Open Policy & Advocacy — Behind the Manifesto: Moments that Mattered in our Fight for the Open Web (2025)

Welcome to the blog series “Behind the Manifesto,” where we unpack core issues that are critical to Mozilla’s mission. The Mozilla Manifesto represents our commitment to advancing an open, global internet that gives people meaningful choice in their online experiences, promotes transparency and innovation and protects the public interest over private walled gardens. This blog series digs deeper on our vision for the web and the people who use it and how these goals are advanced in policymaking and technology. 

In 2025, global tech policy raced to keep up with technological change and opportunity. In the midst of this evolution, Mozilla sought to ensure that solutions remained centered on openness, competition and user agency.

From AI Agents and the future of the open web to watershed antitrust cases, competition debates surged. Efforts to drive leadership and innovation in AI led governments across the globe to evaluate priorities. Perennial privacy and security questions remained on the radar, with US states intensifying efforts to pass laws and the EU working to streamline rules on AI, cybersecurity and data. Debates amongst industry, civil society and policymakers reflected the intensity of these moments.

Just as we have for over 20 years, Mozilla showed up to build, convene, debate and advocate. It’s clear that more than ever, there must be urgency to truly put people first. Below are a selection of some key moments we’re reflecting on, as we head into 2026.

FEBRUARY 2025 

Mozilla Participates in Paris AI Action Summit as Part of the Steering Committee

Mozilla participated in the Paris AI Action Summit as Part of the Steering Committee with an ‘action packed’ schedule that included appearances on panels, a live recording of the podcast “Computer Says Maybe” and a reception to reflect on discussions and thank all the officials and researchers who had worked so hard to make the Summit a success.

Additionally, Mozilla and other partners, including Hugging Face, Microsoft and OpenAI, launched Robust Open Online Safety Tools (ROOST) at the Paris AI Action Summit. The entity is designed to create open source foundations for safer and more responsible AI development, ensuring that safety and transparency remain central to innovation.

The launch of ROOST happened at exactly the right time and in the right place. The Paris AI Action Summit provided a global backdrop for launching work that will ultimately help make AI safety a field that everyone can shape and improve.

Mozilla Event: AI & Competition featuring the President of the German Competition Authority
On February 12, we hosted a public event in Berlin on AI & competition, in partnership with German daily newspaper Tagesspiegel. Addressing the real risk of market concentration at various elements of the AI stack, the President of the German competition authority (Bundeskartellamt), Andreas Mundt, delivered a keynote address setting out his analysis of competition in AI and the role of his authority in ensuring contestable markets as technology rapidly evolves.

MARCH 2025 

America’s AI Action Plan

In March, Mozilla responded to the White House’s request for information on AI policy, urging policymakers to ensure that AI remained open, competitive and accountable. The comments also warned that concentrated control by a few tech giants threatened innovation and public trust, and called for stronger support of open source AI, public AI infrastructure, transparent energy use and workforce development. Mozilla underscored these frameworks are essential to building an AI ecosystem that serves the public interest rather than purely corporate bottom lines.

Mozilla Mornings: Promoting a privacy-preserving online ads ecosystem

The same month, we also hosted a special edition of Mozilla Mornings focused on the future of online advertising and the role Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) can play in reshaping it. The conversation came at a critical moment in Europe, amidst discussions on updating privacy legislation while enforcing existing rules.

The session brought together policymakers, technologists, and civil-society experts to examine how Europe can move toward a fairer and more privacy-respecting advertising ecosystem. Speakers explored the limitations of today’s surveillance-driven model and outlined how PETs and Privacy-Preserving Technologies (PPTs) could offer a viable alternative that protects users while sustaining the economic foundations of the open web. The event underscored Mozilla’s commitment to advancing privacy-respecting technologies and ensuring that both policy and technical design converge toward a healthier online advertising ecosystem.

MAY 2025 

CPDP: The Evolution of PETs in Digital Ads

At the Brussels 2025 International CPDP Conference, Mozilla organized and participated in a panel titled “The Evolution of PETs in Digital Ads: Genuine Privacy Innovation or Market Power Play?” The discussion explored how Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) — tools designed to minimize data collection and protect user privacy — are reshaping the digital advertising landscape. Panelists debated how to encourage genuine privacy innovation without reinforcing existing power structures, and how regulations like the GDPR and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) can help ensure PETs foster transparency and competition.

Competition in Focus: U.S. vs Google

The U.S. v. Google remedies trial was a defining moment — not just for 2025, but for the future of browser and search competition. While the remedies phase was about creating competition in the search market, some of the proposed remedies risked weakening independent browsers like Firefox, the very players that make real choice possible.

In early May, Mozilla’s CFO, Eric Muhlheim, testified to this very point. Muhlheim’s testimony, and Mozilla’s amicus brief in the case, spoke to the vital role of small, independent browsers in driving competition and innovation across the web and warned about the risks of harming their ability to select the search default that best serves their users. Ensuring a competitive search ecosystem while avoiding harm to browser competition remains an important issue in 2026.

JUNE 2025

Open by Design: How Nations Can Compete in the Age of AI 

The choices governments make today, about who gets to build, access and benefit from AI, will shape economic competitiveness, national security and digital rights for decades. In June, Mozilla supported a new report by the UK think tank Demos, exploring how and why embracing openness in key AI resources can spur innovation and adoption. Enabling safer, more transparent development and boosting digital sovereignty is a recipe, if there ever was one, for ‘winning’ at AI.

EU Digital Summit: Advocating for Open and Secure Digital Ecosystems

Digital competitiveness depends on open, secure, and interoperable ecosystems that foster innovation while respecting users’ rights. We spoke at the 2025 European Digital Summit—a flagship forum bringing together policymakers, regulators, industry leaders, and civil society—and argued that openness and security reinforce each other, that smart regulation has the potential to lower entry barriers and curb gatekeeping power, and that innovation does not require sacrificing privacy when incentives are aligned toward rights-respecting designs. The takeaway was clear: enforcing interoperability, safeguarding pro-competition rules, and embedding privacy-by-design incentives are essential to a resilient, innovative, and trustworthy open web.

JULY 2025

Joint Letter to the UK Secretary of State on DMCCA

When choice disappears, innovation stalls. In July, Mozilla sent an open letter to UK Ministers and the Competition & Markets Authority to urge faster implementation of the UK Digital Markets, Competition & Consumers Act (DMCCA). As an organisation that exists to create an internet that is open and accessible to all, Mozilla has long supported competitive digital markets. Since the EU Digital Markets Act took effect in 2024, users have begun to benefit from genuine choice for the first time, with interventions like browser choice screens offering people browser choice. The result? People are choosing independent alternatives to gatekeepers defaults: Firefox daily active users on iOS rose by 150% across the EU. The UK’s DMCCA could be similarly revolutionary for UK consumers and the many challenger businesses taking on market dominance.

SEPTEMBER 2025

Digital Bootcamp: Bringing Internet Architecture to the Heart of EU Policymaking

In September, Mozilla officially launched its Digital Bootcamp initiative, developed in partnership with Cloudflare, Proton and CENTR, to strengthen policymakers’ understanding of how the internet actually works and why this technical foundation is essential for effective regulation. We delivered interactive sessions across EU institutions, including a workshop for Members of the European Parliament, the European Commission, and representatives of the EU member states.

Across these workshops, we demystified the layered architecture of the internet, explained how a single website request moves through the stack, and clarified which regulatory obligations apply at each layer. By bridging the gap between engineering and policymaking, Digital Bootcamp is helping ensure EU digital laws remain grounded in technical reality, supporting evidence-based decisions that protect innovation, security and the long-term health of the open web.

OCTOBER 2025 

Mozilla Meetup: The Future of Competition

On October 8, Mozilla hosted a Meetup on Competition in Washington, D.C., bringing together leading voices in tech policy — including Alissa Cooper (Knight-Georgetown Institute), Amba Kak (AI Now Institute), Luke Hogg (Foundation for American Innovation) and Kush Amlani (Mozilla) — to discuss the future of browser competition, antitrust enforcement and AI’s growing influence on the digital landscape. Moderated by Bloomberg’s Leah Nylen, the event reinforced our ongoing efforts to establish a more open and competitive internet, highlighting how policy decisions in these areas directly shape user choice, innovation, and the long-term health of the open web.

Global Encryption Day

On October 21, Mozilla marked Global Encryption Day by reaffirming our commitment to strong encryption as a cornerstone of online privacy, security, and trust. For years, Mozilla has played an active role in shaping the broader policy debate on encryption by consistently pushing back against efforts to weaken it and working with partners around the world to safeguard the technology that helps to keep people secure online – from joining the Global Encryption Coalition Steering Committee, to challenging U.S. legislation like the EARN IT Act and leading multi-year efforts in the EU to address encryption risks in the eIDAS Regulation.

California’s Opt Me Out Act: A Continuation of the Fight For Privacy

The passage of California’s Opt Me Out Act (AB 566) marked a major step forward in Mozilla’s ongoing effort to strengthen digital privacy and give users control of their personal data. For years, Mozilla has spoken in support of Global Privacy Control (GPC) — a tool already integrated into Firefox — as a model for privacy-by-design solutions that can be both effective and user-friendly.

NOVEMBER 2025

Mozilla Submits Recommendations on the Digital Fairness Act

In November, Mozilla submitted its response to the European Commission’s consultation on the Digital Fairness Act (DFA), framing it as a key opportunity to modernise consumer protection for AI-driven and highly personalised digital services. Mozilla argued that effective safeguards must tackle both interface design and underlying system choices, prohibit harmful design practices, and set clear fairness standards for personalization and advertising. A well-designed DFA can complement existing EU laws, strengthen user autonomy, provide legal certainty for innovators, and support a more competitive digital ecosystem built on genuine user choice.

Mozilla hosts AI breakfast in UK Parliament

Mozilla President, Mark Surman, hosted MPs and Peers for a breakfast in Parliament to discuss how policymakers can nurture AI that supports public good. As AI policy moves from principle to implementation, the breakfast offered insight into the models, trade-offs and opportunities that will define the next phase of the UK’s AI strategy.

DECEMBER 2025

Mozilla Joins Tech Leaders at US House AI Caucus Briefing

Internet Works, an association of “Middle Tech” companies, organized a briefing with the Congressional AI Caucus. The goal was to provide members of congress and their staff a better understanding of the Middle Tech ecosystem and how smaller companies are adopting and scaling AI technologies. Mozilla spoke on the panel, lending valued technical expertise and setting out how we’re thinking about keeping the web open for innovation, competition and user choice with this new technology stack.

eIDAS2 Regulation: Defending Web Security and Trust

In December, the EU published the final implementing rules for eIDAS2, closing a multi-year fight over proposals that would have required browsers to automatically trust government-mandated website certificates—putting encryption, user trust, and the open web at risk. Through sustained advocacy and deep technical engagement, Mozilla helped secure clear legal safeguards preserving independent browser root programs and strong TLS security. We also ensured that the final standards respect existing security norms and reflect how the web actually works. With all rules now published, users can continue to rely on browsers to verify websites independently with strict security requirements, governments are prevented from weakening web encryption by default, and a dangerous global precedent for state-controlled trust on the internet has been avoided.

This blog is part of a larger series. Be sure to follow Jenn Taylor Hodges on LinkedIn for further insights into Mozilla’s policy priorities.

The post Behind the Manifesto: Moments that Mattered in our Fight for the Open Web (2025) appeared first on Open Policy & Advocacy.

Open Policy & Advocacy — Australia’s Social Media Ban: Why Age Limits Won’t Fix What Is Wrong With Online Platforms

On December 10th, Australia’s controversial law banning access for under 16-year-olds to certain social media platforms entered into force. Since its adoption in 2024, the law has sparked a global debate on age verification online and has inspired governments across the world to restrict minors’ access to parts of the web.

At Mozilla, privacy and user empowerment have always formed a core part of our mission. Mozilla supports strong, proportionate safeguards for minors, but we caution against approaches that rely on invasive identity checks, surveillance-based enforcement, or exclusionary defaults. Such interventions rely on the collection of personal and sensitive data and, thus, introduce major privacy and security risks. By following an approach of abstinence and access control, they undermine the rights of young people to express themselves online but do little to address the child safety risks policymakers might seek to address, such as insufficient content moderation, irresponsible data practices, and addictive design.

Rather than simply restricting access to some online platforms, policymakers should focus on fixing the systemic issues at play and incentivize the creation of online spaces that benefit young people and their development.

We are therefore disappointed by the blunt and disproportionate approach taken by the Australian government. We are also concerned about the impact this law, and others like it, will have on online privacy and security, on people’s ability to express themselves and access information, and therefore on the health of the web itself.

The Australian law designates certain services as “age-restricted social media platforms”. This category includes social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, and video-sharing platforms like YouTube, and excludes certain categories of services, such as messaging providers, email services, and online games. Designated services must ensure that people under 16 years of age do not have accounts on their platforms. To do so, the ages of all users must be determined.

The Australian law provides almost no guidance on how service providers should balance privacy, security, and the robustness of age assurance technologies when performing age checks. Providers are thus left to choose from bad options. In the UK, a similar approach has resulted in users having to entrust some of their most sensitive data to a plethora of newly emerged commercial age assurance providers in order to retain access to the various services they use. These actors often ask for a lot of information while providing little accountability or transparency about their data handling practices. Beyond serious data breaches, this has also led to users losing access to messaging features and the censorship of content deemed sensitive, such as posts about the situation in Gaza or the war in Ukraine. But UK users have also demonstrated how ineffective the age-gating mechanisms of even some of the largest platforms are, using VPNs and video game features to bypass age barriers easily.

While many technologies exist to verify, estimate, or infer users’ ages, fundamental tensions around effectiveness, accessibility, privacy, and security have not been resolved. Rather, the most common forms of age assurance technologies all come with their own significant limitations:

  • Age estimation refers to AI-based systems that estimate a user’s age, usually based on biometric data like facial images. They may perform well in placing users within broad age bands, but often struggle at key legal thresholds, such as distinguishing between 15 and 16 years old. More troubling are equity concerns: facial estimation systems often underperform for people with darker skin tones, women, and those with non-binary or non-normative facial features due to biased or limited training datasets.
  • Age inference models are based on vast amounts of user data, such as browsing histories, to infer a user’s age. Similar limitations as for biometric age estimation apply: determining a user’s exact age along legal thresholds is challenging, and users exhibiting unusual behaviors might be profiled as younger or older than they are.
  • Age verification usually refers to verifying someone’s age by comparing it to a form of government-issued ID. This approach might lead to more precise outcomes, but risks excluding millions of people without access to government ID – many of them minors themselves. It also forces people to share some of their most sensitive data with private companies, where it will be at risk of surveillance, repurposing, or access by law enforcement. Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) – a cryptographic way to prove whether a statement like “I am older than 18” is true without revealing one’s exact age – can help people limit what information they share. Deploying a ZKP-based system that meets goals for veracity and privacy requires considerably more development in both technical and governance aspects than any government has been willing to support. Beyond technical investment, clear frameworks to limit the information companies can collect are needed.

The Australian approach sends a worrying signal: That mandatory age verification and blanket bans are magical solutions to complex societal challenges, regardless of their implications for fundamental rights online. We are convinced, however, that there are rights-respecting alternatives policymakers can pursue to empower young people online and improve their safety and well-being:

  • Young people have a right to privacy, safety and expression, as put forward by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Policymakers should adopt a child rights-based approach to online safety that balances young people’s protection with their rights to societal participation, free expression, and access to media and information, and should adopt policies to allow young people to benefit from responsibly run online services.
  • Blanket age-based bans and mandatory age verification should be rejected. Instead, parents and caregivers should be empowered to set age-appropriate limitations for their child on their devices. Policymakers should implement programs that focus on supporting children by providing them with the tools to learn to manage online risks as they grow and learn. This includes developing tools that parents, guardians, and schools can use in teaching and supervision in support of children as they grow.
  • Rather than banning young people from accessing certain platforms, policymakers should create incentives, enforce existing laws and close regulatory gaps where necessary to address problematic practices that put all social media users’ privacy, wellbeing, and security at risk. This includes extractive data practices and profiling, manipulative advertising, addictive design and dark patterns, and other harmful practices.

In Australia and elsewhere, we are committed to work alongside policymakers to advance meaningful protections for everyone online, while upholding fundamental rights, accessibility and user choice.

With special thanks to Martin Thomson, Distinguished Engineer at Mozilla, for his contributions to this blog. 

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The Mozilla Blog — Welcoming John Solomon as Mozilla’s new Chief Marketing Officer

Mozilla has always believed that technology should serve people — not the other way around. As we enter a moment of rapid change in how people experience the internet and AI, we’re focused on building products that are private, transparent, and put people in control. Today, we’re excited to take an important step forward in that work by welcoming John Solomon as Mozilla’s new Chief Marketing Officer.

Solomon joins Mozilla this week and will lead our global marketing and communications teams. His arrival marks the next chapter in strengthening how we tell Mozilla’s story and how we bring our values to life in the products millions of people rely on every day.

Bringing more than two decades of experience building category-defining brands and leading global marketing teams, Solomon is a veteran brand builder with leadership roles at Therabody, Apple, and Beats by Dre. He was also named one of Forbes’ 50 Most Entrepreneurial CMOs for 2025. Solomon has a track record of turning products into cultural touchpoints and brands into household names. This experience is essential as Mozilla works to remind hundreds of millions of people around the world that they have real choice in the technology they use.

