[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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-13 23:00 UTC)