacking after all...
               | 
               | [1] Which is how I found out about iSyncr + Rocket Player
               | having been sold in the first place.
               | 
               | [2] After a file has been synced, it won't be synced
               | again if any subsequent changes that don't change either
               | of title/artist/album (or possibly file size, but due to
               | metadata padding small metadata changes won't necessarily
               | change the total file size) happen within 24 hours [3] of
               | the original sync.
               | 
               | [3] I think this is trying to work around the fact that
               | Android reports the file timestamps in local time, so due
               | to either travel or even just summer/winter time a file
               | might suddenly appear as outdated as compared to the last
               | modified timestamp on the desktop. As my desktop with my
               | music library, is in a fixed location, for me 24 hours is
               | excessive, though, and 1 hour to cater for summer/winter
               | time would be enough.
        
             | Taywee wrote:
             | Is there anything in the announcement that says that people
             | who installed K-9 mail would find that it has silently
             | turned into Thunderbird? I'd assume this would involve a
             | separate install, as it'll probably have a separate app ID
             | indicating the Thunderbird connection.
             | 
             | In any case, I've had installed apps have the name change
             | as a part of rebranding before. It's a little bit jarring
             | sometimes, but name changes happen. They're usually small
             | name changes, but I don't thing taking "K-9 mail is
             | continuing development with a new name" as "app becoming
             | something completely different" is really fair. Unless the
             | functionality and UX completely changes, I don't think it's
             | fair to read a name change as something so negative that
             | needs to be "protected against".
        
         | pndy wrote:
         | They probably will provide message written in "big friendly
         | letters" on a welcome screen at some point where it will be
         | explained that K9 becomes Thunderbird, and how _great_ that is
         | for you as the user. Either they 'll update the client or ask
         | users to download new one and migrate - not sure how that
         | happens on Android.
         | 
         | Will that help? Not sure. Mozilla seems to have weird goals
         | nowadays.
         | 
         | Anyway, I'm so fed up with empty terms like "experiences" and
         | "excitement" all around in IT. But guess that's what happens
         | when you let marketing dictate way too many things in software
         | development.
        
         | Macha wrote:
         | From Mozilla's previous attempts to jettison Thunderbird, and
         | the period where the community kept it maintained while Mozilla
         | allocated no resources, the relationship between Thunderbird
         | and Mozilla these days is more akin to that between something
         | like GNU or ASF and their projects than a company and its
         | direct project.
         | 
         | While yes Mozilla could theoretically enforce its trademarks
         | and appoint its own team to start making more direct decisions,
         | we've seen how that goes with various ex-GNU projects like
         | libreboot or ASF projects where they don't have the community
         | like OpenOffice
         | 
         | > If you install Android app X and, due to an acquisition, the
         | app suddenly morphs into app Y which has a different branding,
         | different UI, different features, a different backend and a
         | different development team (but still has your data), isn't
         | this exactly one of the things that the app store rules are
         | supposed to protect against?
         | 
         | On my phone currently, this applies to the following apps:
         | 
         | * Element
         | 
         | * Free Now (European taxi app bought out by BMW/Daimler,
         | formerly mytaxi, formerly hailo)
         | 
         | * Google Hangouts (Was installed as Talk)
         | 
         | * WhatsApp (now Facebook owned)
         | 
         | * A local cinema chain bought out by a UK + Ireland chain
         | 
         | * Pocket Casts (independent -> NPR -> Automattic)
        
           | GekkePrutser wrote:
           | Element did not change ownership. They've just had a few
           | confusing name changes. And the (same) people behind the
           | client are trying to commercialise the client but not the
           | network behind it where your data actually is.
           | 
           | I never understood why they dropped vector as a name. It
           | wasn't a worse name than element. Riot was a terrible name
           | choice however. Sooner or later it would have got caught up
           | being used by people coordinating a protest or something and
           | the press would have had a field day with it.
           | 
           | But your data has never left the matrix network or your own
           | home server if you chose to have one.
        