Solomon’s career spans companies that have shaped culture as much as they have shaped markets. At Therabody, he helped redefine and scale the company into a category-leading wellness brand with a mission to help people live healthier, happier lives longer. At Beats, he played a pivotal role in the brand’s global rise and its breakthrough cultural relevance, later joining Apple’s worldwide Marcom organization to launch some of the company’s most iconic hardware, software, and digital services. Earlier in his career, he founded and sold enoVate, a consumer insights and strategy firm based in Shanghai.

For Mozilla, John steps into the role at a moment when trust in technology is eroding and AI is reshaping how people navigate the internet. Our responsibility — and our opportunity — is to build products that are private, transparent, and put people in control. Marketing plays a central role in making that mission visible, accessible, and relevant to a global audience. John not only understands the importance of this moment but the impact it will have on future generations.

Solomon will lead Mozilla’s global marketing and communications teams, working closely with leaders across the company to build on the strong progress made this year.

Mozilla’s mission has always been to ensure the internet remains open, accessible, and driven by human agency. As we enter a new era shaped by AI and renewed debates over consumer agency, John’s experience — and his commitment to purpose-driven work — will help us meet this moment with clarity and ambition.

Please join us in welcoming John Solomon to Mozilla.

The post Welcoming John Solomon as Mozilla’s new Chief Marketing Officer appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Thunderbird 2025 Review: Building Stronger for the Future

2025 was an exciting year for Thunderbird. Many improvements were shipped throughout the year, from faster updates with a new release cadence, to a modernized codebase for the desktop app. We made big strides on our mobile apps and introduced the upcoming Thunderbird Pro to the world.

As we wrap up the year, a huge thank you to our community and volunteer contributors, and to our donors whose financial support keeps the lights on for the dedicated team working on Thunderbird. Here’s what we accomplished in 2025 and what’s to come in the new year.

A Stronger Core, Built to Last

This year marked the release of Thunderbird 140 “Eclipse”, our latest Extended Support Release. Eclipse was more than a visual refresh. It was a deep clean of Thunderbird’s core, removing long standing technical debt and modernizing large parts of the codebase.

The result is a healthier foundation that allows us to ship improvements more reliably and more often. Features like the new Account Hub, accessibility improvements, and cleaner visual controls are all part of this effort. They may look simple on the surface, but they represent significant behind the scenes progress that sets Thunderbird up for the long term.

Faster Updates, Delivered Monthly

Speaking of faster updates, in 2025 monthly releases became the default for Thunderbird desktop. This was a major shift from our focus on the annual cadence centered around the Extended Support Release.

Moving to monthly releases means new features land sooner, bug fixes arrive faster, and updates feel smoother instead of disruptive. Users no longer have to wait an entire year to benefit from improvements. Thunderbird now evolves continuously while maintaining the stability people expect.

Thunderbird Meets Exchange

One of the most requested features is finally here. Native Microsoft Exchange email support landed in Thunderbird’s monthly release channel with 145.0.

You can now connect Exchange accounts directly without relying on third party add-ons for email. Setup is simpler, syncing is more reliable, and Thunderbird works more naturally in Exchange based environments. Calendar and address book support are still in progress, but native email support marks an important milestone toward broader compatibility.

Mobile Moves Forward

Thunderbird’s mobile story continued to grow in 2025.

On Android, the team refined release processes, improved core experiences, and began breaking larger features into smaller, more frequently delivered updates. At the same time, Thunderbird for iOS took a major step forward with a basic developer testing app available via Apple TestFlight. This marked the first public signal that Thunderbird is officially expanding onto iOS, with active development well underway and headed toward iPhones in 2026.

Introducing Thunderbird Pro

In 2025, we announced Thundermail and Thunderbird Pro, the first ever email service from Thunderbird alongside new cloud based productivity features designed to work seamlessly with the app.

Thunderbird Pro will include:

  • Thundermail, an open source email service from Thunderbird
  • Appointment, a scheduling tool
  • Send, an end to end encrypted file sharing service

These services are built to respect user privacy, remain open source, and offer additional functionality by subscription for those who need it, without compromising the forever free and powerful Thunderbird desktop and mobile apps. Throughout the year, we made significant progress across all three services and launched the Thunderbird Pro website, marking a major step toward early access and testing. The Early Bird beta is set to kick off in the first part of 2026. Catch up on the full details in our latest update and, if you’re not on the waitlist yet, join in.

Looking Ahead to 2026

The work in 2025 set the stage for an even more ambitious year ahead.

In 2026, our desktop plans include updating our decades-old database, expanding Exchange and protocol support, and refreshing the Calendar UI. For Thunderbird Pro, we aim to release the Early Bird beta in the first part of the year. Our plans for Android focus on rearchitecture of old code, quality of life improvements, and a new UI. For iOS, we’re moving closer to an initial beta release with expanded protocol support. Be sure to follow this blog for updates on the desktop and mobile apps and Thunderbird Pro.

Thunderbird is moving faster, reaching more platforms, and building a more complete ecosystem while staying true to our values. Thanks for being part of the journey, and wishing all of you a fantastic 2026.
Thunderbird is moving faster, reaching more platforms, and building a more complete ecosystem while staying true to our values.

Thanks for being part of the journey, and wishing all of you a fantastic 2026!

All of our work is funded solely by individual donations from our users and community.
Help support the future of Thunderbird!
For other ways to get involved with the Thunderbird project, visit our participate page.

The post Thunderbird 2025 Review: Building Stronger for the Future appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

Mozilla L10N — Contributor Spotlight: Andika

About You

My name is Andika. I’m from Indonesia, and I speak Indonesian, Javanese, and English. I’ve been contributing to Mozilla localization for a long time, long enough that I don’t clearly remember when I started. I mainly focus on Firefox and Thunderbird, but I also contribute to many other open source projects.

Exploring Padar Island where Komodo dragons can be spotted.

Exploring Padar Island where Komodo dragons can be spotted.

Contributing to Mozilla Localization

Q: Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you found localization?

A: I started my open source journey in the 1990s. Early on, I helped others through mailing lists by troubleshooting problems and answering questions. I also tried filing bugs and maintaining packages, but over time I felt those contributions didn’t always have a lasting impact.

Around 2005, I started translating open source software. Translation felt different — it felt like a contribution that could last longer than the technology itself. When I saw poor translation quality online, I felt I could do better, and that motivated me to get involved. Localization became the most meaningful way for me to give back.

Q: What does your contribution to Mozilla localization look like today?

A: I primarily work on Firefox and Thunderbird. Over the years, I’ve translated tens of thousands of strings although some of those strings no longer exist in the codebase and remain only in translation memory. I also contribute to many other open source organizations, but Mozilla remains one of my main areas of focus.

Even though I don’t always use the products I localize — my professional work involves backend work, a lot of remote troubleshooting and maintenance — I stay connected to the quality of the translations through community collaboration and shared practices.

Workflow, Habits, and Collaboration

Q: How do you approach your localization work and collaborate with others?

A: Most of my localization work happens incrementally. I often carry unfinished translation files on my laptop so I can continue working offline, especially when the internet connection isn’t reliable. When I have multiple modules to choose from, I usually start with the ones that have the fewest untranslated strings. Seeing a module reach full translation gives me a lot of satisfaction.

To avoid burnout, I set small, realistic goals, sometimes something as simple as translating 50 strings before switching to another task. I tend to use small pockets of free time throughout the day, like waiting at a public transportation station or an appointment, and those fragments add up.

Collaboration plays a big role in maintaining quality. Within the Indonesian localization community, we use Telegram to discuss difficult or new terms and work toward consensus. Terminology and style guides are maintained together; it’s not a one-person responsibility.

I’ve also worked on localization in other projects like GNOME, where we translate module by module, we review each other’s work, and then commit changes as a group. Compared to Pontoon’s string-by-string approach, this workflow offers more flexibility, especially when working offline.

Perspective Across Open Source and Beyond

Q: You contribute to many open source projects. How does Mozilla localization compare, and what would you like to see improved?

A: For Indonesian localization, Mozilla is the most organized team I’ve worked with and has the largest active team. Some projects may appear larger on paper, but active participation matters more than numbers, and that’s where Mozilla really stands out.

One improvement I’d like to see is better support for offline translation in Pontoon. Another area is shortcut conflict detection — translators often can’t easily see whether keyboard shortcuts conflict unless all menu items or dialog elements are rendered together. Automated checks or rendered views of translated dialogs would make that process much easier.

That said, one thing Pontoon does very well, and that other projects could learn from, is the improving quality of online and AI-assisted translation suggestions.

Speaking at Fosdem in February 2024 on “Long Term Effort to Keep Translations Up-To-Date”

Professional Life and a Personal Note

Q: What do you do professionally, and how does it connect with your localization work?

A: I work as an IT security consultant. I started using a PC in 1984, learning to program in BASIC, Pascal, FORTRAN, Assembly, and C. C is my most favorite language up to now. I also tried various OSes from CP/M, DOS, OS/2, VMS, Netware, Windows, SCO, Solaris, then fell in love with Linux. I have been using Debian since version 1.3. Later I changed my focus from programming into IT security. My job requires staying up to date with security concepts and terminology, which helps when translating security-related strings. At the same time, localization sometimes introduces me to features I might later use professionally. The two areas complement each other in unexpected ways.

As for something more personal: I hate horror movies, I love cats, and I’ve had the chance to witness the rise and fall of many technologies over the years. I also maintain a personal wiki to keep track of my open source work though I keep telling myself I need to migrate it to GitHub one day.

Mozilla Add-ons Blog — Presenting 2025 Firefox Extension Developer Award Recipients

Extensions have long been at the heart of the Firefox — providing users with powerful options to personalize their browsing experience. Nearly half of all Firefox users have installed at least one extension. These incredible tools and features are built by a community of more than 10,000 developers. While all developers contribute to the depth and diversity of our ecosystem, some of the most popular extensions provide significant global impact.

Today we celebrate our first cohort of notable developers. Below are this year’s recipients of the Firefox Extension Developer Award, presented to developers of some of the most popular Firefox extensions. The bespoke metal trophies were designed by Alper Böler, a California-based industrial designer and artist.

On behalf of Mozilla, and all Firefox users, thank you to all developers for your amazing contributions to the ecosystem!

Platinum

uBlock Origin — Ad blocker with 10M+ users. uBlock Origin has long been one of the most popular extensions for Firefox, providing a massive positive impact for users. This is a well-supported extension maintained by a passionate group of contributors, and we’d like to extend a special thank you to everyone who helps make this an exceptional extension.

(Reflecting astounding recent growth, uBlock Origin averaged 9.5M daily users when the awards were commissioned, which would have made it a Gold Award recipient; however it has since surpassed 10.5M daily users so we’ve elevated uBlock Origin to Platinum status.)

Silver

Ablock Plus — Debuted on Firefox all the way back in 2006.

Video DownloadHelper — Immensely capable media downloader.

Privacy Badger — “Privacy Badger is developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit with a 35-year history of defending online privacy. We created Privacy Badger over a decade ago to fight pervasive, nonconsensual tracking online. In the absence of strong privacy laws, surveillance has become the business model of the internet. Just browsing the web can expose sensitive data to advertisers, Big Tech companies, and data brokers. While we continue advocating for comprehensive privacy legislation, Privacy Badger gives people a quick, easy way to protect themselves. Privacy Badger is both a practical tool for individuals and part of EFF’s broader effort to end online surveillance for everyone.” – Lena Cohen, Staff Technologist at EFF

AdBlocker Ultimate — Also works beautifully on Firefox for Android.

AdGuard AdBlocker — Blocks ads and will also warn you about potentially malicious websites.

Dark Reader — “Working long hours in front of a bright computer screen made my eyes tired. LCD screens can feel like staring into a light bulb. Dark Reader started as a simple screen inverter to give my eyes a break. Over time, it evolved into a much more sophisticated tool, adapting to the growing needs of users.” – Alexander Shutau

AdBlock for Firefox — Arrived to the Firefox ecosystem in 2014.

DuckDuckGo Search & Tracker Protection — “At DuckDuckGo, we want to help people take back control of their personal information — whether that be when they’re making a search, using AI, emailing, or browsing. In 2017, we had a search engine, but we knew we wanted to extend privacy to the browsing experience. At that time we hadn’t built our own browser, so we bundled private search, tracking and fingerprinting protections, and more, into an easy-to-add web extension.” – Sam Macbeth

Bronze

Ghostery — “We wanted to create a truly user-focused ad blocker — one that doesn’t compromise on effectiveness, doesn’t maintain whitelists for advertisers, and gives people back control of their browsing experience. Many tools in the market were tied to ad industry interests, so our goal was to build a 100% independent, transparent solution. Ghostery was one of the first add-ons ever published on the Mozilla platform. Its original motivation was to bring transparency to the web.” – Krzysztof Modras

Return YouTube Dislike — “(I made it) for my own convenience. I wanted to use this feature myself, first and foremost. I think YouTube misses a lot by making dislike counts invisible.” – Dmitry Selivanov

Translate Web Pages — An effectively simple translation tool.

Bitwarden — “Back in 2015-’16, I was frustrated with the existing password management landscape. As a developer and engineer, I saw several problems that needed solving: complicated setup procedures, lack of cross-platform availability, and fragmented open source solutions that were hard to trust. I wanted to create a password manager that would meet the needs of someone like myself — a technologist who valued simplicity, transparency, and accessibility. The browser extension was one of the first components I built and it turned out to be crucial for Bitwarden since it made password management seamless for users across their daily web browsing.” – Kyle Spearrin

To Google Translate — “When I was at university, I started learning English on my own. I used to read articles in English about security and programming, and whenever I didn’t understand a word or was unsure about its pronunciation, I would copy and paste it into Google Translate to learn its meaning and how to say it. Over time, I realized this process was very manual and time-consuming, since I still had a lot of vocabulary to learn. That’s when I thought: ‘Is it possible to automate this to make it easier?’ That insight led me to build an add-on. In short, it started as a personal need, and later I realized that many others shared the same challenge. I never imagined the extension would reach and help so many people.” – Juan Escobar

IDM Integration Module — Companion extension to the popular desktop application.

Tampermonkey — “In 2008 I teamed up with a friend to develop a Greasemonkey userscript that automated parts of an online game. The script eventually grew into a full‑featured Firefox extension. When Chrome was released, I ported the extension to that browser and realized that the insights I gained about the WebExtension APIs could serve as the foundation for a new userscript manager. I later launched that manager, Tampermonkey, in May 2010. Firefox’s switch to WebExtensions in 2015 gave me an opportunity to bring Tampermonkey to Firefox as well.” – Jan Biniok

Grammarly: AI Writing and Grammar Checker — “When we first launched Grammarly, it was exclusively in our Grammarly editor, so users had to write directly into our web editor to get help with their writing. We realized there was so much more value in bringing Grammarly directly to where people write — in their browsers, on the sites they use every day for work and for school, and across 500,000 different apps and websites. Extensions became the natural way to meet people in their existing workflows rather than asking them to change how they already work, and it’s part of what makes Grammarly one of the top AI tools.” – Iryna Shamrai

Cisco Webex Extension — Companion extension for Cisco Webex Meetings or Webex App.

SponsorBlock – Skip Sponsorships on YouTube — “One of my favourite YouTube channels uploaded a video with a sponsor message that was deceptively placed into the video. It really made me frustrated. Then I had the idea that crowdsourcing sponsor timestamps could maybe just work.” – Ajay

ClearURLs — “The idea for the extension actually came up quite spontaneously during a lunch break at university. While studying computer science, a friend and I started talking about how frustrating all those tracking elements in URLs can be. We wondered if there was already a browser add-on that could automatically clean them up, but after some research we realized there really wasn’t anything like that out there.” – Kevin Röbert

The post Presenting 2025 Firefox Extension Developer Award Recipients appeared first on Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest: November/December 2025

Hello again from the Thunderbird development team as we start to wind down for the holidays! Over the past several weeks, our sprints have been focused on delivery and consolidation to clear our plates for a fresh start in the New Year. 

Following our successful in-person work-week to discuss all things protocol, we’ve brought Exchange support (EWS) to our Monthly release channel, completed much of the final phases of the Account Hub experience, and laid the groundwork for what comes next. Alongside this feature work, the team has spent a significant amount of time adapting to upstream platform changes and supported our Services colleagues as we prepared for wider rollout. It’s been a period of steady progress, prioritization, and planning for the next major milestones.

Exchange Email Support

Since the last update, we’re so happy to finally announce that Exchange support for email has shipped to the Monthly release channel, accompanied by supporting blog posts, documentation and some fanfare. In the weeks leading up to and following that release, the team focused on closing out priority items, addressing stability issues, and ensuring the experience scales well as more users add their EWS-based Exchange accounts.

Work completed during this period includes:

  • NTLM authentication support and related request queueing
  • Fixes for crashes related to DNS resolution after in-depth investigation and collaboration with platform teams
  • Improvements to folder operations such as Empty Trash via EmptyFolder
  • Password-on-send prompting
  • Continued hardening of account setup and message handling paths

In parallel, the team has begun work on Graph API support for email, which is now moving rapidly through its early stages, thanks in large part to the solid foundation laid for EWS. It’s so nice when a plan comes together

This work represents the next major milestone for Exchange support and will inform broader architectural refactoring planned for future phases.

