Mozilla unveils email service competitor to Gmail and Outlook

Mozilla, known primarily for Firefox, is looking to expand the capabilities of its open-source email client Thunderbird and turn it into a more comprehensive communications platform. The development team is gradually introducing additional services that could become a new source of income in the future.

It was reported by The Register.

Mozilla is trying to fight the giants of Gmail and Microsoft Office 365

Thunderbird is trying to curb the outflow of users to large commercial solutions like Gmail and Microsoft Office 365. The developers recognise that these services offer both "hard" user retention mechanisms (due to compatibility issues with third-party clients) and "soft" ones (due to convenience and integration with cloud tools).

To maintain its position, the Thunderbird team is striving to offer its own open ecosystem that would fully comply with open source principles and remain friendly to user freedom. According to the developers, it is difficult to accurately measure the churn, as Mozilla does not publish data on Thunderbird users.

Among the new developments, the Mozilla team identifies four services that are at different stages of implementation and may be united under the Thunderbird Pro brand or under the Thundermail name:

• Thunderbird Appointment is a scheduling tool that allows you to share a link to make an appointment at a convenient time in your calendar.
• Thunderbird Send is a revived version of Firefox Send (a 2019 service), rewritten for more flexible file transfer scenarios.
• Thunderbird Assist is an unreleased artificial intelligence service with options for local data processing (subject to availability of the appropriate hardware) or confidential cloud recognition with partner Flower Labs.
• Thundermail is an email hosting service based on the Stalwart stack with support for JMAP (JSON Meta Application Protocol), a potential successor to IMAP.

Some of these services will require payment from users, as cloud infrastructure maintenance is costly.

At the same time, it is planned that active members of the Thunderbird community can access these services free of charge, while other users will be charged a subscription fee. When the paid user base allows the services to be maintained, free versions with certain restrictions will be available.

As a reminder, Google has introduced AI search in Gmail. Now users can find the most relevant emails in their inbox faster.

We also wrote that the modern Internet collects a huge amount of private data about users. Choosing a reliable web browser can be one of the easiest ways to maintain your anonymity and protect your data.