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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[–] nomugisan@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 hours ago

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.

[–] Elohim_Samael@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

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

[–] amanneedsamaid@sopuli.xyz 21 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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

[–] ghost_towels@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day 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 1 day 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 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

You think they only renamed it?

[–] Rose@lemmy.zip 1 points 22 hours 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 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours 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 22 hours 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

[–] sh3llcmdr@feddit.uk 5 points 1 day ago (1 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

[–] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 37 minutes ago

FairEmail has a good reputation.

What's a good alternative?

[–] davel@lemmy.ml -2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 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.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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 4 points 1 day ago

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

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

That’s odd