The Exchange team also met in person to plan out upcoming milestones. These sessions allowed us to break down future work and begin early research and prototyping for:

  • Graph API-based email support
  • Architectural refactoring
  • Copy and move operations
  • Incoming and outgoing configuration improvements
  • Longer-term work on Graph API Calendar and Address Book integration

Keep track of our Graph API implementation here. 

Account Hub

A major focus during this period was completing the Email Account Hub Phase 3 milestone, with the final bugs landing and remaining items either completed or moved into maintenance. This work was prioritized to improve the experience for users setting up new accounts, particularly Exchange accounts.

Notable improvements and fixes include:

  • Increased robustness of the detection and setup flow
  • Improvements to error handling and recovery during account setup
  • Continued work on the manual configuration flow, developed in close collaboration with the Design team
  • Uplifts to ensure key fixes reached Beta and Monthly releases
  • Addition of telemetry to help us understand potential UX problems and improvements

With the primary Phase 3 goals now complete, the team has been able to shift attention back to other front-end initiatives while continuing to refine the Account Hub experience through targeted fixes and polish.

Follow progress in the meta bugs for phase 3 and telemetry

Calendar UI Rebuild

Calendar UI work progressed more slowly during this period due to competing priorities (hiring!), in-person meetups and planned time off, but planning and groundwork continued and development back underway. The team:

  • Restarted sprint planning for upcoming milestones
  • Assigned tasks and estimated work for the next phase
  • Continued preparation for adopting Redux-based state management, recently vendored into the codebase
  • With Account Hub milestones now largely wrapped up, Calendar UI work is ramping back up as we move into the next development cycle.

Stay tuned to our milestones here:

Maintenance, Upstream adaptations, Recent Features and Fixes

Throughout this period, the team also spent a considerable amount of time responding to upstream changes that affected build stability, tests, and CI. Sheriffing remained challenging, with frequent tree breakages requiring investigation to distinguish upstream regressions from local changes. In addition to these items, we’ve been blessed with help from the larger development community to deliver a variety of improvements over the past two months. 

A very special shout out to a new contributor who worked with our senior team to solve a 19-year old problem relating to unread folders. Interactions like this are fuel for our team and we’re incredibly grateful for the help.

If you would like to see new features as they land, and help us find some early bugs, you can try running daily and check the pushlog to see what has recently landed. This assistance is immensely helpful for catching problems early.

—

Toby Pilling

Senior Manager, Desktop Engineering

The post Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest: November/December 2025 appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — VIDEO: Exchange Email Support

Welcome to the last Community Office Hours of 2025! In this edition, Heather and Monica welcome Sr. Software Engineer Brendan Abolivier and Software Engineer Eleanor Dicharry from the Desktop Team. We’re discussing the recent Exchange Web Services Support for email that just landed in Thunderbird Monthly Release 145. Learn how the team landed this feature and discover future plans for Calendar and Contact support, as well as Graph API, in the blog, video, and podcast below.

Community Office Hours will be back in 2026. Thank you so much for joining us for these sneak peeks into how we make, improve, and expand Thunderbird! As always, if you have any ideas for future office hours topics, let us know in the comments!

What is Exchange and why did this take so long?

Exchange is the server-side product that hosts Microsoft’s e-mail, address book, and calendar services. Exchange powers both Microsoft services in the cloud on Microsoft 365 as well as on premises servers run by organizations. 

This is the first protocol we’ve added in over 20 years. We have an older code base that was in survival mode for a long time, and knowing the code well enough to improve on it is a challenge. So we had to understand how everything fit together first. The good news is this entire process will make adding future protocols, like JMAP and Graph, which will ultimately replace Exchange, go much faster.

Signing into Exchange in Thunderbird 145

Right now, only mail is supported. When users add an account, Thunderbird will try to detect if EWS (Exchange Web Services, the API we currently use to interact with Exchange servers) is available. Users can use this in the new Account Hub and in manual account configuration for Microsoft Exchange-hosted accounts. Like IMAP and other server types, users can set which folders are used for trash, spam, sent mail, and other special folders. However, the Exchange API doesn’t store this customization on the server. So these preferences will only apply actions like “move to trash
And “mark as junk” in Thunderbird. 

These limits, thankfully, only apply to folder settings themselves. The server synchronizes all folders and their messages so other clients have up-to-date views of mailboxes managed in Thunderbird.

We’re working on making EWS authentication as complete as possible, and are working with users who are helping us test less usual custom configurations. We have support for on-premises servers (aka ones your organization hosts instead of Microsoft hosting it) not using OAuth2, but this is a goal we’re working towards, along with supporting NTLM. If you have an unusual hosting or authentication option, please check out our Wiki article and get in touch to help us test.

Exchange features

Attachments: Downloading and displaying special and inline attachments should be supported. The team has especially made sure Thunderbird supports detaching and deleting attachments as well. If something doesn’t work, please report it on Bugzilla! 

Message storage: Messages come in two pieces: headers and bodies. It connects and goes through folders in order and pulls down headers, which are easy to download. There is a longer loading process to download message bodies. We’re working on adding folder subscriptions for more control of this process. We do have an option in folders to deselect individual folders from offline storage.

Sync: We made sure messages and folders are kept in sync with the server, so users can move between Thunderbird, other mail clients, and the webview. However, Thunderbird only syncs with the server on a configurable time interval after startup, which is set by default to 10 minutes. You can always use the ‘check new messages’ setting to force an instant sync.

Folder operations: Thunderbird supports all normal folder operations with EWS, except for sharing folders. This is difficult to replicate without a Microsoft-supported API we can use to do this at present. 

Filters: Filters should mostly work, though there are some limits. If you try filtering on a non-standard header isn’t supported, as we sync on a limited set of metadata. While Thunderbird 145 doesn’t support  message body filters, this is in very active development and will be improved in either 146 or 147. Another limit involves interactions between filters and notifications. You will still get notifications if a filter activates for a folder you have set not to notify you. Addressing these limitations is a current area of active development.

Search: Search for EWS accounts will function the same as it does for non-EWS accounts in Thunderbird with Message Search, Advanced Search or Quick Filters. You’ll want to start searches after your messages have downloaded, since search operates locally.

Report Bugs, Make Suggestions, and Help Test

As with everything else in Thunderbird, bug reports, suggestions, and user testing help make things even better. As stated above, if you have a non-standard hosting or authentication option, please join us on Matrix in either the Thunderbird Community Desktop Support or the Thunderbird Desktop Developers channel to learn how to join the testing effort. Test with Daily, if you feel comfortable about using it or Beta, though even testing in Release helps!

If you encounter a bug with an Exchange account, please report it on Bugzilla using the ‘Networking: Exchange’ component of the ‘MailNews: Core’ product. Have a feature you’d like to see? Suggest it at Mozilla Connect.

What about Mobile, Microsoft Graph, or Calendar and Contacts?

While the work the team has done to bring Exchange won’t directly transfer to the Android and iOS apps, it nonetheless gives us an increased familiarity with the protocol. This experience will help us bring Exchange and eventually Graph API to the mobile clients. Speaking of Microsoft Graph, this is our next priority for development. Microsoft is discontinuing support for EWS on Exchange Online accounts next October. Thankfully, work to add Microsoft Graph should go much faster, thanks to the foundational efforts with Exchange. 

This does mean that the team will need to delay their work on adding Calendar and Contacts to email support until Graph is done. Stay tuned to the Thunderbird blog for our monthly development updates and any special reports. 

VIDEO (Also on Peertube):

Resources:

Exchange Mozilla Support Article: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-and-exchange

Exchange Mozilla Wiki Post (with call for testing): https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird%3AExchange

Reach out on Matrix: https://matrix.to/#/#thunderbird:mozilla.org 

Bugzilla (use Exchange component for reporting): https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=MailNews%20Core

The post VIDEO: Exchange Email Support appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — What we learned about choice and control online this year

Earlier this year, we invited you to join us in celebrating online choice, and to take a stand for independence and control in your digital life. It’s a call to action at the heart of our campaign Open What You Want, which celebrates autonomy, defiance, and showing up online exactly as you are, starting with the simple act of choosing your browser. It’s one of the most important digital decisions you can make, shaping how you experience the web, protect your data, and express yourself online.

We wanted to understand how people think about choice in their everyday lives, how they express it, celebrate it, and fight for it. So we took Firefox on the road to connect with our communities IRL to learn more.

From coffee raves to cosplay: What we learned about choice IRL

We showed up in places where choice is part of the experience — in cities and cultural hubs where creativity, fandom, and freedom of expression thrive. From the Heroes Festival in Freiburg and our House Blend day-rave series in Chicago, Berlin, LA, and Munich, to TwitchCon in San Diego, our Footbrawl tournament in Berlin, and Comic Con in Stuttgart.

Everywhere we went, one thing was clear: people love having real choice in the moments that matter to them — whether it’s picking the coffee blend that powers their day, choosing their cosplay or gaming character, or deciding how they show up online. 

But online, choice and control have slipped from our hands, and often, when it feels like we’re choosing, Big Tech platforms have already decided for us.

Three Firefox event scenes showing a card-game booth, a pink pop browser baddie photo frame, and a drink stand serving colorful beverages.<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image credits (left to right): Mondo Robot, Holger Talinski & The Barkers</figcaption>

The reality of online choice today

To unpack this problem, we polled 8,000 adults over 18 years old in France, Germany, the UK and the U.S. on how they navigate choice and control both online and offline.  

The survey, conducted by research agency YouGov, showcases a tension between people’s desire to have control over their data and digital privacy, and the reality of the internet today — a reality defined by Big Tech platforms that make it difficult for people to exercise meaningful choice online:

  • Only 16% feel in control of their privacy choices (highest in Germany at 21%)
  • 24% feel it’s “too late” because Big Tech already has too much control or knows too much about them. And 36% said the feeling of Big Tech companies knowing too much about them is frustrating — highest among respondents in the U.S. (43%) and the UK (40%)
  • Practices respondents said frustrated them were Big Tech using their data to train AI without their permission (38%) and tracking their data without asking (47%; highest in U.S. – 55% and lowest in France – 39%) 

And from our existing research on browser choice, we know more about how defaults that are hard to change and confusing settings can bury alternatives, limiting people’s ability to choose for themselves — the real problem that fuels these dynamics.

Bar chart comparing US, UK, Germany, and France respondents’ top frustrations with Big Tech, including data tracking, targeted content, AI training, and privacy concern.

Taken together our new and existing insights could also explain why, when asked which actions feel like the strongest expressions of their independence online, choosing not to share their data (44%) was among the top three responses in each country (46% in the UK; 45% in the U.S.; 44% in France; 39% in Germany).

“At the heart of it, this study showcases why technology should serve humanity first and product design must be built with user agency, choice, and trust at the center,” says Ajit Varma, Product Vice President at Firefox. “When companies embrace this path, they can empower users and cultivate healthy competition that ultimately leads to better products for everyone.” 

We also see a powerful signal in how people think about choosing the communities and platforms they join — for 29% of respondents, this was one of their top three expressions of independence online.

“The kind of web communities thrive in — open, curious and shaped by its users — is increasingly at odds with the one Big Tech and the billionaires behind it are building. Powerful platforms today try to lock us into ecosystems and decide the products we use online,” says Christina Lang, VP of Global Marketing. “For Firefox, community has always been at the heart of what we do, and we’ll keep fighting to put real choice and control back in people’s hands so the web once again feels like it belongs to the communities that shape it.

And with Open What You Want, we set out to deliver an important message through a series of fun, unconventional experiences: choosing your browser is one of the most important digital decisions you can make.”

For more insights about local country findings from the survey, check our France, Germany, UK and U.S. (including U.S. findings deck) press releases.

Take control of your internet

Download Firefox

The post What we learned about choice and control online this year appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Thunderbird Send Security Audit with OSTIF and 7ASecurity

As we get ready for the Thunderbird Pro launch, we want every service we offer to be secure and worthy of the trust our community places in us. That means being honest about where we stand today and the work we are doing to meet the promises we are making.

Recently we partnered with OSTIF, the Open Source Technology Improvement Fund, and 7ASecurity to perform a full security audit of Thunderbird Send. As previously introduced, Send is an end-to-end encrypted large file sharing service that will be part of the overall Thunderbird Pro subscription suite coming in 2026. It is built on the foundation of the original Firefox Send project, although much has changed since those days.

While the audit focused on Send, the 7ASecurity team also reviewed parts of our shared infrastructure. That extra visibility resulted in meaningful hardening improvements across all of our products.

This was a whitebox audit, which means the auditors had full access to our systems and source code. They reviewed both the client and server sides of the service. They also carried out supply chain analysis, where they examined how our dependencies are managed, and threat modelling, which helps identify how attackers might approach a system even if there is no known exploit today.

The Thunderbird team has already addressed most of the items in the report, including all critical vulnerabilities. This also includes almost all non-critical hardening recommendations.  A few require more time because they relate to the organization of our broader infrastructure. For example, all Thunderbird Pro services currently run under a single AWS account. This is fairly normal in the early stages of building a platform. As the services mature and become more distinct, we will split them into separate accounts for stronger isolation.

The audit highlighted two vulnerabilities. One was critical and one was high. There were also twenty recommendations for further strengthening and improvement. One of the issues involved an API endpoint that had the potential to expose some user data without requiring authentication and another issue created the possibility of a denial of service attack. While neither issue actually happened,  the conditions that made it possible needed to be removed. Both of these were addressed and fixed in April.

The auditors also noted theoretical paths that could lead to privilege escalation, where attackers use one part of a system to gain more access than intended. This does not mean a privilege escalation exists today, but that some patterns could be tightened to prevent them in the future. These concerns apply only to older infrastructure, such as where we were running Appointment Beta. Once we migrate these users from appointment.day to the new appointment.tb.pro, we will retire the older systems entirely.

Another recommendation involves adding build attestations. These allow anyone to verify that a software build came from us and has not been tampered with. This is something we plan to implement in 2026.

Not everything in the report was a list of problems. In fact, the auditors highlighted several positive aspects of the collaboration. Their notes describe a team that was prepared and organized from the beginning, which allowed the audit work to begin without delays. Communication was smooth through email and a shared Element channel. The Send engineering team was consistently helpful and responsive, providing access and information whenever needed. The auditors also appreciated that we gave them full staging visibility, documentation, test accounts and source code. Their updates throughout the process were structured and consistent. The final report even comments on the clarity of the project as a whole, which helped them form a well informed view of our security posture.

The report closes with detailed guidance and commentary, but it also reflects confidence that Thunderbird is taking the right approach to security. That is exactly why we welcome third party audits. Open source only works when everyone can see the work, question it and verify it. Thunderbird Pro will follow those same values as it develops into a complete ecosystem of secure, privacy respecting services.

We will continue improving Send and the rest of our Pro services, and we look forward to sharing more as we get closer to launch. Thank you for being part of this journey and for pushing us to build something stronger.

The full report can be found here.

The post Thunderbird Send Security Audit with OSTIF and 7ASecurity appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

Blog of Data — Incident Report: A compiler bug and JSON

It all started rather inconspicuous: The Data Engineering team filed a bug report about a sudden increase in schema errors at ingestion of telemetry data from Firefox for Android. At that point in time about 0.9% of all incoming pings were not passing our schema validation checks.

The data we were seeing was surprising. Our ingestion endpoint received valid JSON that contained snippets like this:

{
    "metrics": {
        "schema: counter": {
            "glean.validation.pings_submitted": {
                "events": 1
            }
        },
        ...
    },
    ...
}

What we would expect and would pass our schema validation is this:

{
    "metrics": {
        "labeled_counter": {
            "glean.validation.pings_submitted": {
                "events": 1
            }
        },
        ...
    },
    ...
}

The difference? 8 characters:

-        "schema: counter": {
+        "labeled_counter": {

8 different characters that still make up valid JSON, but break validation.

A week later the number of errors kept increasing, affecting up to 2% of all ingested pings from Firefox for Android Beta. That’s worryingly high. That’s enough to drop other work and call an incident.

Aside: Telemetry ingestion

In Firefox the data is collected using the Glean SDK. Data is stored in a local database and eventually assembled into what we call a ping: A bundle of related metrics, gathered in a JSON payload to be transmitted. This JSON document is then POSTed to the Telemetry edge server. From there the decoder eventually picks it up and processes it further. One of the early things it does is verify the received data against one of the pre-defined schemas. When data is coming from the Glean SDK it must pass the pre-defined glean.1.schema.json. This essentially describes which fields to expect in the nested JSON object. One thing it is expecting is a labeled_counter A thing it is NOT expecting is schema: counter. In fact
keys other than the listed ones are forbidden.

The missing schema:_

The data we were receiving from a growing number of clients contained 8 bytes that we didn’t expect in that place: schema: . That 8-character string didn’t even show up in the Glean SDK source code. Where does it come from? Why was it showing up now?

We did receive entirely valid JSON, so it’s unlikely to be simple memory corruption1. More like memory confusion, if that’s a thing.

We know where the payload is constructed. The nested object for labeled metrics is constructed in its own function. It starts with string formatting:

let ping_section = format!("labeled_{}", metric.ping_section());

There’s our 8-character string labeled_ that gets swapped. The Glean SDK is embedded into Firefox inside mozilla-central and compiled with all the other code together. A single candidate for the schema: string exists in that codebase. That’s another clue it could be memory confusion.