             | Macha wrote:
             | No, but it did change name and appearence in the move from
             | what was Riot Android to when RiotX was launched and
             | rebranded to Element
        
               | GekkePrutser wrote:
               | RiotX? I don't remember that. There was a TelegramX,
               | maybe this is what you mean? However there was a couple
               | years that I didn't use it much so perhaps I missed it.
               | 
               | But it did go from Vector -> Riot -> Element and various
               | UI and branding changes along the way yes :) Part of this
               | is also that the app was not really "finished" back in
               | the Vector days. It only really came into its own during
               | the Riot age. For example E2E encryption didn't yet exist
               | at the start, and the underlying support in Matrix was
               | missing as well. It's still a protocol and toolset that's
               | evolving rapidly.
               | 
               | However the benefit of Matrix is that you can choose any
               | client you want, there are several for mobiles.
        
               | Macha wrote:
               | The app that is now the Element Android app co-existed
               | with the old Riot app for over a year as "RiotX". The
               | rebrand and app changeover were timed together, so they
               | renamed the RiotX app to the Element app and replaced the
               | old Riot app with it in one go.
        
           | dizhn wrote:
           | Microsoft Swiftkey Keyboard is another good example. (The
           | product got worse though)
        
         | ryanleesipes wrote:
         | Thunderbird Product Manager here. We have no intention to
         | replace the backend or most of the components. It will not be a
         | different app. It's still run by the K-9 project maintainer.
         | The difference? We didn't want to see K-9 die because of a lack
         | of funding, and our visions were aligned - so it made sense to
         | work together. That's it. Thunderbird is community run (unlike
         | Firefox, our community representatives approve our team's
         | budget and goals), so our aims are just to provide for our
         | users and community what they want. And they want to use email
         | on their phones as well as desktop.
         | 
         | The way you present it sounds devious. But we're just truly
         | trying to work together in the open source ecosystem the best
         | we can and put our resources to their best use.
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | >We have no intention to replace the backend or most of the
           | components.
           | 
           | So sayeth every acquiring company about the acquired. I can
           | think of very few that it held true. Maybe this can be added
           | to the list, but only time will tell. I wouldn't suggest
           | people holding their breath though
        
           | 3np wrote:
           | Hi Ryan, nice seeing you here. If you don't mind, would love
           | to hear your thoughts:
           | 
           | I'm missing a story about mobile Linux. Has this been
           | discussed; is this something on the roadmap?
           | 
           | There are already excellent e-mail options for iOS. Right now
           | there is almost nothing outside of the cli that's usable on
           | mobile Linux. Thunderbird would have a chance of being the
           | main choice while helping adoption of mobile Linux in the
           | medium-to long-term.
           | 
           | I understand it's not realistic to expect anything anytime
           | soon, but I do hope this is being discussed and that we will
           | see a strategy for it.
        
             | NoGravitas wrote:
             | Have you tried Geary on mobile Linux? I haven't (no
             | pinephone or similar), so I'm sincerely asking. It works
             | well in a very narrow window on desktop Linux, so that
             | seems hopeful? I wonder if it's excessively memory hungry
             | or syncs mail inefficiently, though.
        
               | 3np wrote:
               | I've tried it a bit.
               | 
               | It's the most viable and promising so far I think. I have
               | too many directories for it to be usable without some new
               | features, though (namely highlight dirs with new mail and
               | more filtering capabilities). It's practically unusable,
               | but granted I may have an unusual setup. If you just have
               | a handful of active folders it might be great.
               | 
               | Didn't notice any surprising syncing issues so far.
        
           | donio wrote:
           | Why not keep the K-9 name though? Arguably it's a stronger
           | brand for the target audience than Thunderbird.
        
