Thunderbird.net Has a New Look
Been using Thunderbird for a few years after using mostly webmail and it has been a mostly good experience. The UI revamps have definitely split the room somewhat, but honestly, Thunderbird's UI progression feels much better than Firefox's, and I have actually gotten used to the way Thunderbird looks and functions without too much pain. The information density is still generally alright, the tabs look like tabs, etc. The only thing that really tripped me up is the inconsistent hierarchy between the tabs and the sidebar, and I am not really that torn up about it, to be honest.
What I really think Thunderbird could use is account sync. For me on NixOS (how do you know if somebody uses NixOS? Don't worry, they'll tell you) I might just set up some secret data in SOPS and have an activation script ensure the accounts are all present, and then IMAP can take care of the rest. But for the general user, and maybe even still me, Firefox Sync support for accounts and extensions and more would be amazing.
Speaking of IMAP, JMAP support is another thing I'd love to see.
If any Thunderbird dev is here please bring the "Customise From Address" to the mobile. It's a god-mode feature (probably nowhere else) for battling spam and truly utilising catch-all for personal domain based emails.
PS. Also, any ETA for iOS? Alpha? Beta?
Love that Thunderbird is moving forward. The UX work is great, and looks like they are finally getting to some more deeply buried issues too, like https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=479969 - my main reason why I can't switch fully back yet
The page starts off with light text on a dark background, then as you scroll down it switches to dark text on a light background and then as you keep scrolling it switches back again!
It's impressive to find a page which will irritate both the dark-mode and light-mode users in equal measure. Well done, Mozilla.
Since no one's posted it yet, here's what it used to look like
2017: https://archive.ph/YNAQP
2023: https://web.archive.org/web/20230420163425/https://www.thund...
The new website looks like every startup website I've seen since the start of the 2020s.
Longtime Thunderbird user. I prefer the old interface and so I've selected that. I wish I could compose a message or a reply in a tab. I often have to click away from the compose window and finding it again is less convenient than it could be (I'm on a Mac.) Lots of people want it, it's been an open bug/feature request since 2008 [0] and yet this is ignored in favor of other UX cruft and website PR.
I don't get the importance of announcing a website redesign. Doesn't look like it would convince anyone to try it.
I really wish I could donate to the project without giving them my full details. Why if I send you a couple bucks with paypal do I need to provide my address? PayPal does all the payment validation...
Has thunderbird started doing what Firefox does and categorize your emails to send those stats back to Mozilla corp? If so, or it's in their plans, I guess that would be a reason they may want all my data.
I was happy that thunderbird was abandonware, the protocols haven't changed in the decade since I started using it, and it kept Mozilla from bloating it like FF and seeking profit motives.
I may just move back to roundcube.
In this day and age, why does Thunderbird still ask for my password to store locally instead of using a standard OAuth flow? Every time I consider using Thunderbird, I just can't bring myself to enter a password. It feels like such an antiquated violation and gaping security hole.
It's too bad that Thunderbird's UI keeps getting gradually worse, with functionality lost, in newer releases. I don't feel comforted by a website revamp.
(And that's not getting into TB's internal dynamics, which are super problematic.)
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It's disappointing for that there is no FreeBSD release nor any easy way to find the source for that matter.
Even within their github, there's no source of the client unless I'm missing something?
https://github.com/orgs/thunderbird/repositories
Edit: Wow, to the down-voters you seriously hate FreeBSD that much that I cannot even state my opinion without yourselves needing to down-vote? Why?
It is disappointing that we can't have another OS in the same realm as others and yet we have to keep the whole fanboi cliche going. It's ridiculous, we live in 2024 and yet still have this petty rivalry.
If Thunderbird is able create packages for Snap, Debian, CentOS anything else Linux -- why can they not create packages for FreeBSD?