My schema? Confused.

I don’t know much about how string formatting in Rust works under the hood, but luckily Mara blogged about it 2 years ago: Behind the Scenes of Rust String Formatting: format_args!() (and then recently improved the implementation2).

So the format! from above expands into something like this:

std::io::_format(
    // Simplified expansion of format_args!():
    std::fmt::Arguments {
        template: &[Str("labeled_ "), Arg(0)],
        arguments: &[&metric.ping_section() as &dyn Display],
    }
);

Another clue that the labeled_ string is referenced all by itself and swapping out the pointer to it would be enough to lead to the corrupted data we were seeing.

Architecturing more clues

Whenever we’re faced with data anomalies we start by dissecting the data to figure out if the anomalies are from a particular subset of clients. The hope is that identifying the subset of clients where it happens gives us more clues about the bug itself.

After initially focusing too much on actual devices colleagues helpfully pointed out that the actual split was the device’s architecture3:

Data since 2025-11-11 showing a sharp increase in errors for armeabi-v7a clients

Data since 2025-11-11 showing a sharp increase in errors for armeabi-v7a clients

ARMv8, the 64-bit architecture, did not run into this issue4. ARMv7, purely 32-bit, was the sole driver of this data anomaly. Another clue that something in the code specifically for this architecture was causing this.

Logically unchanged

With a hypothesis what was happening, but no definite answer why, we went to speculative engineering: Let’s avoid the code path that we think is problematic.

By explicitly listing out the different strings we want to have in the JSON payload we avoid the formatting and thus hopefully any memory confusion.

let ping_section = match metric.ping_section() {
    "boolean" => "labeled_boolean".to_string(),
    "counter" => "labeled_counter".to_string(),
    // <snip>
    _ => format!("labeled_{}", metric.ping_section()),
};

This was implemented in 912fc80 and shipped in Glean v66.1.2. It landed in Firefox the same day of the SDK release and made it to Firefox for Android Beta the Friday after. The data shows: It’s working, no more memory confusion!

The number of errors have been on a downturn ever since the fix landed on 2025-11-26

The number of errors have been on a downturn ever since the fix landed on 2025-11-26

A bug gone but still there

The immediate incident-causing data anomaly was mitigated, the bug is not making it to the Firefox 146 release.

But we still didn’t know why this was happening in the first place. My colleagues Yannis and Serge kept working and searching and were finally able to track down what exactly is happening in the code. The bug contains more information on the investigation.

While I was trying to read and understand the disassembly of the broken builds, they went ahead and wrote a tiny emulator (based on the Unicorn engine) that runs just enough of the code to find the offending code path5.

> python ./emulator.py libxul.so
Path: libxul.so
GNU build id: 1b9e9c8f439b649244c7b3acf649d1f33200f441
Symbol server ID: 8F9C9E1B9B43926444C7B3ACF649D1F30
Please wait, downloading symbols from: https://symbols.mozilla.org/try/libxul.so/8F9C9E1B9B43926444C7B3ACF649D1F30/libxul.so.sym
Please wait, uncompressing symbols...
Please wait, processing symbols...
Proceeding to emulation.
Result of emulation: bytearray(b'schema: ')
This is a BAD build.

The relevant section of the code boils down to this:

ldr   r3, [pc, #0x20c]
add   r3, pc
strd  r3, r0, [sp, #0xd0]
add   r1, sp, #0xd0
bl    alloc::fmt::format_inner

The first two instructions build the pointer to the slice in r3, by using a pc-relative offset found in a nearby constant. Then we store that pointer at sp+0xd0, and we put the address sp+0xd0 into r1. So before we reach alloc::fmt::format_inner, r1 points to a stack location that contains a pointer to the slice of interest. The slice lives in .data.rel.ro and contains a pointer to the string, and the length of the string (8). The string itself lives in .rodata.

In good builds the .rodata r3 points to looks like this:

0x06f0c3d4: 0x005dac18  -->  "labeled_"
0x06f0c3d8:        0x8
0x06f0c3dc: 0x0185d707  -->  "/builds/<snip>/rust/glean-core/src/storage/mod.rs"
0x06f0c3e0:       0x4d

In bad builds however it points to something that has our dreaded schema: string:

0x06d651c8: 0x010aa2e8  -->  "schema: "
0x06d651cc:        0x8
0x06d651d0: 0x01a869a7  -->  "maintenance: "
0x06d651d4:        0xd
0x06d651d8: 0x01a869b4  -->  "storage dir: "
0x06d651dc:        0xd
0x06d651e0: 0x01a869c8  -->  "from variant of type "
0x06d651e4:       0x15
0x06d651e8: 0x017f793c  -->  ": "
0x06d651ec:        0x2

This confirms the suspicion that it’s a compiler/linker bug. Now the question was how to fix that.

Firefox builds with a variety of Clang/LLVM versions. Mozilla uses its own build of LLVM and Clang to build the final applications, the exact version used is updated as soon as possible, but never on release. Sometimes additional patches are applied on top of the Clang release, like some backports fixing other compiler bugs.

After identifying that this is indeed a bug in the linker and that it has already been patched in later LLVM versions, Serge did all the work to bisect the LLVM release to find which patches to apply to Mozilla’s own Clang build. Ultimately he tracked it down to these two patches for LLVM:

With those patches applied, the old code, without our small code rearrangement, does not lead to broken builds anymore.

With the Glean code patched, the ingestion errors dropping and the certainty that we have identified and patched the compiler bug, we can safely ship the next release of Firefox (for Android).

Collaboration

Incidents are stressful situations, but a great place for collaboration across the whole company. The number of people involved in resolving this is long.

Thanks to Eduardo & Ben from Data Engineering for raising the issue.
Thanks to Alessio (my manager) for managing the incident.
Thanks to chutten and Travis (from my team) for brainstorming what caused this and suggesting solutions/workarounds.
Thanks to Donal (Release Management) for fast-tracking the mitigation into a Beta release.
Thanks to Alex (Release Engineering) for some initial investigation into the linker bug.
Thanks to Brad (Data Science) for handling the data analysis side.
Thanks to Yannis and Serge (OS integration) for identifying, finding and patching the linker bug.

Footnotes:

  1. Memory corruption is never “simple”. But if it were memory corruption I would expect data to be broken worse or in other places too. Not just a string swap in a single place.↩︎
  2. That improvement is not yet available to us. The application experiencing the issue was compiled using Rust 1.86.0.↩︎
  3. Our checklist initially omitted architecture. A mistake we since fixed.↩︎
  4. Apparently we do see some errors, but they are so infrequent that we can ignore them for now.↩︎
  5. Later Yannis wrote a script that can identify broken builds purely much quicker, just by searching for the right string patterns.↩︎

The Mozilla Blog — Translate the web your way, plus choose the Firefox icon that suits your vibe

Whenever you open Firefox, we want it to feel like it speaks your language and matches your style. This month, our mobile team is rolling out features inspired by community ideas, user requests and the small everyday moments that make browsing more delightful.

Today we’re bringing three of those ideas to life: on-device translations for iOS, choose your icon for Android and a new search option powered by Perplexity.

Translate the web now on iOS

If you’ve ever tapped a link only to land on a page in a language you don’t read, you know how quickly curiosity can turn into friction. Until now, iOS users didn’t have a built-in way to translate those pages privately within Firefox. That changes today.

We started rolling out translations last week in German, French and Japanese. This week we added Spanish and Portuguese and will roll out more languages soon. 

What’s special about this launch is that it’s not just another translation tool; it’s built on years of Mozilla research and designed to work entirely on your device.

Most browsers send your page content to the cloud before translating it. Firefox takes a different path: Everything happens locally, directly on your phone.

That means:

  • Your content never leaves your device.
  • Nothing is logged or stored.
  • And once the language model is downloaded, translations even work offline.

Building translations this way isn’t easy. Mobile devices have limited memory and battery, so our engineers designed smarter algorithms that translate only what you actually need to read — not the entire page at once.

It’s a small example of something much bigger: Mozilla’s commitment to building features that respect your privacy by default, not as an afterthought.

How it works

When Firefox detects that a page is in a different language from your device settings, it shows the translation icon in the toolbar and will translate to the  language that is set on the device.

<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Translation icon appears in the toolbar</figcaption>

Customize your Firefox icon – now on Android too

When we released choose your icon on iOS earlier this year, it quickly became one of the most charming ways to personalize Firefox. People loved picking the version that matched their mood, whether  bold, classic or a little bit whimsical.

Now that same experience comes to Android.

Personalize your home screen

On Android, head to: Settings → Customize → App Icon. From there, you can browse a lineup of Firefox styles, including Momo, the warm, joyful fox hugging the Earth. What makes Momo special isn’t just the art itself, but the story behind it.

<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Momo is just one of the many icons to choose from in Firefox mobile</figcaption>

Momo was originally a five-minute doodle by Dutch illustrator Ruud Hendriks (@heyheymomodraws). Its playful energy immediately resonated with the Firefox team, who saw in it a spark of nostalgia that echoed Firefox’s early logo. Today, that doodle has become the first community-created Firefox app icon.

Ruud’s artwork reminds us  that some of the most delightful product features start as small, genuine ideas from our community.

Read the full interview with Ruud to see how his sketch evolved into an icon now loved by Firefox users worldwide.

Smiling man with Q&A icons and a cartoon earth-hugging character on an orange background.

Discover how this fan-made icon made its way into Firefox

Read more

A new option for search, still on your terms

Search should feel flexible, something you can shape based on what you need. That’s why in our last release we introduced Perplexity, an AI-powered answer engine, as an optional search tool on mobile.

Perplexity provides conversational answers with citations, making it easier to get quick summaries without sifting through multiple pages. And, as always, you choose when or whether to use it.

You’ll find Perplexity in the search bar. It’s available globally and Perplexity maintains strict prohibitions against selling or sharing personal data.

It’s one more way Firefox gives you choice without compromising your values.

Created for everyday browsing

Whether you’re translating the web during your commute, giving your home screen a little personality or trying a new way to search, today’s updates reflect a simple goal: make Firefox feel more personal and more you.

And, just like Momo, many of these ideas were shaped by the Firefox community: the artists, contributors, testers and curious users who help us imagine what the browser can be.

We can’t wait to see how you use what’s new.

Take Firefox with you

Download Firefox Mobile

The post Translate the web your way, plus choose the Firefox icon that suits your vibe appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — You got more with Firefox in 2025

In 2025, we rolled out one update after another, all aimed at making your browsing better — with more flow, speed, choice, and control over your information and experience. Your window to the internet, whether on desktop, mobile, or across all your devices, has gotten an upgrade this year.

More flow:

Tab Groups

Try Tab Groups to bring calm to tab chaos — whether you keep three tabs open or three thousand. Color-coded groups make it easy to gather related tabs, stay organized, and jump between projects without losing your place. News you read daily? Weekend hobby research? That big trip you’re planning? There’s a group for that.

Vertical Tabs

Vertical Tabs give you another way to browse — stacking tabs along the side of your window instead of across the top. If you like seeing more of your open tabs at a glance or want a tidier layout, Vertical Tabs give you an alternate view that’s easy to scan and move through.

Address Bar Shortcuts

Address Bar Shortcuts let you jump straight to what you’re looking for using simple, natural keywords. You can quickly search things like open tabs, bookmarks, history, or browser actions by typing helpful shortcuts (like @tabs or @bookmarks) right in the bar — an intuitive way to find what you need without breaking your flow.

More speed:

Shake to Summarize (iOS)

On mobile, every moment counts. Shake to Summarize lets you get the key points of what you’re reading with a quick shake or tap. Recipes highlight the steps, sports show the scores, and news pulls out main takeaways — all within seconds. It even earned a Special Mention in TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025. To activate it, you can:

  • Shake your device.
  • Tap the thunderbolt icon in the address bar.
  • Or, from the menu, tap three dots > Summarize Page.

Save Web Apps (Windows)

Firefox lets you save sites to your Windows taskbar and run them as web apps. Once clicked, they open in their own window, so your favorite tools and services are easy to find and quick to launch. You can add any website to the taskbar, just click the web apps icon webappicon  that appears in the address bar. 

Link Previews

Link Previews give you a quick snapshot of what’s behind a link before you open it. No more opening a handful of tabs only to close most of them — just instant context to help you decide where to go next. To activate, click and hold a link for about a second (long press), or right-click on a link and choose ‘Preview Link’ from the menu. 

Unload Tabs

Unload Tabs helps your browser run more efficiently by putting inactive tabs to sleep. They stay visible and ready to reopen instantly when you need them — without slowing down the rest of your browser. Right-click any tab and select ‘Unload Tab’ to try it out.

More choice:

AI Chatbots

Unlike browsers that tie you to one default assistant, Firefox lets you choose the AI chatbot you want, right in the sidebar. Keep your preferred assistant within reach, get quick answers without switching tabs, and browse the way that works best for you.

Perplexity

We integrated Perplexity as a secondary search option, offering conversational answers with citations you can trust. It’s a powerful alternative for people who want direct, verifiable information without digging through long pages of results.

Custom Wallpapers

Now you can personalize the look and feel of your browser with curated wallpaper collections or your own images. Create a space that’s uniquely yours by opening a new tab and clicking the pencil icon to start customizing.

More control:

PDF Editing

Firefox’s built-in PDF editor now includes signatures and commenting tools. Add notes, mark up documents, sign forms, and review everything from one convenient sidebar — no extra software required.

Visual Search

Visual Search powered by Google Lens lets you look up what you see with a quick right-click on any image. This desktop-only feature makes searching more intuitive and curiosity-driven. For now, it requires Google as your default search engine.

Screen Lock for Private Tabs (Android)

Your private browsing is exactly that: private. Screen Lock protects your private tabs using your device’s biometric authentication — fingerprints, facial recognition, or PIN — keeping your activity secure from anyone who picks up your phone. 

Profile Management

Try profiles to help you keep different parts of your digital life separate. Work vs. personal browsing? School vs. gaming? Create profiles for each, switch between them instantly, and stay focused. Feedback from students, professionals, and contributors helped shape the version rolling out today.

Thanks for a great 2025!

You got a lot more with Firefox this year — from smoother tab management and faster ways to find information to new tools that give you more choice and more control. Wherever the internet takes you, we’ll keep building a browser that puts you first. 

To stay on top of the latest in the new year, be the first to know by checking our release notes or What’s New in Firefox. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Take Firefox with you

Download Firefox Mobile

The post You got more with Firefox in 2025  appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — Meet the artist behind Firefox’s new community-created app icon

Last year, the Firefox team set out to test something fans requested: choosing a custom app icon. The experiment was simple. Offer a small set of options and see how people use them.

The team created early concepts, but experiment lead Gabrielle Lussier noticed something was missing. The designs were clean and functional, but none captured the playful, emotional spark people associate with Firefox. That led the team to revisit a collection of fan art shared during Firefox’s 20th anniversary, and one illustration stood out immediately: a warm, whimsical drawing of Firefox hugging the Earth by Dutch illustrator Ruud Hendriks (@heyheymomodraws). 

“I love that it is reminiscent of our original logo from 2004, but modernized and simplified. It’s also adorable! How could you not love it!” said Gabrielle.

To select the icon, open Firefox and head to Settings → General (iOS) / Customize (Android) → App Icon. 

<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">First community-created app icon now available in Firefox</figcaption>

Ruud is known for the charming, joyful characters in his comic series heyheymomo, and he brings that same energy to this design. He originally created the artwork as a quick doodle for fun. Today, it is the first community-created app icon in Firefox.

In the Q&A below, Ruud shares how the sketch came to life, what inspired it, and what it means to see his work appear inside a browser he has used for years.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what inspired you to participate in last year’s Firefox 20th anniversary fan art challenge?

The funny thing is, I participated before the challenge was even a thing! One day, I didn’t know what to draw and somehow felt inspired by the cute little fox icon in my dock. I drew my own version as a super loose doodle, completely on a whim, in just a few minutes. I thought it came out pretty cute, so I posted it on my social media just for fun. People vibed with it, and the Mozilla social team picked it up. A few weeks later, I got a message asking if I wanted to submit it for the challenge since they really liked it. Of course I said yes!

What does Firefox mean to you personally, as a brand, a browser, or a community?

I’ve been on the internet for a long time. Firefox has been my favourite browser since forever, and I’m a bit of a creature of habit, so it’s always stuck with me. I like how lightweight and simple it is. Plus, as a visually minded person, I totally judge books by their covers — and I’ve always loved the Firefox icon. It’s so appealing that it made me want to draw it in the first place.

<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Momo is just one of the many icons you can select</figcaption>

Where did the idea for your “Firefox hugging the Earth” artwork come from?

It’s my little homage to the older Firefox logo, the one that made me a Firefox fan. The new one is very stylish, but the older one has always had a special place in my heart. My own work is usually very cutesy, with smiley faces and friendly characters, so I just drew my own version of it in that style.

This looks hand-drawn. What tools or techniques did you use to create it?

The initial five-minute doodle was just a quick sketch on my iPad using the app Procreate. Since Mozilla was interested in making it an actual icon, I later created a high-resolution, smoother version using vector art.

How did you feel when you learned your artwork would become one of the official Firefox app icons?

