A new major release of the popular open-source email client and RSS Thunderbird is out. After four beta versions, this final release replaces the current 68.x version family in the stable branch of the app. Thunderbird 78 comes with a number of new features that break compatibility with older app versions .
Thunderbird is my preferred email client of choice. I use this app on every PC and on every operating system I use. It is stable, contains all the features you need, supports add-ons and also comes with a useful RSS reader. I am using Thunderbird for many years and never felt the need to look for an alternative.
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XUL add-ons are not supported
Thunderbird 78, following actual Firefox releases, has switched from XUL add-ons to Web extensions. This means that your current extensions, if they don't have a Web extension version, simply won't work. It can be issue for an app that has over 200 popular extensions. However, Thunderbird developers are providing some tools to simplify extension conversion.
New features
- Color customization of Folder Pane icons
- Additional Enterprise policies
A new major release of the popular open-source email client and RSS Thunderbird is out. After four beta versions, this final release replaces the current 68.x version family in the stable branch of the app. Thunderbird 78 comes with a number of new features that break compatibility with older app versions . Thunderbird is my preferred email client of choice. I use this app on every PC and on every operating system I use. It is stable, contains all the features you need, supports add-ons and also comes with a useful RSS reader. I am using Thunderbird for many years and never felt the need to look for an alternative.
XUL add-ons are not supported
Thunderbird 78, following actual Firefox releases, has switched from XUL add-ons to Web extensions. This means that your current extensions, if they don't have a Web extension version, simply won't work. It can be issue for an app that has over 200 popular extensions. However, Thunderbird developers are providing some tools to simplify extension conversion.
New features
- Color customization of Folder Pane icons
- Additional Enterprise policies
- Calendar: Add event preview to ICS import dialog
- An option to disable OpenPGP functionality
- Chat: Direct message support for Matrix
- MailExtensions: browser.identity API enabled.
- MailExtensions: event fired when the user changes compose identity.
- MailExtensions: UI components for browser pages added.
Improvements
- OpenPGP support
- Various Address Book improvements
- Dark mode improvements
- Use scalable icons throughout Thunderbird
- Account settings UI improvements
- MailExtensions: Handle message attachments in browser.compose functions
- Calendar: Location URLs are now clickable
- Improvements to the location bar of a tab displaying web pages
- Several improvements to vCard parsing
- Various look and feel improvements
Also, there are plenty of stability fixes and improvements in this release.
Download Thunderbird
You can download Thunderbird 78 using the following link:
You will see a number of folders. Click on one of the following folders:
- win32 - Thunderbird for Windows 32-bit
- win64 -Thunderbird for Windows 64-bit
- linux-i686 -Thunderbird for 32-bit Linux
- linux-x86_64 -Thunderbird for 64-bit Linux
- mac -Thunderbird for macOS
Each folder has subfolders organized by the app language. Click on the desired language and download the installer.
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It’s not true that XUL addons are not supported.
The most popular addons are actually XUL addons. Moreover, Thunderbird’s internal UI is nothing but a bunch of integrated XUL addons.
What has lost supported is the ability to _load_ XUL addons. This is due to an unfortunate political decision by the Thunderbird project, following in the footsteps of Firefox. Anyway, extensions typically require this “loophole”, which allows them to get loaded, and then they run just like they used to in the past.