           | 0des wrote:
           | > It will not be a different app. It's still run by the K-9
           | project maintainer. The difference? We didn't want to see K-9
           | die because of a lack of funding, and our visions were
           | aligned
           | 
           | Nothing in this world is purely altruistic. If it didn't make
           | business sense, this wouldn't be happening. Please surprise
           | me and stay true to your word on this.
           | 
           | > The way you present it sounds devious. But we're just truly
           | trying to work together in the open source ecosystem the best
           | we can and put our resources to their best use.
           | 
           | We are all from the internet here, you know exactly why we
           | are this way. Even if true, please understand why your words
           | are perceived this way.
        
             | sky-kedge0749 wrote:
             | What business sense do you have in mind? Thunderbird is
             | funded by donations and governed by volunteers. Even if
             | this were some kind of money grab, who's grabbing what
             | money?
        
           | dizhn wrote:
           | This is great. I am glad K9 will live on. I didn't think it
           | wouldn't anyway because frankly K9 is established software
           | and Thunderbird doesn't seem to have anything in that space.
           | It wouldn't make sense to kill it and redo it. This is not
           | Microsoft after all, which would take the product and cripple
           | it so much that it has one third the features and the
           | Microsoft name.
           | 
           | However this particular deal sounds a lot like white
           | labeling, don't you think ? :)
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | madeofpalk wrote:
         | > _the app suddenly morphs into app Y which has a different
         | branding, different UI, different features, a different backend
         | and a different development team (but still has your data), isn
         | 't this exactly one of the things that the app store rules are
         | supposed to protect against?_
         | 
         | https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/1/23149832/google-meet-duo-c...
         | 
         | > _Pretty soon, the Duo app will get an update that brings an
         | onslaught of Meet features into the platform; later this year,
         | the Duo app will be renamed Google Meet. The current Meet app
         | will be called "Meet Original," and eventually deprecated._
        
       | c_prompt wrote:
       | Speaking only for myself, I would LOVE to get away from Microsoft
       | Outlook. As I've alluded elsewhere [1], there are some key
       | functions that are needed:
       | 
       | - Full encryption integrated into the client for all data (e.g.,
       | I don't want Windows Search able to index the mail so someone has
       | access when the client is closed/unencrypted; I also remember
       | testing Thunderbird years ago and was able to go into the
       | individual unencrypted .eml files [I think that's what they were]
       | and read the messages without having Thunderbird opened)
       | 
       | - Full local sync with Android/iPhone (i.e., home WiFi,
       | Bluetooth, or USB cable); it still amazes me that Thunderbird
       | still doesn't have this built-in
       | 
       | - Xobni-like functionality (e.g., showing all emails and
       | attachments to/from sender when clicking on an email, keyword
       | searches); yes, I know the plugin is still available but it
       | doesn't work properly with current Outlook versions (and no
       | plugin like this exists for Thunderbird)
       | 
       | But if the upgraded K-9 also got other integrated Thunderbird
       | functionality (e.g., calendar, contacts, tasks), that would be
       | especially amazing as I could then move away from Google (which
       | I'd also LOVE to do). For example, the Notes field in Google's
       | base Contacts app is limited to 1000 characters. That means I can
       | only sync Outlook to Android one-way (else I lose longer notes
       | when they sync back).
       | 
       | To be able to move away from Microsoft and Google to open
       | source... now that's a future worth dreaming about.
       | 
       | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31683214#31686186
        
         | NonNefarious wrote:
         | After not trying Thunderbird since the '90s (when I dismissed
         | it with prejudice for having no way to export, and thus copy
         | between computers, all the filters you'd set up), I was forced
         | to after discovering the unusably defective shitshow that is
         | Outlook today.
         | 
         | I was pleasantly surprised by the experience of installing and
         | configuring Thunderbird on two new computers I bought for my
         | parents. Pretty much seamless, and I kept waiting for it to
         | fail it furiously downloaded all 15,000+ messages in each of
         | their AOL In-boxes. Nope. It worked fine, unlike Outlook and
         | whatever the atrocious POS client Microsoft is including with
         | Windows these days.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | dataangel wrote:
       | I had no idea thunderbird is still around
        
       | jesprenj wrote:
       | I hope there will be no integration with sponsored providers in
       | K-9. I remember I switched to sylpheed when I figured out
       | Thunderbird was establishing connections to DropBox and promoting
       | it for sharing large files.
       | 
       | Perhaps it wasn't DropBox but something else ... Perhaps I'm even
       | making this up (although I don't think so). I've always wanted to
       | know more about this promotion of a filesharing service in
       | Thunderbird, so if anyone knows anything about this, please reply
       | (:
       | 
       | AFAIR it was a preinstalled extension on Thunderbird from Debian.
        
