Posted by bentobean 4/2/2025
Trust once lost is not easily regained.
I think that finally along last there's been some real push back against it and it's no longer acceptable to just say it as if it's going to be the presumed default narrative because it really depends on what you mean and a lot of the criticisms were kind of nonsensical and without any sense of proportion.
I still basically trust Mozilla, they're a force for good, and I'm happy to use their services and do what I can to contribute to them being profitable and a successful counterpoint to Google.
The endless repetition of these comments is becoming spammy - they have nothing to say but the exact same thing again. We get it; you don't need to repeat it. It's like someone writing, at every opportunity, 'I don't trust Meta' and adding nothing more.
Like fine if you like Chrome, just admit you love Chrome because it's shiny.
I haven't used Chrome since whenever they started logging you into the browser when you logged into GMail, and I'm sure most complaints about negative changes in Firefox come from long-standing Firefox users.
Others clearly do, so your dismissing also ironically adds nothing like the comments you referred to. Those who continue to ignore Mozilla's enshittification over the years are part of the problem; as are normies who fall for their marketing about privacy. Spreading awareness about this is important, whether here or other online fora.
It's not spreading awareness, it's just spam at this point.
> is important
How is it important to take down Mozilla? How is it valuable - maybe do something constructive if you are concerned. Even if you don't like them, aren't there many far more important things to do? Can you think of bigger problems?
And a Mozilla/Thunderbird based email service is well timed. Microsoft's upgrade (read: downgrade) of the newest version of Outlook, making it a glorified web app, has pissed of a lot of users who aren't the sort to browse hacker spaces but do have to use serious email and calendaring every day for their work.
Even if those folks don't see Thunderbird as an alternative to what Outlook/Exchange was, it'll absolutely be an alternative to what Microsoft is turning Outlook into... [1][2][3]
And there's something devilishly funny about the fact that, because DDG uses Bing on the backend, when I search for articles to cite... Everything that comes up trashing the new Outlook is from MSN.
[1]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-new-outlook-fo...
[2]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/windows-11-takes-small-...
[3]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/even-microsoft-s-a...
At least they aren't filtering out bad MS news on MSN I guess.
I wonder if this service can be segregated by region ?
For example, can people in Europe use a service that is fully based in Europe.
As long as it's still owned by Mozilla it's subject to the whims of the US government.
There are already many good European mail services (e.g. Proton Mail).
If the article is correct, Thundermail will be built using Stalwart[1], which appears to support JMAP
[1]: https://stalw.art/
Speaking about thunderbird, I liked their UI redesign, but it seems they are taking away quite a bit of plugin capabilities, e.g. there used to be the possibility to run firenvim (a plugin to run neovim in the compose window), but that's not possible anymore.
Previously:
It's not easy for me to believe that these domain names are chosen for email address by someone in the email business.
I don't see how it's an effective product, if they released this 20 years ago at the advant of hotmail going downhill and the release of unlimited storage (lol) gmail it would've been a game changer since they had a client this whole time.
But now, vendor lock in is strong w/ Microsoft and Outlook that I question do people even use Thunderbird? It was a great competitor to Outlook Express and 2003... but now.. I really don't know, but I guess their product managers think so.
"The Thunderbird database says its number of active monthly installs has dropped from 17.7 million in late December 2020 to 16.2 million in late March 2025, with the mail app struggling to keep up with the industry’s main players like Gmail.
With the launch of Thunderbird Pro, Mozilla is adding Thunderbird Appointment, a new scheduling tool for sharing calendar links; Thunderbird Send, a rebuild of the discontinued Firefox Send; and Thunderbird Assist, a new AI-powered writing tool enabled via a partnership with Flower AI that is intended to do the processing locally to eliminate privacy concerns.
The final launch will be Thundermail, an email hosting service using the open-source Stalwart stack. Usrs will be able to pick between thundermail.com and tb.pro domains."
I really don't see how this is a market changer, the market is stuffed with competitors and every domain registrar offers some form of email service too.
Outside of the corporate world email is almost a legacy protocol. Like phone numbers we have one because we need to but do not really use it that much anymore.
I believe email was de facto replaced by WhatsApp, iMessage, Social media and OpenID almost 20 years ago.
Just ask a gen Z or Alpha when was the last time he sent an email.
Now they are gonna try to ride the wave of the Big bad tech escape but Proton has a 10 years lead here.
What email has become is an identifier and a receptacle for notices. It's not a social platform for young people. But it's very much a thing!
Notice that as an ID and in the last 10 years it had the compete again with the phone number that has become mandatory to sign up to a lot of services like WhatsApp, Twitter, Clubhouse, Tinder, etc. to limit fake accounts.
Also digital government ID are now being rolled out so email will become less and less central for work, school applications and "real world" services.
So yes I am curious why Mozilla believe email will save them, but I keep an open mind they might have an idea.
Mozilla has lost all trust from me, the recent privacy policy fiasco was the straw that broke the camel's back.
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/about/
Guilty by association.