As a longtime Firefox fan, I was over the moon and couldn’t believe all of this came from just a silly doodle I did on a whim. I think that’s the beauty of the internet — how something small and spontaneous can take off like that. I’m really honoured, and I hope you all like my silly, little icon.

What a fan-made icon says about how we build

Ruud’s icon shows how product features can come from small, genuine ideas. His artwork delivered exactly what the team set out to explore: a bit of delight, a touch of nostalgia, and a visual style that feels true to Firefox. This project reflects how Mozilla builds. We listen, we iterate, and we look for ways to bring community creativity into the product. Ruud’s contribution shows how users and artists can shape Firefox in ways that feel both personal and unexpected.

Ruud Hendriks is an illustrator from the Netherlands, specializing in cute and whimsical characters. He has extensive experience working on children’s toys, apps, and games, and now focuses primarily on his own comic series, heyheymomo, which follows the adventures of a dog and frog who are best friends.

His work is lighthearted and designed to brighten your day, even if just for a moment. You can explore his comics on Instagram @heyheymomodraws and find prints at heyheymomo.com.

The post Meet the artist behind Firefox’s new community-created app icon  appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — When a video codec wins an Emmy

It’s not every day a video codec wins an Emmy. But yesterday, the Television Academy honored the AV1 specification with a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award, recognizing its impact on how the world delivers video content.

Gold Emmy-style statuette in front of green illuminated panels at an award ceremony podium.<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The AV1 specification was honored with a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award on Dec. 4, 2025.</figcaption>

The web needed a new video codec

Through the mid-2010s, video codecs were an invisible tax on the web, built on a closed licensing system with expensive, unpredictable fees. Most videos online relied on the H.264 codec, which open-source projects like Firefox could only support without paying MPEG LA license fees thanks to Cisco’s open-source OpenH.264 module.

Especially as demand for video grew, the web needed a next-generation codec to make high-quality streaming faster and more reliable. H.265 promised efficiency gains, but there was no guarantee of another OpenH.264-style arrangement. The risk was another fragmented ecosystem where browsers like Firefox couldn’t play large portions of the web’s video.

Enter AV1

To solve this, Mozilla joined other technical leaders to form the Alliance for Open Media (AOM) in 2015 and started ambitious work on a next-generation codec built from Google’s VP9, Mozilla’s Daala, and Cisco’s Thor.

The result was AV1, released in 2018, which delivered top-tier compression as an open standard under a royalty-free patent policy. It’s now widely deployed across the streaming ecosystem, including hardware decoders and optimized software decoders which allow open-source browsers like Firefox to provide state of the art video compression to all users across the web.

AV1 is also the foundation for the image format AVIF, which is deployed across browsers and provides excellent compression for still and animated images (AVIF is based on a video codec, after all).

The Emmy award reflects the value of open standards, open-source software, and the sustained work by AOM participants and the broader community fighting for an open web.

Looking ahead to AV2

AV1 fixed a structural problem in the ecosystem at the time, but the work isn’t finished. Video demand keeps rising, and the next generation of open codecs must remain competitive.

AOMedia is working on the upcoming release of AV2. It will feature meaningfully better compression than AV1, much higher efficiency for screen/graphical content, alpha channel support, and more.

As AV2 arrives, our goal remains unchanged: make video on the web open, efficient, and accessible to everyone.

The post When a video codec wins an Emmy appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — Fast Company names Firefox as a ‘Brand That Matters’

Fast Company has named Firefox to its 2025 “Brands That Matter” list, recognizing companies that go beyond acquiring customers to build meaningful relevance and cultural impact. For us, that honor reflects a simple truth about Mozilla’s mission: We build Firefox to give people agency and choice every time they go online.

In 2025 this brand promise showed up clearly in the features we shipped. One standout was Shake to Summarize, our new AI-powered feature that helps you cut through information overload. With a quick shake or tap, Firefox creates a clean summary of a webpage so you can navigate information with more ease. TIME Magazine gave Shake to Summarize a special mention in its Best Inventions of 2025 list, highlighting how it turns the browser into a helpful assistant instead of a passive window.

Security and privacy remained a constant focus too. Firefox continued to patch high severity vulnerabilities quickly while reinforcing protections that limit tracking and keep more of your data in your hands. 

This year also reminded us that Firefox is much more than a browser. It is a global community. Volunteers, contributors, and supporters helped shape everything from accessibility improvements to support forums to the evolving tab grouping experience. Their work shows up in the small details that make browsing calmer and more intuitive. When people choose Firefox, they join a network of individuals who want the internet to feel more open and more human.

Being named a Brand That Matters is a milestone, but it’s also an ongoing commitment to delivering on our brand promise. As you head into a new year and think about how you want your digital life to feel, you can pick a browser that reflects your values. Choose Firefox, and choose an internet built around your agency and your choices.

Take Firefox with you

Download Firefox Mobile

The post Fast Company names Firefox as a ‘Brand That Matters’ appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — Data War goes digital: Firefox’s card game is now online

Last month, Firefox turned 21, marking two decades of building a web that reflects creativity, independence and trust. At TwitchCon, we celebrated by launching billionaires into space and launching a new card game, Data War. 

Billionaire Blast Off started with a simple premise: send billionaires into space and have fun doing it. With Data War, we created a fun and often chaotic game where you compete to win a one-way ticket to space for a data-hungry billionaire. We were thrilled that so many people at TwitchCon had a blast playing it.

You can download your own physical deck of Data War here, and now the chaos comes to your browser. The digital version of Data War is now free to play right online.

Cartoon billionaires float in space on toy rockets, yachts, and boxes with text: “Billionaire Blast Off — Powered by Firefox.”

Jump in, stack your deck and blast off with our Data War digital game

Play now

From convention floor to your screen

During TwitchCon, visitors packed tables to duel it out, shouting “Data Grab!” and swapping decks mid-game as billionaires blasted off into orbit. The new online version brings that same energy to everyone.

<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">TwitchCon attendees playing Data War</figcaption>

“If you laugh at something, you have power over it,” said Dave Rowley, Executive Creative Director at Mondo Robot, Firefox’s partner behind Data War. “We took the approach of applying absurdity as a cathartic device wherever we could. That allowed us to balance the realities of billionaires profiting off your data with a sort of reductive sarcasm, creating an outlet for frustration that lets you reclaim some control through a genuinely fun and accessible play experience.” 

How it started and evolved

Rowley worked with the Firefox team to design Data War to be instantly learnable and endlessly chaotic. Think War meets Exploding Kittens: data is currency, billionaires are unpredictable and Firefox shows up to remind players they are the ones who really are in control.

To bring Firefox’s perspective into the game’s creation, the team invited people who actually build Firefox to get involved. One of them was Philip Luk, Firefox’s Director of Engineering, who playtested early versions of the physical game with his teenage kids. Their feedback helped shape Data War into something more dynamic than classic War.

“The game aims to spotlight how big tech companies and their billionaire owners profit from our data ,” said Philip Luk, Firefox Director of Engineering. “My kids and I contributed ideas for new cards that add different strategic twists, make it more than just flipping cards – it’s about reacting, laughing, and watching the chaos unfold.”

“Playtesting with my teens helped us see where we could make it more unpredictable and fun,” Luk added. “Those moments of surprise are what made the game engaging.”

After TwitchCon, the team set out to create a digital version of Data War. A lighter, browser-based game that keeps the spirit of chaos and humor but can be played in quick bursts anytime.

“We wanted to design a digital version of Data War that anyone could play whenever they needed a quick break,” said Benton Persons, Marketing Partnerships and Activations Lead at Mozilla. “That’s what Firefox is all about, taking the stress out of being online because you’re in control of your experience. And really, who doesn’t want to launch little billionaires into space between meetings?”

Built for fun, powered by values

Every match is a reminder of the absurd things billionaires and Big Tech do to profit from your personal data. 

But it’s also a reminder that players are the ones in control and ultimately launch those billionaires into space.

“Our goal was simple: make Data War just as chaotic and fun in your browser as it is on a table. So we streamlined the rules and added digital-only moments like animations, fast turns and story hits, like the Data Grab minigame and Billionaire Blast Off win sequences, that keep every round feeling fresh, even when you’re playing solo,” said Rowley. “When the table erupts in laughter, that’s when you know you’ve won. 

Play now

You can play Data War Digital right now at: https://billionaireblastoff.firefox.com/datawar

Take it offline and download your own version of the physical deck to play with friends, because launching billionaires into space is even better together.

The post Data War goes digital: Firefox’s card game is now online appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — State of the Thunder 14: The 2026 Mobile Roadmap

Welcome back to the latest State of the Thunder. In the last Community Office Hours, Heather and Monica sat down with members of the mobile team in a retrospective to celebrate the first year of the Thunderbird for Android app. In this recording, however, Alessandro is leading viewers through the upcoming mobile roadmap, both for Android and iOS.

Looking ahead for Android

Key Priorities

Next year’s top priority is rearchitecture and core maintenance. The underlying code behind the Thunderbird for Android app, which was built on top of K-9 Mail, is 15 years old. That’s ancient in software terms. This work will make the app more stable and reduce the odds of developers breaking the app through their changes. This is a broad initiative with lots of elements. This includes bringing consistency across apps, including UI. For several reasons, we won’t be continuing with Material UI. Instead, we’ll be using our own homegrown Bolt UI.

Another feature the mobile team would like to prioritize is continuity with Thunderbird Pro. Since the exact delivery dates for these services have not yet been defined, setting priorities is difficult, but the team has confirmed the Thundermail integration will come first. Integrating Send, our end-to-end encryption file share, will be trickier when it comes to mobile. However, this may ultimately enable encrypted sync for user account settings as a future feature. 

The team also plans to modernize the Message List and Message View, in addition to ensuring they work well. As users probably spend most of their time on these screens, this is key to get right. We want to have an experience that compares to other mobile mail apps in a good way.

Additional Goals

Several features and feature explorations fill out the rest of the Android roadmap: This includes HTML Signatures that can be synced from the desktop app. The team will also explore providing JMAP support, Exchange support, and calendar support. It’s been a while since the Android app has added a new protocol, but Thundermail includes support for JMAP, and the desktop app monthly release now includes Exchange support. It’s important for users to have a similar experience across the apps. For calendar explorations, we’ll determine whether it’s better to integrate with the native Android calendar or build a calendar section for the app.

Prioritization

Our urgent priorities for next year are the Rearchitecture and Core Maintenance, and the Message View improvements. If we complete both of these goals with our growing yet still small team, we’ll consider that a realistic success!

Our plans for iOS

The mobile team also includes our iOS developers, and we have some broad goals for iOS development next year. iOS is, Alessandro notes, a locked-in, opinionated platform and we want to make future iOS app users comfortable using Thunderbird on their chosen platform. Any iOS roadmap also needs to balance developer and community satisfaction. Prioritizing IMAP as the first supported protocol reflects this as most users still rely on it. Once that’s completed, we can begin work on JMAP to help lead the way for other clients to adopt it. This is the same principle behind adding Exchange support to our apps. While it may be a proprietary protocol, adding it opens up Thunderbird for many people who want to use it but currently can’t.

Watch the Video (also on PeerTube)

Listen to the Podcast

The post State of the Thunder 14: The 2026 Mobile Roadmap appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — Celebrating the contributors that power Mozilla Support

Every day, Firefox users around the world turn to Mozilla Support (SUMO) with a question, a hiccup or just a little curiosity. It’s community-powered – contributors offer answers and support to make someone’s day a little easier.

We celebrated this global community last month with Ask-A-Fox, a weeklong virtual event that brought together longtime contributors, newcomers and Mozilla staffers. The idea was simple: connect across time zones, trade tips and yes, answer questions.

Contributor appreciation, AMAs and an emoji hunt

For one lively week, contributors across Firefox and Thunderbird rallied together. Reply rates soared, response times dropped, and the forums buzzed with renewed energy. But the real story was the sense of connection.

There were live Ask Me Anything sessions with Mozilla’s WebCompat, Web Performance, and Thunderbird teams. There was even a playful 🦊 + ⚡ emoji hunt through our Knowledge Base.

“That AMA was really interesting,” said longtime Firefox contributor Paul. “I learned a lot and I recommend those that could not watch it live catch the recording as I am sure it will be very useful in helping users in SUMO.”

Ask-A-Fox was a celebration of people: long-time contributors, brand-new faces and everyone in between. Here are just a few standout contributors:

  • Firefox Desktop (including Enterprise)
     Paul, Denyshon, Jonz4SUSE, @next, jscher2000
  • Firefox for Android
     Paul, TyDraniu, GerardoPcp04, Mad_Maks, sjohnn
  • Firefox for iOS
     Paul, Simon.c.lord, TyDraniu, Mad_Maks, Mozilla-assistent
  • Thunderbird (including Android)
     Davidsk, Sfhowes, Mozilla98, MattAuSupport, Christ1

Newcomers mozilla98, starretreat, sjohnn, Vexi, Mark, Mapenzi, cartdaniel437, hariiee1277, and thisisharsh7 also made a big impact.

New contributor Shirmaya John said, “I love helping people, and I’m passionate about computers, so assisting with bugs or other tech issues really makes my day. I’m excited to grow here!” 

Contributor Vincent won our Staff Award for the highest number of replies during the week.

“Ask a Fox highlights the incredible collaborative spirit of our community. A reminder of what we can achieve when we unite around a shared goal,” said Kiki Kelimutu, a senior community manager at Mozilla.

Firefox has been powered by community from the start

As Mozilla’s communities program manager, I’ve seen firsthand how genuine connection fuels everything we do. Members of our community aren’t just answering questions; they’re about building relationships, learning together, and showing up for one another with authenticity and care.

Mozilla is built by people who believe the internet should be open and accessible to all, and our community is the heartbeat of that vision. What started back in 2007 (and found its online home in 2010 at support.mozilla.org) has grown into a global network of contributors helping millions of Firefox users find answers, share solutions and get back on their Firefox journey.

Every question answered not only helps a user, it helps us build a better Firefox. By surfacing real issues and feedback, our community shapes the course of our products and keeps the web stronger for everyone.

Join the next Ask-A-Fox

Ask-A-Fox is a celebration of what makes Mozilla unique: our people.

As someone who’s spent years building communities, I know that lasting engagement doesn’t come from numbers or dashboards. It comes from treating contributors as individuals — people who bring their own stories, skills, and care to the table.

When Mozillians come together to share knowledge, laughter or even a few emojis, the result is more than faster replies. It’s a connection.

Two more Ask-A-Fox events are already planned for next year, continuing the work of building communities that make the web more open and welcoming.

If you’ve ever wanted to make the web a little more human, come join us. Because every answer, every conversation, and every connection helps keep Firefox thriving.

A cheerful cartoon fox head with a speech bubble containing three dots, surrounded by multiple chat bubbles on a warm orange-to-yellow gradient background. The fox appears to be communicating, evoking a friendly and conversational tone.

Join us in shaping the web

Sign up here

The post Celebrating the contributors that power Mozilla Support appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Mozilla L10N — Localizer spotlight: Robb

About You

My profile in Pontoon is robbp, but I go by Robb. I’m based in Romania and have been contributing to Mozilla localization since 2018 — first between 2018 and 2020, and now again after a break. I work mainly on Firefox (desktop and mobile), Thunderbird, AMO, and SUMO. When I’m not volunteering for open-source projects, I work as a professional translator in Romanian, English, and Italian.

Getting Started

Q: How did you first get interested in localization? Do you remember how you got involved in Mozilla localization?

A: I’ve used Thunderbird for many years, and I never changed the welcome screen. I’d always see that invitation to contribute somehow.

Back in 2018, I was using freeware only — including Thunderbird — and I started feeling guilty that I wasn’t giving back. I tried donating, but online payments seemed shady back then, and I thought a small, one-time donation wouldn’t make a difference.

Around the same time, my mother kept asking questions like, “What is this trying to do on my phone? I think they’re asking me something, but it’s in English!” My generation learned English from TV, Cartoon Network, and software, but when the internet reached the older generation, I realized how big of a problem language barriers could be. I wasn’t even aware that there was such a big wave of localizing everything seen on the internet. I was used to having it all in English (operating system, browser, e-mail client, etc.).

After translating for my mom for a year, I thought, why not volunteer to localize, too? Mozilla products were the first choice — Thunderbird was “in my face” all day, all night, telling me to go and localize. I literally just clicked the button on Thunderbird’s welcome page — that’s where it all started.

I had also tried contributing to other open-source projects, but Mozilla’s Pontoon just felt more natural to me. The interface is very close to the CAT tools I am used to.

Your Localization Journey

Q: What do you do professionally? How does that experience influence your Mozilla work and motivate you to contribute to open-source localization?

A: I’ve been a professional translator since 2012. I work in English, Romanian, and Italian — so yes, I type all the time.

In Pontoon, I treat the work as any professional project. I check for quality, consistency, and tone — just like I would for a client.

I was never a writer. I love translating. That’s why I became a translator (professionally). And here… I actually got more feedback here than in my professional translation projects. I think that’s why I stayed for so long, that’s why I came back.

It is a change of scenery when I don’t localize professionally, a long way from the texts I usually deal with. This is where I unwind, where I translate for the joy of translation, where I find my translator freedom.

Q: At what moment did you realize that your work really mattered?

