Mozilla launches e-mail for Android units
The Mozilla Foundation unveiled a Thunderbird-style e-mail consumer for Android cellular units known as Okay-9 Mail. The developer workforce can also be evaluating the concept of an iOS model.
Mozilla Foundation
Mozilla at the moment introduced a brand new e-mail consumer for Android units known as Okay-9 Mail. The cellular app is being launched as a part of Mozilla’s Thunderbird household of open-source desktop e-mail and chat functions.
Okay-9 Mail is just not new. The supply code for it was first revealed 2008, and MZLA Technologies acquired it and its logos, and it employed the open supply venture maintainer of Okay-9 Mail as a full-time developer to enhance the app and to assist step by step transition it to Thunderbird cellular.
MZLA Technologies, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, stated additionally it is at present evaluating the event of a Okay-9 e-mail consumer for iOS units.
The growth workforce for MZLA Technologies plans to enhance the e-mail function set to extra carefully resemble that of its Thunderbird desktop e-mail consumer.
Those deliberate enhancements embrace account setup utilizing Thunderbird account auto-configuration, in addition to folder administration, assist for message filters, and synchronization between desktop and cellular variations of Thunderbird, Mozilla stated. (Okay-9 Mail is on the market for obtain by way of these varied websites.)
“Ultimately, K-9 Mail will transform into Thunderbird on Android, once certain development milestones have been achieved which align it closely with Thunderbird’s feature set and visual appearance,” Okay-9 Mail Project Maintainer Christian Ketterer stated in a weblog put up. (Ketterer is healthier identified within the Mozilla open-source developer group as cketti.)
Thunderbird is a free and open-source e-mail, calendaring, newsfeed, and chat consumer with greater than 20 million lively month-to-month customers throughout Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Currently, Android cellular customers have a lot of e-mail and chat choices, together with Google’s Gmail, Microsoft Outloo,ok and ProtonMail, an end-to-end encrypted e-mail service.
Ryan Lee Sipes, Thunderbird Product Manager, stated working with the Thunderbird e-mail workforce to develop the brand new cellular consumer made extra sense than creating a cellular consumer from scratch. “Joining the Thunderbird family allows K-9 to become more sustainable and gives us the resources to implement long-requested features and fixes that our users want,” Sipes said. “In other words, K-9 Mail will soar to greater heights with the help of Thunderbird.”
Mozilla plans to supply Firefox Sync as one possibility to permit customers to securely sync accounts between Thunderbird and Okay-9. The function is anticipated to be applied in the summertime of 2023.
Okay-9 can have an analogous feel and look to Thunderbird’s present desktop app, aside from sure features.
Thunderbird for Android initially won’t assist calendars, duties, feeds, or chat just like the desktop app, cketti wrote in a Q&A included as a part of his weblog put up. Ketterer stated the developer workforce is first engaged on “an amazing email experience,” and is contemplating one of the best ways to supply Thunderbird’s different performance on Android. “But currently [we] are still debating how best to achieve that.”
For occasion, he wrote, one technique to have the ability to use Thunderbird’s desktop e-mail function set is to easily sync calendars, after which customers can use their most popular calendar software on their machine.
“But we have to discuss this within the team, and the Thunderbird and K-9 communities, then decide what the best approach is,” Ketterer wrote.