SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
In this Ars Technica article, Mozilla Corporation Chair Mitchell Baker discloses the desire to drop the Thunderbird email client altogether.
"Many inside of Mozilla, including an overwhelming majority of our leadership, feel the need to be laser-focused on activities like Firefox that can have an industry-wide impact." Baker writes. "With all due respect to Thunderbird and the Thunderbird community, we have been clear for years that we do not view Thunderbird as having this sort of potential."
Thunderbird has already been demoted to second-tier status, receiving only security updates since the summer of 2012. Baker's plan would turn Thunderbird over to a community product, similar to what happened with the Mozilla Suite a decade ago.
Is Mozilla's decision to laser-focus on improving Firefox going to stop their dwindling market share? Who else, besides the submitter, is still using Thunderbird? And where will you go once Thunderbird is no longer supported?
(Score: 1) by rickatech on Thursday December 03 2015, @06:08AM
I use a form of Thunderbird/Firebird regularly (SeaMonkey). Email is the primary way to authenticate for new accounts and services (e.g. facebook needs an email address during signup). Trusting email to a hosted webmail provider removes end to end control of message composition, transport, reception.
Even if there are only few sponsors for an open source desktop email client, the overall security of most consumers is ultimately dependent on some form of email client. I for one take comfort in knowing a true open source advocate is insuring a full featured email client is maintained, stays abreast of latest spam and phishing trends, and provides robust installer access to users of major consumer platforms.
Unfortunately, email client account settings setup is too confusing for the increasingly non-tech savvy masses (e.g. non-intuitive SMTP, IMAP, port settings, ...). Mobile carriers have brick and mortar store to help setup texting for users as part of standard mobile service plans - so users are increasingly justified in using webmail as idiot proof way to access and send email.
Downloading and use a new web browser requires zero configuration, email client setup needs to be just as simple. Outlook is subsidized by the business community for Windows, while Apple mail client for iOS and OS X tries to make it easy, but only on their captive platform. Perhaps a new standard or service is needed to make email account setup sufficiently fool proof.
With Mozilla pushing to SSL the entire web, a similar effort to offer a free secure email configuration service is needed.
Spit balling here, Mozilla should offer a service that allows users to register any email address and provider information with them - include a mobile text number as part of the registration process. In return, Mozilla's new email config service provides user with a token they can enter into a new email client - it then negotiates with Mozilla and email provider to ensure end to end encrypted email client settings are working - that's it. User has only had to enter a single temporary token code and their email client is expertly configured to run. It would also provide a way for Mozilla to offer spaminess service that SPF and other protocols could use to further control spam. If you use an email address that is not registered with free Mozilla service, loose a few credibility points. If it is registered, and doesn't originate from Mozilla approved hosts, loose some more credibility points. Oh, and since mobile number is also part of the registration process - identity authentication is further enhanced.