       | L0stLink wrote:
       | I would love to see what this will bring to K9 mail. I hope
       | having the support of Thunderbird will allow K9 to really get
       | some much needed polish. My preferred app right now is FairMail,
       | its interface takes some getting used to and settings layout is
       | very confusing but once I did manage to get it setup, it became
       | clear that I preferred its extensive customizability and sidebar
       | vs K9 when it comes to managing emails across multiple accounts.
       | They are basically the only two FLOSS Email apps worth using on
       | android, so K9 getting some extra support is really awesome.
        
       | oblib wrote:
       | I use Thunderbird on my late `09 Mac Mini. Last week I was
       | testing an html email that uses Bootstrap css for the design
       | layout and it looked great in Thunderbird, Gmail strips any tags
       | for links to css files, and so does Roundcube, so it looked like
       | crap in those.
       | 
       | So then I tried embedding the css in the email and same thing.
       | Thunderbird rendered it perfectly and the others ignored and/or
       | removed it. I'm at a loss as to why CSS in an email is ignored or
       | stripped out by Gmail. Sure makes it ugly though.
        
       | CivBase wrote:
       | I'm curious how Mozilla feels "Thunderbird on Android" aligns
       | with their mission statement. Thunderbird was practically the de
       | facto alternative to Outlook back when desktop clients were the
       | standard for email. But there have been plenty of quality email
       | clients on Android for a long time. Does buying a popular
       | competitor and re-branding it as Thunderbird really help to
       | "ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and
       | accessible to all"? I'm worried this will just end up being
       | another ongoing expense for Mozilla.
        
         | warabe wrote:
         | There are a lot of "closed source" email clients on Android. I
         | tried to find free, open source email clients, but found only
         | k9 and FairEmail.
        
       | bitwize wrote:
       | Neat. Something for me to fall back on in case FairEmail guy
       | decides to take his ball and go home again.
       | 
       | I've recently started maining Seamonkey as a browser. It has a
       | better UX than all of the big ones -- especially Chrome but even
       | Firefox isn't so great anymore. The Mozilla spinoff projects have
       | lots to recommend them, now that Mozilla is more an outreach
       | organization than a software development organization.
        
       | zafiro17 wrote:
       | I wish both the K9 and Thunderbird teams all the best. K9 needs
       | some love, and so does Thunderbird, honestly.
       | 
       | I use Aquamail on Android and love it. Great feature set, works
       | great with multiple accounts, lots of configuration options. It's
       | not open source or free and I honestly do not care.
       | 
       | Back in the day it was something like USD 4. Now it's something
       | like USD 25. Still worth it, and I don't mind paying for software
       | if it keeps the developers in business.
        
       | ig-88ms wrote:
       | Let's hope K9-Mail gets a more attractive UI. It always felt more
       | clunky than it needed to be.
        
         | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
         | Have you tried the new 6.000?
        
         | mid-kid wrote:
         | Its classic android 4 gmail-esque-but-refreshed look is the
         | main reason I use it. It works really well for me, and I kind
         | of miss the primary screen for accounts it used to have, now
         | being delegated to a popout on the sidebar.
        
       | OptionX wrote:
       | I would normally be wary of such a merger/acquisition, but as a
       | long time user of thunderbird on the desktop this is actually
       | exciting.
       | 
       | At least I don't predict K-9 getting worse and has the distinct
       | possibility of getting better and getting more features.
        
