this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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The Thunderbird for Android beta is out and we’re asking our community to help us test it. Beta testing helps us find critical bugs and rough edges that we can polish in the next few weeks. The more people who test the beta and ensure everything in the testing checklist works correctly, the better!

Anyone can be a beta tester! Whether you’re an experienced beta tester or you’ve never tested a beta image before, we want to make it easy for you. We are grateful for your time and energy, so we aim to make testing quick, efficient, and hopefully fun!!

The release plan is as follows, and we hope to stick to this timeline unless we encounter any major hurdles:

  • September 30 – First beta for Thunderbird for Android
  • Third week of October – first release candidate
  • Fourth week of October – Thunderbird for Android release
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is great, could always use better Android email clients and Thunderbird is quite good on the desktop at least.

@[email protected]

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

K9 mail is all i have ever wanted in a mobile email client. Supports e2ee plugins too.

Mozilla has bigger issue imo. They should focus on maintaining, fixing and improving their existing core products instead of trying to cover everything.

[–] semperverus 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Mozilla bought K9 mail. If you're using K9, you've been "beta testing" Thunderbird for quite somd time now.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Interesting, then it is even more weird to create a new product.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

It's just a re-brand, really. Blue bird instead of red robo-dog.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Thunderbird is not developed by Mozilla Corporation, but an independent subsidiary named "MZLA".

The only focus of this company is Thunderbird.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The title says "Mozilla" so either the title is wrong or this app is not developed by MZLA.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

MZLA makes Thunderbird. Mozilla Corp makes Firefox. Mozilla Foundation owns both.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

The title is wrong. Thunderbird is not developed by Mozilla.

Although Mozilla still provides CI, CDN, trasnlation tools, and other infrastructure.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Will GPG be baked into the app or still relay on third party like open key chain?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

If this is just a rebranding; why does there need to be beta test?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Well, first of all, K9 regularly holds beta tests for their new versions before release already.

Being launched under the Thunderbird brand, though, is expected to hit a much wider audience than just K9 users. And being a first impression, they want to do everything they can to make that impression a solid one.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

The main thing they want testing for is the migration tool from a k-9 app installed and configured already on the device, which would be net new code.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Perhaps less AI in Mozilla?

[–] TheGrandNagus 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

To my knowledge, the 'AI' Mozilla has currently is an offline (and completely private) language translation feature, and enhanced screen reader functionality for blind people.

I don't think those are bad. They make the web more accessible. If they were branded as machine learning features, I doubt you'd be taking issue with them. Literally the only reason people complain about this is because of two meaningless letters being used in the release notes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Thunderbird is managed by a separate independent company.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'll check it out when it publicly releases, but I doubt it'll replace FairEmail for me tbh.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm not in a rush to move over from K-9, but once they add account sync with desktop to the mobile app I'll def be migrating. Getting to be a bit of a pain to manage Thunderbird on a few PC's + phone and i'm very much looking forward to simplifying all of that

[–] then_three_more 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Eventually it'll just be a K9 update with a new name and logo.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

no, they decided to keep each app separate, k-9 with this old design and thunderbird with something more radical

[–] MrMxyztplk 1 points 1 month ago

Heh, I had just looked the other day in the app store and found it wasn't there. Good timing.