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Mozilla recently revealed plans for a new service that would bring back Firefox Send (for file transfer) and add Thunderbird Appointment. But that's not the big announcement we've all been waiting for.
Mozilla also announced two new services -- Thundermail (for email) and Thunderbird Pro, a collection of services that includes Thunderbird Appointment, Firefox Send, and Assist.
Here's what we know so far.
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Thundermail -- not to be confused with Mozilla's decades-old Thunderbird email client -- will be an email service similar to Gmail that can be used within Thunderbird and on the web. With Thundermail, you can use either a Thundermail email address or a custom domain. Also, this new 100% open-source email service will never use your email to train AI, flood your inbox with ads, or collect and sell your data. (So maybe it's not that similar to Gmail.) That's a big win for those who are concerned about privacy.
According to Ryan Sipes (author of the official Thunderbird Blog), "We want to provide email accounts to those that love Thunderbird, and we believe that we are capable of providing a better service than the other providers out there, that aligns with our values. We have been experimenting with this for a while now and are using Stalwart as the software stack. We have been working with the Stalwart maintainer to improve its capabilities (for instance, we have pushed hard on calendar and contacts being a core piece of the stack)."
Thunderbird Pro will start with the services listed above (Appointment, Send, and Assist). The Assist app is powered by Flower AI, which injects AI features into the service.
Regarding fees, Mozilla will give those who contribute to the project free access, and all others will have to pay a subscription fee. Once there's a strong enough user base, the team plans to open up free tiers (with limitations). There's no indication of the cost, but I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.
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The Thunderbird email client has been around for decades and has come a long way since its early years. Things haven't always been easy for Thunderbird, with Mozilla announcing plans to drop the client some years ago. Fortunately, that didn't happen. In fact, Thunderbird is thriving as the most popular open-source email client on the market.
Of course, a Thundermail email address won't be required for the upcoming release of the Thunderbird email client, and (hopefully) Mozilla plans to integrate the new Thunderbird Pro features into the open-source email app.
If you're interested in signing up for the Thundermail waitlist, head over to the Thundermail site and add your email address.
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