A: When my mom stopped asking me what buttons to click! Now she just uses her phone in Romanian. I can’t help but smile when I see that. It makes me think I’m a tiny little part of that confidence she has now.

Community & Collaboration

Q: Since your return, Romanian coverage has risen from below 70% to above 90%. You translate, review suggestions, and comment on other contributors’ work. What helps you stay consistent and motivated?

A: I set small goals — I like seeing the completion percentage climb. I celebrate every time I hit a milestone, even if it’s just with a cup of coffee.

I didn’t realize it was such a big deal until the localization team pointed it out. It’s hard to see the bigger picture when you work in isolation. But it’s the same motivation that got me started and brought me back — you just need to find what makes you hum.

Q: Do you conduct product testing after you localize the strings or do you test them by being an active user? 

A: I’m an active user of both Firefox and Thunderbird — I use them daily and quite intensely. I also have Firefox Nightly installed in Romanian, and I like to explore it to see what’s changed and where. But I’ll admit, I’m not as thorough as I should be! Our locale manager gives me a heads-up about things to check which helps me stay on top of updates. I need to admit that the testing part is done by the team manager. He is actively monitoring everything that goes on in Pontoon and checks how strings in Pontoon land in the products and to the end users.

Q: How do you collaborate with other contributors and support new ones?

A: I’m more of an independent worker, but in Pontoon, I wanted to use the work that was already done by the “veterans” and see how I could fit in. We had email conversations over terms, their collaboration, their contributions, personal likes and dislikes etc. I think they actually did me a favor with the email conversations, given I am not active on any channels or social media and email was my only way of talking to them.

This year I started leaving comments in Pontoon — it’s such an easy way to communicate directly on specific strings. Given I was limited to emails until now, I think comments will help me reach out to other members of the team and start collaborating with them, too.

I keep in touch with the Romanian managers by email or Telegram. One of them helps me with technical terms, he helped get the Firefox project to 100% before the deadline. He contacts me with information on how to use options (I didn’t know about) in Pontoon and ideas on wording (after he tests and reviews strings). Collaboration doesn’t always mean meetings; sometimes it’s quiet cooperation over time.

Mentoring is a big word, but I’m willing for the willing. If someone reaches out, I’ll always try to help.

Q: Have you noticed improvements in Pontoon since 2020? How does it compare to professional tools you use, and what features do you wish it had?

A: It’s fast — and I love that.

There’s no clutter — and that’s a huge plus. Some of the “much-tooted” professional tools are overloaded with features and menus that slow you down instead of helping. Pontoon keeps things simple and focused.

I also appreciate being able to see translations in other languages. I often check the French and Italian versions, just to compare terms.

The comments section is another great feature — it makes collaboration quick and to the point, perfect for discussing terms or string-specific questions. Machine translation has also improved a lot across the board, and Pontoon is keeping pace.

As for things that could be better — I’d love to try the pre-translation feature, but I’ve noticed that some imported strings confirm the wrong suggestion out of several options. That’s when a good translation-memory cleanup becomes necessary. It would be helpful if experienced contributors could trim the TM, removing obsolete or outdated terms so new contributors won’t accidentally use them.

Pontoon sometimes lags when I move too quickly through strings — like when approving matches or applying term changes across projects. And, unlike professional CAT tools, it doesn’t automatically detect repeated strings or propagate translations for identical text. That’s a small but noticeable gap compared to professional tools.

Personal Reflections

Q: Professional translators often don’t engage in open-source projects because their work is paid elsewhere. What could attract more translators — especially women — to contribute?

A: It’s tricky. Translation is a profession, not a hobby, and people need to make a living.

But for me, working on open-source projects is something different — a way to learn new things, use different tools, and have a different mindset. Maybe if more translators saw it as a creative outlet instead of extra work, they’d give it a try.

Involvement in open source is a personal choice. First, one has to hear about it, understand it, and realize that the software they use for free is made by people — then decide they want to be part of that.

I don’t think it’s a women’s thing. Many come and many go. Maybe it’s just the thrill at the beginning. Some try, but maybe translation is not for them…

Q: What does contributing to Mozilla mean to you today?

A: It’s my way of giving back — and of helping people like my mom, who just want to understand new technology without fear or confusion. That thought makes me smile every time I open Firefox or Thunderbird.

Q: Any final words…

A: I look forward to more blogs featuring fellow contributors and learning and being inspired from their personal stories.

The Mozilla Blog — Rewiring Mozilla: Doing for AI what we did for the web

The Mozilla logo in green on a black background

AI isn’t just another tech trend — it’s at the heart of most apps, tools and technology we use today. It enables remarkable things: new ways to create and collaborate and communicate. But AI is also letting us down, filling the internet with slop, creating huge social and economic risks — and further concentrating power over how tech works in the hands of a few.

This leaves us with a choice: push the trajectory of AI in a direction that’s good for humanity — or just let the slop pour out and the monopolies grow. For Mozilla, the choice is clear. We choose humanity. 

Mozilla has always been focused on making the internet a better place. Which is why pushing AI in a different direction than it’s currently headed is the core focus of our strategy right now. As AI becomes a fundamental component of everything digital — everything people build on the internet — it’s imperative that we step in to shape where it goes. 

This post is the first in a series that will lay out Mozilla’s evolving strategy to do for AI what we did for the web.

What did we do for the web? 

Twenty five years ago, Microsoft Internet Explorer had 95% browser market share — controlling how most people saw the internet, and who could build what and on what terms. Mozilla was born to change this. Firefox challenged Microsoft’s monopoly control of the web, and dropped Internet Explorer’s market share to 55% in just a few short years. 

The result was a very different internet. For most people, the internet was different because Firefox made it faster and richer — and blocked the annoying pop up ads that were pervasive at the time. It did even more for developers: Firefox was a rocketship for the growth of open standards and open source, decentralizing who controlled the technology used to build things on the internet. This ushered in the web 2.0 era. 

How did Mozilla do this? By building a non-profit tech company around the values in the Mozilla Manifesto — values like privacy, openness and trust. And by gathering a global community of tens  of thousands — a rebel alliance of sorts — to build an alternative to the big tech behemoth of the time. 

What does success look like? 

This is what we intend to do again: grow an alliance of people, communities, companies who envision — and want to build — a different future for AI.

What does ‘different’ look like? There are millions of good answers to this question. If your native tongue isn’t a major internet language like English or Chinese, it might be AI that has nuance in the language you speak. If you are a developer or a startup, it might be having open source AI building blocks that are affordable, flexible and let you truly own what you create. And if you are, well, anyone, it’s probably apps and services that become more useful and delightful as they add AI — and that are genuinely trustworthy and respectful of who we are as humans. The common threads: agency, diversity, choice. 

Our task is to create a future for AI that is built around these values. We’ve started to rewire Mozilla to take on this task — and developed a new strategy focused just as much on AI as it is on the web. At the heart of this strategy is a double bottom line framework — a way to measure our progress against both mission and money: 

Double bottom lineIn the worldIn Mozilla
MissionEmpower people with tech that promotes agency and choice – make AI for and about people. Build AI that puts humanity first. 
100% of Mozilla orgs building AI that advances the Mozilla Manifesto.
MoneyDecentralize the tech industry – and create an tech ecosystem where the ‘people part’ of AI can flourish. Radically diversify our revenue. 20% yearly growth in non-search revenue. 3+ companies with $25M+ revenue.

Mozilla has always had an implicit double bottom line. The strategy we developed this year makes this double bottom line explicit — and ties it back to making AI more open and trustworthy. Over the next three years, all of the organizations in Mozilla’s portfolio will design their strategies — and measure their success — against this double bottom line. 

What will we build? 

As we’ve rewired Mozilla, we’ve not only laid out a new strategy — we have also brought in new leaders and expanded our portfolio of responsible tech companies. This puts us on a strong footing. The next step is the most important one: building new things — real technology and products and services that start to carve a different path for AI.

While it is still early days, all of the organizations across Mozilla are well underway with this piece of the puzzle. Each is focused on at least one of three areas of focus in our strategy:

Open source AI
— for developers		Public interest AI
— by and for communities		Trusted AI experiences
— for everyone 
Focus: grow a decentralized open source AI ecosystem that matches the capabilities of Big AI — and that enables people everywhere to build with AI on their own terms.Focus: work with communities everywhere to build technology that reflects their vision of who AI and tech should work, especially where the market won’t build it for them.Focus: create trusted AI-driven products that give people new ways to interact with the web — with user choice and openness as guiding principles.
Early examples: Mozilla.ai’s Choice First Stack, a unified open-source stack that simplifies building and testing modern AI agents. Also, llamafile for local AI.Early examples: the Mozilla Data Collective, home to Common Voice, which makes it possible to train and tune AI models in 300+ languages, accents and dialects. Early examples: recent Firefox AI experiments, which will evolve into AI Window in early 2026 — offering an opt-in way to choose models and add AI features in a browser you trust. 

The classic versions of Firefox and Thunderbird are still at the heart of what Mozilla does. These remain our biggest areas of investment — and neither of these products will force you to use AI. At the same time, you will see much more from Mozilla on the AI front in coming years. And, you will see us invest in other double bottom line companies trying to point AI in a better direction. 

We need to do this — together

These are the stakes: if we can’t push AI in a better direction, the internet — a place where 6 billion of us now spend much of our lives — will get much much worse. If we want to shape the future of the web and the internet, we also need to shape the future of AI. 

For Mozilla, whether or not to tackle this challenge isn’t a question anymore. We need to do this. The question is: how? The high level strategy that I’ve laid out is our answer. It doesn’t prescribe all the details — but it does give us a direction to point ourselves and our resources. Of course, we know there is still a HUGE amount to figure out as we build things — and we know that we can’t do this alone.

Which means it’s incredibly important to figure out: who can we walk beside? Who are our allies? The there is a growing community of people who believe the internet is alive and well — and who are dedicating themselves to bending the future of AI to keep it that way. They may not all use the same words or be building exactly the same thing, but a rebel alliance of sorts is gathering. Mozilla sees itself as part of this alliance. Our plan is to work with as many of you as possible. And to help the alliance grow — and win — just as we did in the web era. 

You can read the full strategy document here. Next up in this series: Building A LAMP Stack for AI. Followed by: A Double Bottom Line for Tech and The Mozilla Manifesto in the Era of AI. 

The post Rewiring Mozilla: Doing for AI what we did for the web appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Thunderbird Pro November 2025 Update

Welcome back to the latest update on our progress with Thunderbird Pro, a set of additional subscription services designed to enhance the email client you know, while providing a powerful open-source alternative to many of the big tech offerings available today. These services include Appointment, an easy to use scheduling tool; Send, which offers end-to-end encrypted file sharing; and Thundermail, an email service from the Thunderbird team. If you’d like more information on the broader details of each service and the road to getting here you can read our past series of updates here. Do you want to receive these and other updates and be the first to know when Thunderbird Pro is available? Be sure to sign up for the waitlist.

With that said, here’s how progress has shaped up on Thunderbird Pro since the last update.

Current Progress

Thundermail

It took a lot of work to get here, but Thundermail accounts are now in production testing. Internal testing with our own team members has begun, ensuring everything is in place for support and onboarding of the Early Bird wave of users. On the visual side, we’ve implemented improved designs for the new Thundermail dashboard, where users can view and edit their settings, including adding custom domains and aliases. 

The new Thunderbird Pro add-on now features support for Thundermail, which will allow future users who sign-up through the add-on to automatically add their Thundermail account in Thunderbird. Work to boost infrastructure and security has also continued, and we’ve migrated our data hosting from the Americas to Germany and the EU where possible. We’ve also been improving our email delivery to reduce the chances of Thundermail messages landing in spam folders.

Appointment

The team has been busy with design work, getting Zoom and CalDAV better integrated, and addressing workflow, infrastructure, and bugs. Appointment received a major visual update in the past few months, which is being applied across all of Thunderbird Pro. While some of these updates have already been implemented, there’s still lots of remodelling happening and under discussion – all in preparation for the Early Bird beta release.

Send

One of the main focuses for Send has been migrating it from its own add-on to the new Thunderbird Pro add-on, which will make using it in Thunderbird desktop much smoother. Progress continues on improving file safety through better reporting and prevention of illegal uploads. Our security review is now complete, with an external assessor validating all issues scheduled for fixing and once finalized, this report will be shared publicly with our community. Finally, we’ve refined the Send user experience by optimizing mobile performance, improving upload and download speeds, enhancing the first-time user flow, and much more.

Bringing it all together

Our new Thunderbird Pro website is now live, marking a major milestone in bringing the project to life. The website offers more details about Thunderbird Pro and serves as the first step for users to sign up, sign in and access their accounts. 


Our initial subscription tier, the Early Bird Plan, priced at $9 per month, will include all three services: Thundermail, Send, and Appointment. Email hosting, file storage, and the security behind all of this come at a cost, and Thunderbird Pro will never be funded by selling user data, showing ads, or compromising its independence. This introductory rate directly supports Thunderbird Pro’s early development and growth, positioning it for long-term sustainability. We will also be actively listening to your feedback and reviewing the pricing and plans we offer. Once the rough edges are smoothed out and we’re ready to open the doors to everyone, we plan to introduce additional tiers to better meet the needs of all our users.

What’s next

Thunderbird Pro is now awaiting its initial closed test run which will include a core group of community contributors. This group will help conduct a broader test and identify critical issues before we gradually open Early Bird access to our waitlist subscribers in waves. While these services will still be considered under active development, with your help this early release will continue to test and refine them for all future users.
Be sure you sign up for our Early Bird waitlist at tb.pro and help us shape the future of Thunderbird Pro. See you soon!

The post Thunderbird Pro November 2025 Update appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Thunderbird Adds Native Microsoft Exchange Email Support

If your organization uses Microsoft Exchange-based email, you’ll be happy to hear that Thunderbird’s latest monthly Release version 145, now officially supports native access via the Exchange Web Services (EWS) protocol. With EWS now built directly into Thunderbird, a third-party add-on is no longer required for email functionality. Calendar and address book support for Exchange accounts remain on the roadmap, but email integration is here and ready to use!

What changes for Thunderbird users

Until now, Thunderbird users in Exchange hosted environments often relied on IMAP/POP protocols or third-party extensions. With full native Exchange support for email, Thunderbird now works more seamlessly in Exchange environments, including full folder listings, message synchronization, folder management both locally and on the server, attachment handling, and more. This simplifies life for users who depend on Exchange for email but prefer Thunderbird as their client.

How to get started

For many people switching from Outlook to Thunderbird, the most common setup involves Microsoft-hosted Exchange accounts such as Microsoft 365 or Office 365. Thunderbird now uses Microsoft’s standard sign-in process (OAuth2) and automatically detects your account settings, so you can start using your email right away without any extra setup.

If this applies to you, setup is straightforward:

  1. Create a new account in Thunderbird 145 or newer.
  2. In the new Account Hub, select Exchange (or Exchange Web Services in legacy setup).
  3. Let Thunderbird handle the rest!

Important note: If you see something different, or need more details or advice, please see our support page and wiki page. Also, some authentication configurations are not supported yet and you may need to wait for a further update that expands compatibility, please refer to the table below for more details. 

What functionality is supported now and what’s coming soon

As mentioned earlier, EWS support in version 145 currently enables email functionality only. Calendar and address book integration are in active development and will be added in future releases. The chart below provides an at-a-glance view of what’s supported today.

Feature areaSupported nowNot yet supported
Email – account setup & folder access✅ Creating accounts via auto-config with EWS, server-side folder manipulation –
Email – message operations✅ Viewing messages, sending, replying/forwarding, moving/copying/deleting–
Email – attachments✅ Attachments can be saved and displayed with detach/delete support.–
Search & filtering✅ Search subject and body, quick filtering❌ Filter actions requiring full body content are not yet supported.
Accounts hosted on Microsoft 365✅ Domains using the standard Microsoft OAuth2 endpoint❌ Domains requiring custom OAuth2 application and tenant IDs will be supported in the future.
Accounts hosted on-premise✅ Password-based Basic authentication❌ Password-based NTLM authentication and OAuth2 for on-premise servers are on the roadmap.
Calendar support–❌ Not yet implemented – calendar syncing is on the roadmap.
Address book / contacts support–❌ Not yet implemented – address book support is on the roadmap.
Microsoft Graph support–❌ Not yet implemented – Microsoft Graph integration will be added in the future.

Exchange Web Services and Microsoft Graph

While many people and organizations still rely on Exchange Web Services (EWS), Microsoft has begun gradually phasing it out in favor of a newer, more modern interface called Microsoft Graph. Microsoft has stated that EWS will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future, but over time, Microsoft Graph will become the primary way to connect to Microsoft 365 services.

Because EWS remains widely used today, we wanted to ensure full support for it first to ensure compatibility for existing users. At the same time, we’re actively working to add support for Microsoft Graph, so Thunderbird will be ready as Microsoft transitions to its new standard.

Looking ahead

While Exchange email is available now, calendar and address book integration is on the way, bringing Thunderbird closer to being a complete solution for Exchange users. For many people, having reliable email access is the most important step, but if you depend on calendar and contact synchronization, we’re working hard to bring this to Thunderbird in the near future, making Thunderbird a strong alternative to Outlook.

Keep an eye on future releases for additional support and integrations, but in the meantime, enjoy a smoother Exchange email experience within your favorite email client!


