[German]The developers of the e-mail client Thunderbird have released Thunderbird 78.4.0 almost a week after version 78.3.0. It is a maintenance update for the 78 main version of the e-mail client, which fixes some bugs.
Preliminary remarks
The colleagues at deskmodder.de noticed the update – my Thunderbird was still running with the 68 branch, because the 78 updates were withdrawn. Then I let search for updates via the help and got the Thunderbird 78.3.3 offered.
After I had the update done, I was a bit dismayed and thought the Thunderbird was broken. In my eyes the developers made a worsening improvement by introducing the grey navigation column for the mailboxes. Now everything looks grey in grey and you have to concentrate hard to see the folders in the navigation structure. Also otherwise I have the impression that everything is optically paler and the light gray makes it harder to recognize – but this may be a subjective matter. But I am still on version 78.3.3.
Information about telemetry
After the update there was an unpleasant surprise waiting for me. In a tab with the e-mail client informed in a Pricacy Notice of August 31, 2020, that data was being collected.
Thunderbird Collects Data To:
Improve Performance and Stability For Our Users
Thunderbird collects telemetry data by default to help improve the performance and stability of Thunderbird. There are two types of telemetry data: interaction data and technical data.
Interaction data: Thunderbird receives data about your interactions with the application, such as whether calendars and filters are being used, and how many email accounts a user has.
Technical data: Thunderbird also receives basic information about your device and application version, including, hardware configuration, device operating system, and language preference. When Thunderbird sends technical data to us, your IP address is temporarily collected as part of our server logs.
Read the telemetry documentation and learn how to opt-out of this data collection here.
Be careful with Thunderbird 78.4.0
In this German comment blog reader MCG advises caution, because he had trouble with the 78.3.2. And the German comment here at deskmodder.de doesn't mince matters, what the trolls are doing with the Thunderbird developers. Well, anyway, according to the release notes there are the following new features:
- MailExtensions: browser.tabs.sendMessage API added
- MailExtensions: messageDisplayScripts API added
The following changes were also made:
- Yahoo and AOL mail users using password authentication will be migrated to OAuth2
- MailExtensions: messageDisplay APIs extended to support multiple selected messages
- MailExtensions: compose.begin functions now support creating a message with attachments
The list of fixes is shown below:
- Thunderbird could freeze when updating global search index
- Multiple issues with handling of self-signed SSL certificates addressed
- Recipient address fields in compose window could expand to fill all available space
- Inserting emoji characters in message compose window caused unexpected behavior
- Button to restore default folder icon color was not keyboard accessible
- Various keyboard navigation fixes
- Various color-related theme fixes
- MailExtensions: Updating attachments with onBeforeSend.addListener() did not work
System requirements
The system requirements for the different operating system versions (see also here, where further details can be found):
- Windows: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 or higher
- Mac: Mac OS X 10.9 or higher
- Linux: GTK+ 3.4 or higher
The download is available here, and Thunderbird is free of charge.