       | 8845327 wrote:
       | Does anyone know how to make gmail play nice with K-9 or
       | FairEmail? Gmail keeps asking me to log in through a browser on
       | my phone, and authorize almost every log in attempt, and not all
       | authorizations are accepted! When I log in into my gmail account
       | on a computer and authorize the "suspect" log ins, gmail still
       | refuses (8/10 times) to allow use through 3rd party apps. My
       | experience with 3rd party email apps has been awful because of
       | this. My conspiracy theory is that google wants to lock users
       | into its ecosystem for continued surveillance/data gathering on
       | users and their usage but I digress. Back to the original issue,
       | wouldn't TB on mobile experience these same issues as
       | K-9/Fairemail?
        
         | forbiddenlake wrote:
         | On FairEmail, GMail via OAuth works fine for me :tm:. On K-9,
         | for now you are going to have to enable 2FA on your google
         | account, then create an app password for K-9 to use. A future
         | version of K-9 will enable OAuth.
        
         | _jsnk wrote:
         | Regarding authorizing suspect logins, the only thing that would
         | successfully authorize my email client access was visiting
         | https://accounts.google.com/DisplayUnlockCaptcha
         | 
         | I finally set up two factor auth in gmail using FreeOTP and
         | have Fairemail (fdroid version) configured using an app
         | password. (I run LineageOS with no Google services installed or
         | account setup so the OAuth method isn't an option for me)
        
           | 8845327 wrote:
           | > LineageOS with no Google services
           | 
           | this is probably the better way in the long run, but freeOTP
           | might do the trick for now!
        
         | brnt wrote:
         | Go to your Google account and setup an app password. Might have
         | to enable 'unsecure' access in additionele (Google think
         | standards bases interfaces are outdated, you see). Then you can
         | add your mail account through IMAP/SMTP, *DAV.
         | 
         | As with all things Google, the only winning move is not to
         | play. Long term I'm sure they'll axe this and tell you to use
         | their app or bust.
        
           | 8845327 wrote:
           | agreed that it's best not to use gmail, but boy it is not
           | easy to find a mail service to replace
           | gmail/hotmail/yahoo/etc. So far the alternative seems paid
           | protonmail, which I don't mind paying, but how long until
           | they start doing 'funny' things like gmail et al and one has
           | to migrate again.
        
         | mxuribe wrote:
         | I agree with you that Google wants to lock users into their
         | ecosystem. Separetly, i think @brnt is 100% correct; an app
         | password should do the trick for you. Well, at least for
         | now...because @brnt said it best with the following: "...As
         | with all things Google, the only winning move is not to play.
         | Long term I'm sure they'll axe this and tell you to use their
         | app or bust."
        
           | NoGravitas wrote:
           | Google has said already that they will be dropping app
           | passwords for GMail soon. I don't remember the exact date,
           | but it's not far off.
        
       | sureglymop wrote:
       | FairEmail seems a lot more feature filled and better than K9. I
       | think it even tops Desktop Thunderbird.
        
         | stratom wrote:
         | I personally also use FairEmail, but I appreciate that there is
         | an viable opensource alternative.
        
           | zen_1 wrote:
           | FairEmail is also open source [1]
           | 
           | [1]: https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/
        
         | NoGravitas wrote:
         | I keep going back and forth between the two. Each of them has
         | strengths and weaknesses the other lacks. Currently, I'm on
         | FairEmail because its IMAP IDLE client implementation seems so
         | much better than K-9's. On the UI side, FairEmail is trying
         | harder to keep up with the Material Treadmill, but still
         | manages to seem less polished.
        
         | itintheory wrote:
         | I thought they were gone after the developer had a fit:
         | https://www.ghacks.net/2022/05/19/fairemail-developer-calls-...
         | but I guess the issue is resolved and they've recanted?
        
         | xcambar wrote:
         | Fairemail is worth every penny I've donated to the project and
         | more.
        
       | XorNot wrote:
       | I'm pretty happy about this: K-9 is my daily driver on my phone,
       | and Firefox my web browser. This is a win for the open web.
        
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       (page generated 2022-06-13 23:00 UTC)