this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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Privacy

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I have 2 concerns:

  1. I recently read the firefox Terms Of Use paragraph that people are posting which doesn't sound nice in terms of privacy.

  2. Back when Mozilla had their own Mastodon instance called mozilla.social, every time I signed in I would be blasted with trackers according to uBlock Origin.

I'm no expert in these things and I want to ask if anyone recommends that I switch away from Thunderbird Mail and if so, which open source email client? Thanks in advance.

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[–] amanneedsamaid@sopuli.xyz 26 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Yes, fully open source. If you don't trust Mozilla, use a fork like Betterbird.

[–] tursy@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Does Betterbird even remove telemetry from Thunderbird? From my knowledge they only add a few Bugfixes and recompile the binary. Never heard them talking about telemetry, tracking etc. Does anybody know?

[–] yourFanatic@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This section of their website says no telemetry reports are submitted:

https://www.betterbird.eu/legal/index.html?ref=news.itsfoss.com

It does also say that some data may be submitted to Mozilla.

[–] ghost_towels@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Thanks, that was my question. I use betterbird and wasn’t sure if this had anything to do with it.

[–] Rose@lemmy.zip -2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

If you don't trust the source, how is a fork built from the same source going to help?

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

You think they only renamed it?

[–] Rose@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I mean if the core is from them and you can't confidently say that the fork creator has reviewed and continues to review every piece of the code before they merge, you're still trusting Mozilla.

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

We are not banned from doing that. If Mozilla wants to abuse us they would not make it libre software.

[–] foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

It's not really not trusting Mozilla but more what they do to their products, telemetry and else

The same source with patches if you prefer that

[–] nomugisan@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Mozilla's telemetry change in Thunderbird Android makes me say "find a different client."

Generally, you should pick and choose your battles. Mozilla on the whole isn't a company whose software I trust anymore.

[–] doodledup@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is normal usage stats. Every app has that. You can opt out and you get asked when launching the app the first time. This isn't that bad.

[–] nomugisan@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] easily3667@lemmus.org 3 points 1 day ago

Did you even read what you linked?

[–] Elohim_Samael@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

What else is there to use on my Samsung galaxy s23 ultra?

[–] sh3llcmdr@feddit.uk 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Yeah I'm just in the process of moving to Evolution from TBird on my desktops for this reason. Not sure what to use now Moz bought K9

[–] yourFanatic@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

I keep having to log in on Evolution. If I knew what I was doing I would stay on it but for now I'm on Betterbird.

FairEmail is a good switch for Android.

[–] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

This!! FairEmail is amazing!

[–] sh3llcmdr@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago

Awesome. I'll take a look, thanks

What's a good alternative?

[–] davel@lemmy.ml -3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

This doesn’t bode well at all: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/about/

Thunderbird operates in a separate, for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation.

A free mail client from a for-profit company? What’s the revenue model? Sounds like I must be the product somehow.

The Thunderbird for-profit entity, MZLA Technologies Corporation, is distinct from the Firefox for-profit entity, Mozilla Corporation, and both are wholly owned by the non-profit entity, Mozilla Foundation.

[–] oopsallnaps@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

MZLA (Thunderbird) is funded by user donations, you can see the public stats https://stats.thunderbird.net/#financials

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The page you linked

You are not the product.

To us, data ownership and privacy are your right wherever you live. Our commitment to your personal data is simple:

We do not collect or store it unless you ask us to.

We take great care to keep it safe from misuse.

We will never sell it.

You retain ownership and control of it.

Heck even clicking the next link you posted has a full explanation. I can't consider your comment to be anything other than the wilful spread of misinformation and slander.

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/

The move will allow the project to collect revenue through partnerships and non-charitable donations, which in turn can be used to cover the costs of new products and services.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

This for-profit company saying that I am not the product doesn’t necessarily make it so, and it doesn’t explain what is the product or service being sold and to whom. And just as their Firefox counterpart changed their terms yesterday, they could change theirs tomorrow.

Mozilla hasn’t been moving in promising directions lately. Mozilla's CEO doubles down on them being an advertising company now


Edit to add: https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Without advertising money and alternate revenue streams there would be no Mozilla

[–] jjlinux@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

What is the point of using anything Mozilla if it's just going to do the same shit as the services we keep trying to avoid, only worse?

Mozilla has fallen, it is no longer focused on privacy. I get that companies need money to operate, but there are alternatives to just poking holes to be profitable (while calling yourself "not-for-profit").

Everything under the Mozilla umbrella is questionable, at best.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Meanwhile chrome uploads a log of everything you do to google, and ad blockers don't work anymore

[–] jjlinux@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 hours ago

You're absolutely right. Chrome is the worst offender, no question about that.

I'm guessing that the requirements for a PR job with Mozilla say "removed people preferred".

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 1 points 3 days ago

That’s odd