Release of the Thunderbird 78 email client

Eleven months after the release of the last significant update the release of the email client Thunderbird 78, developed by the community and based on Mozilla technologies. The new release is classified as a long-term support version, with updates being released over the course of a year. Thunderbird 78 is based on the ESR release codebase Firefox 78. The release is available only for direct download, automatic updates from previous releases to version 78.0 are not provided and will only occur in version 78.2.

Key changes:

• Support for XUL format extensions has been discontinued. Now, only extensions written using the MailExtensions API are supported. (analogous to WebExtensions). Experimental support (not enabled by default) has been built in
• Previously available built-in support for S/MIME in Thunderbird has been retained. end-to-end encryption of correspondence and email signing based on OpenPGP public keys. Previously, similar functionality was provided by the Enigmail add-on, which is no longer supported in the Thunderbird 78 branch. The built-in implementation is a new development prepared with the involvement of the Enigmail author. The main difference is the use of the library RNP, which provides OpenPGP functionality instead of invoking the external GnuPG utility, and also employs its own key storage, incompatible with GnuPG key file formats, using the same master password protection as that used for accounts and S/MIME keys.
  To enable OpenPGP support in settings, set the variable mail.openpgp.enable. Users of the extension

  For inclusion
  are recommended to remain on the Thunderbird 68 branch until the automatic update occurs, to ensure proper conversion of existing encryption settings. Default enabling of OpenPGP is planned for the Thunderbird 78.2 release. Enigmail The layout of the new message window has changed. The buttons for accessing attachments and the address book have been moved to the main top panel. The style of icons has been modified. The fields for adding additional recipients have changed — instead of a separate line for each recipient ("To, Cc, Bcc"), all recipients are now listed on one line.
  

  
• A dark theme mode has been added, adapted to reduce eye strain when working at night. The dark theme is activated automatically when the night mode is enabled in the OS.
  
• The calendar-planner Lightning and task manager Tasks have been integrated into the main package (previously offered as extensions). The calendar now includes support for importing in ICS format by specifying the "-file" option in the command line. A preview of imported events has been added to the ICS import dialog. Support for the WCAP (Web Calendar Access Protocol) has been removed. A transition to asynchronous access to storage has been implemented. The ability to click on areas with URLs has been added. Future work is planned to improve the portability of the calendar-planner with the email client and modernize the calendar interface.
  
• The main package includes the Lightning calendar-planner and the Tasks manager (previously available as add-ons). The calendar now supports ICS format import via the "-file" option in the command line. The ICS import dialog has been updated to include a preview of the imported events. Support for the WCAP (Web Calendar Access Protocol) has been removed. A transition to asynchronous access to the storage has been implemented. Clicking on areas with URLs is now possible. Future work is planned to enhance the portability of the calendar-planner with the email client and to modernize the calendar interface.
• The account settings window layout has been redesigned for easier perception and finding necessary settings. The 'Account Settings Center' has been restructured in a tab format.
  
• Icons and colors for mail folders have been updated. A new vector style has been applied to icons, ensuring better quality on high DPI screens and in dark mode. The ability to assign custom colors to icons for categorizing or highlighting mail folders has been added.
  
• Windows now supports minimizing to the system tray (previously required a separate add-on for minimizing).
• A feature for selecting messages using checkboxes in a separate 'Select Messages' column instead of the classic markings has been added.
  A 'Delete' button has also been added to the message list panel for removing flagged messages.
• The add-ons manager layout has been changed. A preview option for themes has been introduced.
• An option to enable header anonymization with message time has been added to the settings.
• An item has been added to the application menu to invoke global search across the entire message database. The global search tab has been modernized.
• Support for OTR message encryption has been added to the chat (Off-the-Record Messaging) and support for echo messages IRC.
• Linux platform requirements have been increased: at least GTK 3.14, Glibc 2.17, and libstdc++ 4.8.1 are now needed to operate.
• Buttons for moving items up and down the list have been added to the context menu for the folder with the list of recently opened messages.
• The address bar of tabs displaying web pages has been improved.
• Before displaying saved passwords, a prompt for the user's system password is now required.
• The address book is now stored using the SQLite library. Conversion from the old MAB (Mork) format is performed automatically.
• A new parser and formatting component for vCard have been added. Support for converting vCard versions 3.0 and 4.0 has been introduced.
• The dialog for packaging mail folders (cleaning up deleted messages) has been improved.
• Support for hardware graphics acceleration is enabled by default.
• Support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 has been disabled.

Source: opennet.ru