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
Unfortunately, this version violates the DSGVO by sending telemetry without being asked. This shoots the app directly into out. I hope that the developers have an insight here and remove this function as soon as possible.
What’s DSVGO?
It’s GDPR for Germans
An elaboration would be nice. GDPR applies to Germany as-is, right? So a local privacy law expanding on EU regulation?
It’s just translated. Like bread -> Brot.
Leave it to the Germans to use a longer abbreviation when GSPR is right there and we’re speaking Englisch
Yes all they did was take an existing private app and add their invasive telemetry spyware to it. How insulting.
Use a DNS firewall because when you start the app it sends telemetry data to Mozilla.
What kind of telemetry data does it send to Mozilla?
Mozilla added hundreds of classes of spyware to K9 in their mozilla.telemetry.glean.* (which previous to Mozilla’s involvement was spyware free) and rebranded it “Thunderbird” and now advertise it as “privacy-focused” wow…
From an exodus privacy scan of the code:
603 tested signatures on 18351 classes (10929653)
Mozilla Telemetry
*Mozilla Telemetry 544mozilla.telemetry.glean.
file:///data/app/xxxx/net.thunderbird.android.beta-dP9rv7Vgn_LwPDaBlWsOsQ%3D%3D/base.apk
MD5sum: e2b6cf0e661008614b8d21e909a5a6b1 SHA1sum: fcca25ea751b071e94d5ae8b5e28d770bd5c460d SHA256sum: 9ced27f396fec09205c99ab60484cd6bf54befc35f03add942619713f0126e98
C=US,ST=California,L=San Fransisco,O=MZLA Technologies Corporation,OU=Mobile,CN=Android Team
SHA256withRSA
CERTIFICATE fingerprints: md5: 50a7fd1449c184cd456be2c71f73addd sha1: a17411f1092ca647500a8b6f0297e205088f4015 sha256: 056bfafb450249502fd9226228704c2529e1b822da06760d47a85c9557741fbd
Don’t know exactly I only realized when I checked my DNS queries.
Probably, your device model, ip address, timezone and so on
I’ve been using it for a few days. It’s a nice app that I plan to continue using. I’m not currently a power user but it has everything I need and has performed flawlessly to this point.
Thank you.
No way I am letting Mozilla handle my email communication.
On Android I recommend FairEmail.
When I had an Android, I used the paid version of FairMail. Very good app, would recommend to everyone.
I use the pro as well.
Try it at the other day. Not gonna lie, it seems like a total downgrade versus K9. I’ll not be upgrading.
Care to elaborate a little?
*code blocks are broken and have a fairly degraded UI *accounts and settings are hidden behind a show accounts that’s terrible to reach with one hand. *the new sidebar is also terrible to use with one hand *settings is also hidden behind show accounts.
these are the issues I remember off hand, I already deleted the app
Isn’t this just rebranded K-9? What even needs testing?
“Privacy focused” how can Mozilla lie like that? Mozilla must have a pretty dim view of users if they think they can take an existing private email app, add their disgusting user tracking code and advertise their new changes as “private”.
Mozilla took over the K9 project and stuffed it full of intrusive telemetry just like firefox and Thunderbird on the desktop.
K9 has no telemetry, tracking or spyware, this version does.
PPA for your mobile email client, coming your way.
Pass I will not use this client.
Well, most all of the developpement work on k9 recently has been by mozilla.
Yes. Looking through K9’s blog, “recently” is more than two years.
K9 didn’t have a stable release for 3 years, until a previous contributor raised enough money to sponsor his work for a year or so. (Which I was happy to donate to, because K9 was starting to get really outdated UI-wise).
After that money ran out, they started working for MZLA Corp/Thunderbird more than two years ago.
i hope they’ll still over it through fdroid too.
Given that they dont offer firefox, I dont see why they would offer thunderbird
but they offer fennec, which is basically firefox without the google stuff, and k9 is already in fdroid so it’d be a shame if they pull it now.
from the page it looks like they’re working on getting the beta in fdroid though, so here’s hoping.
Thanks TIL about fennec fox
The Fennec F-Droid build isn’t maintained by Mozilla, but by someone else. They link to Mozilla for donations and source code, but the issue tracker for Fennec on F-Droid links to their own repo.
K-9 Mail on F-Droid is maintained by the K9-team, which works for MZLA/Thunderbird. Thus I’d guess it shouldn’t take to much work adding Thunderbird to F-Droid.
from the page it looks like they’re working on getting the beta in fdroid though, so here’s hoping.
https://gitlab.com/relan/fennecbuild
https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/blob/master/metadata/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid.yml
It won’t be allowed at fdroid its full of Mozilla’s spyware.
K9-Mail has been and continues to be on F-Droid, while it’s basically the same as Thunderbird Android, except for branding.
The low WiFi signal in the play store screenshots is stressing me out lol
Been using K-9 for a time and tried Thunderbird - it feels kind of smoother and there are some visual overhauls but ended uninstalling it because it was hard for me to tell which mails were unread (and which ones not) in the main mail list while in dark mode. I guess I’m not the only one who felt that way and surely they will fix it but this also left me the sensation that there’s not much sense in switching to Thunderbird if you’re using K-9.
we don’t need another mail app. they should’ve just supported FairEmail. it’s great and works flawlessly. developed by one guy who does not get enough in return. if you can, support him by buying the premium version and yourself by switching to the best android mail client. https://email.faircode.eu/
Fairemail can still not compete with K-9, besides that the premium version cost €7,49 while K-9 is still free