If you want to know more about Exchange support in Thunderbird, please refer to the dedicated page on support.mozilla.org. Organization admins can also find out more on the Mozilla wiki page. To follow ongoing and future work in this area, please refer to the relevant meta-bug on Bugzilla.

The post Thunderbird Adds Native Microsoft Exchange Email Support appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — Firefox tab groups just got an upgrade, thanks to your feedback

Firefox tab grouping with cursor selecting “Recipes” and a dropdown list; “Paris Trip” group visible

Tab groups have become one of Firefox’s most loved ways to stay organized — over 18 million people have used the feature since it launched earlier this year. Since then, we’ve been listening closely to feedback from the Mozilla Connect community to make this long-awaited feature even more helpful.

We’ve just concluded a round of highly requested tab groups updates that make it easier than ever to stay focused, organized, and productive. Check out what we’ve been up to, and if you haven’t tried tab groups yet, here’s a helpful starting guide. 

Preview tab group contents on hover

Starting in Firefox 145, you can peek inside a group without expanding it. Whether you’re checking a stash of tabs set aside for deep research or quickly scanning a group to find the right meeting notes doc, hover previews give you the context you need — instantly.

Keep the active tab visible in a collapsed group — and drag tabs into it

Since Firefox 142, when you collapse a group, the tab you’re working in remains visible. It’s a small but mighty improvement that reduces interruptions. And, starting in Firefox 143, you can drag a tab directly into a collapsed group without expanding it. It’s a quick, intuitive way to stay organized while reducing on-screen clutter.

Each of these ideas came from your feedback on Mozilla Connect. We’re grateful for your engagement, creativity, and patience as our team works to improve Tab Groups.

What’s next for tab groups

We’ve got a big, healthy stash of great ideas and suggestions to explore, but we’d love to hear more from you on two areas of long-term interest: 

  • Improving the usefulness and ease of use of saved tab groups. We’re curious how you’re using them and how we can make the experience more helpful to you. What benefits do they bring to your workflow compared to bookmarks? 
  • Workspaces. Some of you have requested a way to separate contexts by creating workspaces — sets of tabs and tab groups that are entirely isolated from each other, yet remain available within a single browser window. We are curious about your workspace use cases and where context separation via window management or profiles doesn’t meet your workflow needs. Is collaboration an important feature of the workspaces for you? 

Have ideas and suggestions? Let us know in this Mozilla Connect thread!

Take Firefox with you

Download Firefox Mobile

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The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — VIDEO: An Android Retrospective

If you can believe it, Thunderbird for Android has been out for just over a year! In this episode of our Community Office Hours, Heather and Monica check back in with the mobile team after our chat with them back in January. Sr. Software Engineer Wolf Montwé and our new Manager of Mobile Apps, Jon Bott look back at what the growing mobile team has been able to accomplish this last year, what we’re still working on, and what’s up ahead. 

We’ll be back next month, talking with members of the desktop team all about Exchange support landing in Thunderbird 145!

Thunderbird for Android: One Year Later

The biggest visual change to the app since last year is the new Account Drawer. The mobile team wants to help users easily tell their accounts apart and switch between them. While this is still a work in progress, we’ve started making these changes in Thunderbird 11.0. We know not everyone is excited about UI changes, but we hope most users like these initial changes! 

Another major but hidden change involves updating our very old code, which came from K-9 Mail. Much of the K-9 code goes back to 2009! Having to work with old code explains why some fixes or new features, which should be simple, turn out to be complex and time consuming. Changes end up affecting more components than we expect, which cause delivery timelines to change from a week to months. 

We are also still working to proactively eliminate tech debt, which will make the code more reliable and secure, plus allow future improvements and feature additions to be done more quickly. Even though the team didn’t eliminate as much tech debt as they planned, they feel the work they’ve done this year will help reduce even more next year.

Over this past year, the team has also realized Thunderbird for Android users have different needs from K-9 Mail users. Thunderbird desktop users want more features from the desktop app, and this is definitely a major goal we have for our future development. The current feature gap won’t always be here!

Recently, the mobile team has started moving to a monthly release cadence, similar to Firefox and the monthly Thunderbird channel. Changing from bi-monthly to monthly reduces the risks of changing huge amounts of code all at once. The team can make more incremental changes, like the account drawer, in a smaller window. Regular, “bite size” changes allow us to have more conversation with the community. The development team also benefits because they can make better timelines and can more accurately predict the amount of  work needed to ship future releases.

A Growing Team and Community

Since we released the Android app, the mobile team and contributor community has grown! One of the unexpected benefits of growing the team and community has been improved documentation. Documentation makes things visible for our talented engineers and existing volunteers, and makes it easier for newcomers to join the project!

Our volunteers have made some incredible contributions to the app! Translators have not only bolstered popular languages like German and French, but have enabled previously unsupported languages. In addition to localization, community members have helped develop the app. Shamin-emon has taken on complicated changes, and has been very patient when some of his proposed changes were delayed. Arnt, another community member, debugged and patched an issue with utf-8 strings in IMAP. And Platform34 triaged numerous issues to give developers insights into reported bugs.

Finally, we’re learning how to balance refactoring and improving an Android app, and at the same time building an iOS app from scratch! Both apps are important, but the team has had to think about what’s most important in each app. Android development is focusing on prioritizing top bugs and splitting the work to fix them into bite size pieces. With iOS, the team can develop in small increments from the start. Fortunately, the growing team and engaged community is making this balancing act easier than it would have been a year ago.

Looking Forward

In the next year, what can Android users look forward to? At the top of the priority list is better architecture leading to a better user experience, along with view and Message List improvements, HTML signatures, and JMAP support. For the iOS app, the team is focused on getting basic functionality like place, such as reading and writing mail, attachments, and work on the JMAP and IMAP protocols.

VIDEO (Also on Peertube):

Listen to the Episode

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The Mozilla Blog — The writer behind ‘Diary of a Sad Black Woman’ on making space for feelings online

woman sitting in a library holding a large white chess knight piece.

Here at Mozilla, we are the first to admit the internet isn’t perfect, but we know the internet is pretty darn magical. The internet opens up doors and opportunities, allows for human connection, and lets everyone find where they belong — their corners of the internet. We all have an internet story worth sharing. In My Corner Of The Internet, we talk with people about the online spaces they can’t get enough of, the sites and forums that shaped them, and how they would design their own corner of the web.

We caught up with Jacque Aye, the author behind “Diary of a Sad Black Woman.” She talks about blogging culture, writing fiction for “perpetually sighing adults” and Lily Allen’s new album.

What is an internet deep dive that you can’t wait to jump back into?

Right now, I’m deep diving into Lily Allen’s newest album! Not for the gossip, although there’s plenty of that to dive into, but for the psychology behind it all. I appreciate creatives who share so vulnerably but in nuanced and honest ways. Sharing experiences is what makes us feel human, I think. The way she outlined falling in love, losing herself, struggling with insecurities, and feeling numb was so relatable to me. Now, would I share as many details? Probably not. But I do feel her.

What was the first online community you engaged with?

Blogger. I was definitely a Blogger baby, and I used to share my thoughts and outfits there, the same way I currently share on Substack. I sometimes miss those times and my little oversharing community. Most people didn’t really have personal brands then, so everything felt more authentic, anonymous and free.

What is the one tab you always regret closing?

Substack! I always find the coolest articles, save the tab, then completely forget I meant to read it, ahhhh.

What can you not stop talking about on the internet right now?

I post about my books online to an obsessive and almost alarming degree, ha. I’ve been going on and on about my weird, whimsical, and woeful novels, and people seem to resonate with that. I describe my work as Lemony Snicket meets a Boots Riley movie, but for perpetually sighing adults. I also never, ever shut up about my feelings. You can even read my diary online. For free. On Substack.

If you could create your own corner of the internet, what would it look like?

I feel super lucky to have my own little corner of the internet! In my corner, we love wearing cute outfits, listening to sad girl music, watching Tim Burton movies, and reading about flawed women going through absurd trials.

What articles and/or videos are you waiting to read/watch right now?

I can’t wait to settle in and watch Knights of Guinevere! It looks so, so good, and I adore the creator.

What is your favorite corner of the internet?

This will seem so random, but right now, besides Substack, I’m really loving Threads. People are so vulnerable on there, and so willing to share personal stories and ask for help and advice. I love any space where I can express the full range of my feelings… and also share my books and outfits, ha.

How do you imagine the next version of the internet supporting creators who lead with emotion and care?

I really hope the next version of the internet reverts back to the days of Blogger and Tumblr. Where people could design their spaces how they see fit, integrate music and spew their hearts out without all the judgment.

Jacque Aye is an author and writes “Diary of a Sad Black Woman” on Substack. As a woman who suffers from depression and social anxiety, she’s made it her mission to candidly share her experiences with the hopes of helping others dealing with the same. This extends into her fiction work, where she pens tales about woeful women trying their best, with a surrealist, magical touch. Inspired by authors like Haruki Murakami, Sayaka Murata, and Lemony Snicket, Jacque’s stories are dark, magical, and humorous with a hint… well, a bunch… of absurdity.

The post The writer behind ‘Diary of a Sad Black Woman’ on making space for feelings online appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — Introducing AI, the Firefox way: A look at what we’re working on and how you can help shape it

Illustration of Firefox browser showing menu options for Current, AI, and Private windows with glowing effects.

We recently shared how we are approaching AI in Firefox — with user choice and openness as our guiding principles. That’s because we believe AI should be built like the internet —  open, accessible, and driven by choice — so that users and the developers helping to build it can use it as they wish, help shape it and truly benefit from it.

In Firefox, you’ll never be locked into one ecosystem or have AI forced into your browsing experience. You decide when, how or whether to use it at all. You’ve already seen this approach in action through some of our latest features like the AI chatbot in the sidebar for desktop or Shake to Summarize on iOS. 

Now, we’re excited to invite you to help shape the work on our next innovation: an AI Window. It’s a new, intelligent and user-controlled space we’re building in Firefox that lets you chat with an AI assistant and get help while you browse, all on your terms. Completely opt-in, you have full control, and if you try it and find it’s not for you, you can choose to switch it off.

As always, we’re building in the open — and we want to build this with you. Starting today, you can sign up to receive updates on our AI Window and be among the first to try it and give us feedback. 

Firefox logo with orange fox wrapped around purple globe.

AI Window: Built for choice & control

Join the waitlist

We’re building a better browser, not an agenda

We see a lot of promise in AI browser features making your online experience smoother, more helpful, and free from the everyday disruptions that break your flow. But browsers made by AI companies ask you to make a hard choice — either use AI all the time or don’t use it at all.

We’re focused on making the best browser, which means recognizing that everyone has different needs. For some, AI is part of everyday life. For others, it’s useful only occasionally. And many are simply curious about what it can offer, but unsure where to start.

Regardless of your choice, with Firefox, you’re in control. 

You can continue using Firefox as you always have for the most customizable experience, or switch from classic to Private Window for the most private browsing experience. And now, with AI Window, you have the option to opt in to our most intelligent and personalized experience yet — providing you with new ways to interact with the web.

Why is investing in AI important for Firefox?

With AI becoming a more widely adopted interface to the web, the principles of transparency, accountability, and respect for user agency are critical to keeping it free, open, and accessible to all. As an independent browser, we are well positioned to uphold these principles.

While others are building AI experiences that keep you locked in a conversational loop, we see a different path — one where AI serves as a trusted companion, enhancing your browsing experience and guiding you outward to the broader web.

We believe standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or humanity. That’s why we see it as our responsibility to shape how AI integrates into the web — in ways that protect and give people more choice, not less.

Help us shape the future of the web 

Our success has always been driven by our community of users and developers, and we’ll continue to rely on you as we explore how AI can serve the web — without ever losing focus on our commitment to build what matters most to our users: a Firefox that remains fast, secure and private. 

Join us by contributing to open-source projects and sharing your ideas on Mozilla Connect.

The post Introducing AI, the Firefox way: A look at what we’re working on and how you can help shape it appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Open Policy & Advocacy — Behind the Manifesto: The Survivors of the Open Web

Welcome to the blog series “Behind the Manifesto,” where we unpack core issues that are critical to Mozilla’s mission. The Mozilla Manifesto represents Mozilla’s commitment to advancing an open, global internet. This blog series digs deeper on our vision for the web and the people who use it, and how these goals are advanced in policymaking and technology. 

 

The internet wasn’t always a set of corporate apps and walled gardens. In its early days, it was a place of experimentation — a digital commons where anyone could publish, connect, and build without asking permission. That openness depended on invisible layers of technology that allowed the web to function as a true public space. Layers such as browser engines, open standards, and shared protocols are the scaffolding that made the internet free, creative, and interoperable.

In 2013, there were five major browser engines. Now, only three remain: Apple’s WebKit, Google’s Blink, and Mozilla’s Gecko (which powers Firefox). In a world of giants, Gecko fights not for dominance, but for an internet that is open and accessible to all.

In an era of consolidation, a thriving and competitive browser engine ecosystem is critical. But sadly, browser engines are subject to the same trends towards concentration. As we’ve lost competitors, we lose more than a piece of code. We lose choice, perspectives, and ideas about how the web works.

So, how do we drive competition in browser engines and more widely across the web? How do we promote policies that protect people and encourage meaningful choice? How do we contend with AI as both a disruptor and an impetus for innovation? Can competition interventions protect the open web? What’s the impact of landmark antitrust cases for consumers and the future technology landscape?

These aren’t new questions for Mozilla. They’re the same questions that have shaped our mission for more than 20 years, and the ones we continue to ask today. Our recent Mozilla Meetup in Washington D.C., a panel-style event and happy hour, brought these debates to the forefront.

On October 8th, we convened leading minds in tech policy to explore the future of competition and its role in saving the open web. Before a standing-room-only audience, the panelists discussed browser competition, leading antitrust legislation, landmark cases currently under review, and AI’s impact. Their insights underscored a critical point: the same questions about access, agency and choice that defined parts of the early internet are just as pressing in today’s digital ecosystem, shaping our continued pursuit of an open and diverse web. Below are a few takeaways.

On today’s competition landscape:

Luke Hogg, Director, Technology Policy, Foundation for American Innovation:

“Antitrust is back. One of the emerging lessons of the last year in antitrust cases and competition policy is that with these big questions being answered, the results do tend to be bipartisan. Antitrust is a cross-partisan issue.”

On the United States v. Google LLC search case: 

Kush Amlani, Director, Global Competition & Regulation, Mozilla:

“One of our key concerns was ensuring that search competition didn’t come at the expense of browser competition. And the payments to independent browsers were not banned, and that was obviously granted by the judge…What’s next is really how the remedies are implemented, and how effective they are. And the devil is going to be in the detail, in terms of how useful is this data? How much can third parties benefit from syndicating search results?” 

Alissa Cooper, Executive Director, Knight-Georgetown Institute:

“The search case is set up as being pro-divestiture or anti-divestiture, but it’s really about what is going to work. Divestiture aligns with what was requested. If you leave Chrome under Google, you have to build in surveillance and monitoring in the market to make sure their behavior aligns. If you divest, it becomes independent and can operate on its own without the need for monitoring. In the end, do you think that would be an effective remedy to open the market to reentry? Or do you think there is another option?”

On the impact of AI: 

Amba Kak, Co-Executive Director, AI Now Institute:

“AI has upended the market and changed technology, but it’s also true Big Tech, in many ways, has been training for this very disruption for the last ten years. 

In the early 2010s, key resources — data, compute, talent — were already concentrated within a few players due to regulatory inaction. It’s important to understand that this trajectory of AI aligning with the incentives of Big Tech isn’t an accident, it’s by design.”

On the timing of this fight for the open web:

Alissa Cooper, Executive Director, Knight-Georgetown Institute:

“The difference now [as opposed to previous fights for the web] is that we have a lot of experience. We know what the open world and open web look like. In some ways, this is an advantage. The difference now is the unbelievable amount of corporate power involved. There needs to be a field where new businesses can enter. Without it, we are fighting the last war.”

 

This blog is part of a larger series. Be sure to follow Jenn Taylor Hodges on LinkedIn for further insights into Mozilla’s policy priorities.

 

The post Behind the Manifesto: The Survivors of the Open Web appeared first on Open Policy & Advocacy.

The Mozilla Blog — Mozilla joins the Digital Public Goods Alliance, championing open source to drive global progress

Today, Mozilla is thrilled to join the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) as its newest member. The DPGA is a UN-backed initiative that seeks to advance open technologies and ensure that technology is put to use in the public interest and serves everyone, everywhere — like Mozilla’s Common Voice, which has been recognized as a Digital Public Good (DPG). This announcement comes on the heels of a big year of digital policy-making globally, where Mozilla has been at the forefront in advocating for open source AI across Europe, North America and the UK. 

The DPGA is a multi-stakeholder initiative with a mission to accelerate the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “by facilitating the discovery, development, use of and investment in digital public goods.” Digital public goods means open-source technology, open data, open and transparent AI models, open standards and open content that adhere to privacy, the do no harm principle, and other best practices. 

