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News and Advice on the World's Latest Innovations | ZDNET

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/&gt;Despite rumors to the contrary, Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client will live.Recently, . That meant . And some people wondered if this also meant that , 's&nbsp;, was on its way out. It's not. Thunderbird is safe. Ali Taghavi, Mozilla's director of corporate communications, said: "Thunderbird is not impacted by the layoffs." As of January this year, Thunderbird began operating from a new wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, .&nbsp;In this latest incarnation, as a standalone business,&nbsp; in its own right. Nevertheless, moving forward, Thunderbird will remain an open-source program. It is also staying focused on open standards, user privacy, and productive communication. While a corporation now,&nbsp; the continues to steward the project.Still, it's perfectly understandable why people might assume that Thunderbird might have been tossed into the trash can. The e-mail client certainly has its fans outside of Mozilla, but, within Mozilla, its history has been rocky.It began in 2003 as a spin-off from the all-in-one Mozilla Application Suite. By 2007, however, . Mozilla was then, as now, focusing primarily on Firefox. A standalone e-mail client didn't fit into its plans. Eventually, Thunderbird reintegrated into Mozilla.Its fans kept Thunderbird alive -- albeit on life support. But, in 2012, Mozilla announced that thanks to a lack of funding it was . Mozilla would receive security patches, but that would be it.Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's chairwoman and CEO, had no love for the project. In December 2015, she declared&nbsp; &nbsp; She suggested that Thunderbird be spun out for once and for all.That was easier said than done. In 2016, This included the , which helps manage the Git, BusyBox, Samba, and Wine open-source projects. Or, the , 's manager.&nbsp;Nothing came of those suggestions, but Thunderbird's loyal users rallied to the beleaguered program with financial donations. By May 2017, Mozilla and active development started again.&nbsp;Now, Thunderbird, under MZLA, is charting its own course. The latest version, , comes with many minor improvements. Its biggest feature is its Lightning calendar, and tasks add-on has finally been completely integrated into the program. Within the next few months, in the forthcoming Thunderbird 78.2, the program will finally get the long-anticipated power to encrypt end-to-end email messages via .&nbsp;Despite all of Mozilla's efforts to get rid of Thunderbird, the program is living on. And although most users now use web-based e-mail services, such as Gmail and Microsoft 365, millions still like standalone e-mail clients. According to . Finally, if you think that e-mail is dying thanks to competition from programs like Teams, Slack, and Zoom, think again. Statista and are both finding that both the number of e-mail users and its sheer volume continue to grow ever larger.Thunderbird's audience is only to keep growing. The real question is: Will the now semi-independent Thunderbird manage to start prospering as well?

/&gt;Despite rumors to the contrary, Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client will live.Recently, . That meant . And some people wondered if this also meant that , 's&nbsp;, was on its way out. It's not. Thunderbird is safe. Ali Taghavi, Mozilla's director of corporate communications, said: "Thunderbird is not impacted by the layoffs." As of January this year, Thunderbird began operating from a new wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, .&nbsp;In this latest incarnation, as a standalone business,&nbsp; in its own right. Nevertheless, moving forward, Thunderbird will remain an...

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Steven Vaughan-Nichols

Steven J. Vaughan

ZDNet is a business technology news website published by CBS Interactive, along with TechRepublic. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication owned by CNET Networks.

News and Advice on the World's Latest Innovations | ZDNET

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