Thunderbird Pro just got a lot closer to release

Everyone knows Thunderbird as that desktop email client that’s been around for years and has only just started to not only get better, but diversify a lot. Now, Thunderbird Pro, which represents Thunderbird’s leap into providing email services, is getting much closer to release.

The Thunderbird team has just released a comprehensive status update for Thunderbird Pro. Thundermail, the team’s proprietary email service, is the focus of this update, which is probably the part that most people are most interested in. Thunderbird reports that Thundermail accounts have now entered production testing. Although currently limited to internal testing by team members, this phase is critical to finalizing support protocols and onboarding procedures for the next wave of “Early Bird” users.

The Thundermail dashboard has undergone an overhaul meant to streamline how users manage settings, specifically making it easier to add custom domains and aliases. The change in data hosting is perhaps most important for privacy-conscious users. The team confirmed that it has migrated its hosting infrastructure from the Americas to Germany and the European Union where possible. The move aligns with stricter data protection standards often requested by the open source community. Additionally, back-end work has been prioritized to improve email deliverability, aiming to mitigate issues where messages from new services are inadvertently flagged as spam.

The Send file sharing utility has also seen substantial structural changes. Previously operating as a standalone add-on, Send is being migrated to a unified Thunderbird Pro add-on. Safety also remains a priority for him. The team announced the completion of a security review by an external evaluator. The audit validated various issues which are now planned to be resolved. In the interest of transparency, the Thunderbird team plans to release this security report to the community once fixes are finalized. Other improvements to Send include improved reporting mechanisms to prevent illegal downloads, mobile performance optimizations, and faster upload/download speeds.

Appointment, the suite planning tool, is undergoing a remodeling phase in preparation for its beta release. Recent development cycles have focused on interoperability, specifically strengthening integrations with the Zoom platform and CalDAV protocol.

And to top it all off, there is now an official website for Thunderbird Pro. Isn’t that nice?

The release is getting closer, although we still don’t have a precise timetable. But we will know more soon.

Source: Mozilla