This is deeply aligned with Mozilla’s mission. It creates a natural opportunity for collaboration and shared advocacy in the open ecosystem, with allies and like-minded builders from across the globe. As part of the DPGA’s Annual Roadmap for 2025, Mozilla will focus on three work streams: 

  1. Promoting DPGs in the Open Source Ecosystem: Mozilla has long championed open-source, public-interest technology as an alternative to profit-driven development. Through global advocacy, policy engagement, and research, we highlight the societal and economic value of open-source, especially in AI. Through our work in the DPGA,, we’ll continue pushing for better enabling conditions and funding opportunities for open source, public interest technology. 
  2. DPGs and Digital Commons: Mozilla develops and maintains a range of open source projects through our various entities. These include Common Voice, a digital public good with over 33,000 hours of multilingual voice data, and applications like the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird email client. Mozilla also supports open-source AI through our product work, including by Mozilla.ai, and our venture fund, Mozilla Ventures. 
  3. Funding Open Source & Public Interest Technology: Grounded by our own open source roots, Mozilla will continue to fund open source technologies that help to untangle thorny sociotechnical issues. We’ve fueled a broad and impactful portfolio of technical projects. Beginning in the Fall of 2025, we will introduce our latest grantmaking program: an incubator that will help community-driven projects find “product-community fit” in order to attain long-term sustainability.

We hope to use our membership to share research, tooling, and perspectives with a like-minded audience and partner with the DPGA’s diverse community of builders and allies. 

“Open source AI and open data aren’t just about tech,” said Mark Surman, president of Mozilla. “They’re about access to technology and progress for people everywhere. As a double bottom line, mission-driven enterprise, Mozilla is proud to be part of the DPGA and excited to work toward our joint mission of advancing open-source, trustworthy technology that puts people first.” 

To learn more about DPGA, visit https://digitalpublicgoods.net. 

The post Mozilla joins the Digital Public Goods Alliance, championing open source to drive global progress  appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — Firefox expands fingerprint protections: advancing towards a more private web

With Firefox 145, we’re rolling out major privacy upgrades that take on browser fingerprinting — a pervasive and hidden tracking technique that lets websites identify you even when cookies are blocked or you’re in private browsing. These protections build on Mozilla’s long-term goal of building a healthier, transparent and privacy-preserving web ecosystem.

Fingerprinting builds a secret digital ID of you by collecting subtle details of your setup — ranging from your time zone to your operating system settings — that together create a “fingerprint” identifiable across websites and across browser sessions. Having a unique fingerprint means fingerprinters can continuously identify you invisibly, allowing bad actors to track you without your knowledge or consent. Online fingerprinting is able to track you for months, even when you use any browser’s private browsing mode.

Protecting people’s privacy has always been core to Firefox. Since 2020, Firefox’s built-in Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) has blocked known trackers and other invasive practices, while features like Total Cookie Protection and now expanded fingerprinting defenses demonstrate a broader goal: prioritizing your online freedom through innovative privacy-by-design. Since 2021, Firefox has been incrementally enhancing anti-fingerprinting protections targeting the most common pieces of information collected for suspected fingerprinting uses.

Today, we are excited to announce the completion of the second phase of defenses against fingerprinters that linger across all your browsing but aren’t in the known tracker lists. With these fingerprinting protections, the amount of Firefox users trackable by fingerprinters is reduced by half.

How we built stronger defenses

Drawing from a global analysis of how real people’s browsers can be fingerprinted, Mozilla has developed new, unique and powerful defenses against real-world fingerprinting techniques. Firefox is the first browser with this level of insight into fingerprinting and the most effective deployed defenses to reduce it. Like Total Cookie Protection, one of our most innovative privacy features, these new defenses are debuting in Private Browsing Mode and ETP Strict mode initially, while we work to enable them by default.

How Firefox protects you

These fingerprinting protections work on multiple layers, building on Firefox’s already robust privacy features. For example, Firefox has long blocked known tracking and fingerprinting scripts as part of its Enhanced Tracking Protection. 

Beyond blocking trackers, Firefox also limits the information it makes available to websites — a privacy-by-design approach — that preemptively shrinks your fingerprint. Browsers provide a way for websites to ask for information that enables legitimate website features, e.g. your graphics hardware information, which allows sites to optimize games for your computer.  But trackers can also ask for that information, for no other reason than to help build a fingerprint of your browser and track you across the web.  

Since 2021, Firefox has been incrementally advancing fingerprinting protections, covering the most pervasive fingerprinting techniques. These include things like how your graphics card draws images, which fonts your computer has, and even tiny differences in how it performs math. The first phase plugged the biggest and most-common leaks of fingerprinting information.

Recent Firefox releases have tackled the next-largest leaks of user information used by online fingerprinters. This ranges from strengthening the font protections to preventing websites from getting to know your hardware details like the number of cores your processor has, the number of simultaneous fingers your touchscreen supports, and the dimensions of your dock or taskbar. The full list of detailed protections is available in our documentation.

Our research shows these improvements cut the percentage of users seen as unique by almost half.

Firefox’s new protections are a balance of disrupting fingerprinters while maintaining web usability. More aggressive fingerprinting blocking might sound better, but is guaranteed to break legitimate website features. For instance, calendar, scheduling, and conferencing tools legitimately need your real time zone. Firefox’s approach is to target the most leaky fingerprinting vectors (the tricks and scripts used by trackers) while preserving functionality many sites need to work normally. The end result is a set of layered defenses that significantly reduce tracking without downgrading your browsing experience. More details are available about both the specific behaviors and how to recognize a problem on a site and disable protections for that site alone, so you always stay in control. The goal: strong privacy protections that don’t get in your way.

What’s next for your privacy

If you open a Private Browsing window or use ETP Strict mode, Firefox is already working behind the scenes to make you harder to track. The latest phase of Firefox’s fingerprinting protections marks an important milestone in our mission to deliver: smart privacy protections that work automatically — no further extensions or configurations needed. As we head into the future, Firefox remains committed to fighting for your privacy, so you get to enjoy the web on your terms. Upgrade to the latest Firefox and take back control of your privacy.

Take Firefox with you

Download Firefox Mobile

The post Firefox expands fingerprint protections: advancing towards a more private web appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — Introducing early access for Firefox Support for Organizations

Multiple Firefox logos forming a curved trail on a dark background.

Increasingly, businesses, schools, and government institutions deploy Firefox at scale for security, resilience, and data sovereignty. Organizations have fine-grained administrative and orchestration control of the browser’s behavior using policies with Firefox and the Extended Support Release (ESR). Today, we’re opening early access to Firefox Support for Organizations, a new program that begins operation in January 2026.

What Firefox Support for Organizations offers

Support for Organizations is a dedicated offering for teams who need private issue triage and escalation, defined response times, custom development options, and close collaboration with Mozilla’s engineering and product teams.

  • Private support channel: Access a dedicated support system where you can open private help tickets directly with expert support engineers. Issues are triaged by severity level, with defined response times and clear escalation paths to ensure timely resolution.
  • Discounts on custom development: Paid support customers get discounts on custom development work for integration projects, compatibility testing, or environment-specific needs. With custom development as a paid add-on to support plans, Firefox can adapt with your infrastructure and third-party updates.
  • Strategic collaboration: Gain early insight into upcoming development and help shape the Firefox Enterprise roadmap through direct collaboration with Mozilla’s team.

Support for Organizations adds a new layer of help for teams and businesses that need confidential, reliable, and customized levels of support. All Firefox users will continue to have full access to existing public resources including documentation, the knowledge base, and community forums, and we’ll keep improving those for everyone in future. Support plans will help us better serve users who rely on Firefox for business-critical and sensitive operations.

Get in touch for early access

If these levels of support are interesting for your organization, get in touch using our inquiry form and we’ll get back to you with more information.

Multiple Firefox logos forming a curved trail on a dark background.

Firefox Support for Organizations

Get early access

The post Introducing early access for Firefox Support for Organizations appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — Under the hood: How Firefox suggests tab groups with local AI

Browser popup showing the “Create tab group” menu with color options and AI tab suggestions button.

Background

Mozilla launched Tab Grouping in early 2025, allowing tabs to be arranged and grouped with persistent labels. It was the most requested feature in the history of Mozilla Connect. While tab grouping provides a great way to manage tabs and reduce tab overload, it can be a challenge to locate which tabs to group when you have many open.

We sought to improve the workflows by providing an AI tab grouping feature that enables two key capabilities:

  • Suggesting a title for a tab group when it is created by the user.
  • Suggesting tabs from the current window to be added to a tab group.

Of course, we wanted this to work without you needing to send any data of yours to Mozilla, so we used our local Firefox AI runtime and built an efficient model that delivers the features entirely on your own device. The feature is opt-in and downloads two small ML models when the user clicks to run it the first time.

Group title suggestion

Understanding the problem

Suggesting titles for grouped tabs is a challenge because it is hard to understand user intent when tabs are first grouped. Based on our interviews when we started the project, we found that while tab groups are sometimes generic terms like ‘Shopping’ or ‘Travel’, over half the time users’ tabs were specific terms such as name of a video game, friend or town. We also found tab names to be extremely short – 1 or 2 words.

Diagram showing Firefox tab information processed by a generative AI model to label topics like Boston Travel

Generating a digest of the group

To address these challenges, we adopt a hybrid methodology that combines a modified TF-IDF–based textual analysis with keyword extraction. We identify terms that are statistically distinctive to the titles of pages within a tab group compared to those outside it. The three most prominent keywords, along with the full titles of three randomly selected pages, are then combined to produce a concise digest representing the group, which is used as input for the subsequent stage of processing using a language model.

Generating the label

The digest string is used as an input to a generative model that returns the final label. We used a T5 based encoder-decoder model (flan-t5-base) that was fine tuned on over 10,000 example situations and labels.  

One of the key challenges in developing the model was generating the training data samples to tune the model without any user data. To do this, we defined a set of user archetypes and used an LLM API (OpenAI GPT-4) to create sample pages for a user performing various tasks. This was augmented by real page titles from the publicly available common crawl dataset. We then used the LLM to suggest short titles for those use cases. The process was first done at a small scale of several hundred group names. These were manually corrected and curated, adjusting for brevity and consistency. As the process scaled up, the initial 300 group names were used as examples passed to the LLM so that the additional examples created would meet those standards.  

Shrinking things down

We need to get the model small enough to run on most computers. Once the initial model was trained, it was sampled to a smaller model using a process known as knowledge distillation. For distillation, we tuned a t5-efficient-tiny model from the token probability outputs of our teacher flan-t5-base model.  Midway through the distillation process we also removed two encoder transformer layers and two decoder layers to further reduce the number of parameters.

Finally, the model parameters were quantized from floating point (4 bytes per parameter) to integer 8 bit. In the end this entire reduction process reduced the model from 1GB to 57 MB, with only a modest reduction in accuracy. 

Suggesting tabs 

Understanding the problem

For tab suggestions, we identified a couple of approaches on how people prefer grouping their tabs. Some people prefer grouping by domain to easily access all documents for work for instance. Others might prefer grouping all their tabs together when they are planning a trip. Others still might prefer separating their “work” and “personal” tabs.

Our initial approach on suggesting tabs was based on semantic similarity. Tabs that are topically similar are suggested.

Browser pop-up suggesting related tabs for a Boston trip using AI-based grouping

Identifying topically similar tabs

We first convert tab titles to a feature vector locally using a MiniLM embedding model. Embedding models are trained so that similar content produces vectors that are close together in embedding space. Using a similarity measure such as cosine similarity, we’re able to assign how closely similar a tab title or url is to another.

The similarity score between an anchor tab chosen by the user and another tab is a linear combination of the candidate tab with the group title (if present) of the anchor tab, the anchor tab title and the anchor url. Using these values, we generate a similarity probability and tabs that have a high probability threshold are suggested to be part of the group.

Mathematical formula showing conditional probability using weighted similarity and sigmoid function

where,
w is the weight,
t_i is the candidate tab,
t_a is the anchor tab,
g_a is the anchor group title,
u_i is the candidate url
u_a is the anchor url, and,
σ is the sigmoid function

Optimizing the weights

In order to find the weights, we framed the problem as a classification task, where we calculate the precision and recall based on the tabs that were correctly classified given an anchor tab. We used synthetic data generated by OpenAI based on the user archetypes above.

We initially used a clustering approach to establish a baseline and switched to a logistic regression when we realized that treating the group, title and url features with varying importances improved our metrics.

Bar chart comparing DBScan and Logistic Regression by precision, recall, and F1 performance metrics

Using logistic regression, there was an 18% improvement against the baseline.

Performance

While the median number of tabs for people using the feature is relatively small (~25), there are some “power” users whose tab count reaches the thousands. This would cause the tab grouping feature to take uncomfortably long. 

This was part of the reason why we switched from a clustering based approach to a linear model. 

Using our performance framework, we found that the p99 of running logistic regression compared to a clustering based method such as KMeans improved by 33%.

Bar chart comparing KMeans and Logistic Regression using percentile metrics p50, p95, and p99

Future work here would involve improving F1 score. These could be by adding a time-related component as part of the inference (we are more likely to group tabs together that we’ve opened at the same time) or using a fine-tuned embedding model for our use case.

Thanks for reading

All of our work is open source. If you are a developer feel free to peruse our source code on our model training, or view our topic model on Huggingface.

Feel free to try the feature and let us know what you think!

Take Firefox with you

Download Firefox Mobile

The post Under the hood: How Firefox suggests tab groups with local AI appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

SeaMonkey — SeaMonkey 2.53.22 is out!

Hi All,

The SeaMonkey Project is pleased to announce the release of version 2.53.22.

As mentioned before, the binaries are x86-64 only.

Please check out [1] and/or [2] for further details.

:ewong

PS: Actually, the release was done last week (iirc) and was hoping to do the blog and updates over the weekend (specifically Sunday); but had to head out of town.  Lost my train of thought and missed posting.  Ian’s email jogged my brainfog and here’s the post and the updates.

[1] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.22

[2] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/2.53.22

Mozilla L10N — L10n Report: November Edition 2025

Please note some of the information provided in this report may be subject to change as we are sometimes sharing information about projects that are still in early stages and are not final yet. 

Welcome!

What’s new or coming up in Firefox desktop

Firefox Backup

Firefox backup is a new feature being introduced in Firefox 145, currently testable in Beta and Nightly behind a preference flag. See here for instructions on how to test this feature.

This feature allows users to save a backup of their Firefox data to their local device at regular intervals, and later use that backup to restore their browser data or migrate their browser to a new device. One of the use cases is for current Windows 10 users who may be migrating to a new Windows 11 device. The user can save their Firefox backup to OneDrive, and later after setting up their new device can then install Firefox and restore their browsing data from the backup saved in OneDrive.

This is an alternative to using the sync functionality in combination with a Mozilla account.

Settings Redesign

Coming up in future releases, the current settings menu is being re-organized and re-designed to be more user friendly and easier to understand. New strings will be rolling out with relative frequency, but they can’t be viewed or tested in Beta or Nightly yet. If you encounter anything where you need additional context, please feel free to use the request context button in Pontoon or drop into our localization matrix channel where you can get the latest updates and engage with your fellow localizers from around the world.

What’s new or coming up in mobile

Here’s what’s been going on in Firefox for Android land lately: you may have noticed strings landing for the Toolbar refresh, the tab tray layout, as well as for a homepage revamp. All of this is work is ongoing, so expect to see more strings landing soon!

On the Firefox for iOS side, there have been improvements to Search along with a revamp of the menu and tab tray. Ongoing work continues on the Translations feature integration, the homepage revamp, and the toolbar refresh.

More updates coming soon — stay tuned!

What’s new or coming up in web projects

AMO and AMO Frontend

The team has been working on identifying and removing obsolete strings to minimize unnecessary translation effort especially the locales that are still catching on. Recently they removed an additional 160 or so strings.

To remain in production, a locale must have both projects at or above 80% completion. If only one project meets the threshold, neither will be enabled. This policy helps prevent users from unintentionally switching between their preferred language and English. Please review your locale to confirm both projects are localized and in good standing.

If a locale already in production falls below the threshold, the team will be notified. Each month, they will review the status of all locales and manually add or remove them from production as needed.

Mozilla accounts

The Mozilla accounts team has been working on the ability to customize surfaces for the various projects that rely on Mozilla accounts for account management such as sync, Mozilla VPN, and others. This customization applies only to a predetermined set of pages (such as sign-in, authentication, etc.) and emails (sign-up confirmation, sign-in verification code, etc.)  and is managed through a content management system. This CMS process bypasses the typical build process and as a result changes are shown in production within a very short time-frame (within minutes). Each customization requires an instance of a string, even if that value hasn’t changed, so this can result in a large number of identical strings being created.

This project will be managed in a new “Mozilla accounts CMS” project within Pontoon instead of the main “Mozilla accounts” project. We are doing this for a couple reasons:

  • To reduce or eliminate the need to translate duplicate strings: In most cases it’s best to have different strings to allow for translation adjustments depending on context, however due to the nature of this project, identical strings for the same page element (e.g. “button”) will use a single translation. For example, all buttons with the text “Sign in” will only require a single translation. This has reduced the number of strings requiring translation by over 50% already, and will reduce the number of additional strings in the future.
  • To enable pretranslation: Important note – this only applies to locales that have opted-in to the pretranslation feature. Due to the CMS string process skipping the normal build cycle and being exposed to production near instantaneously, there’s a high likelihood that untranslated strings may be shown in English before teams have the chance to translate. If a locale has opted in for pretranslation, then the “Mozilla accounts CMS” project will have pretranslation enabled by default and show pretranslated strings until the team has a chance to review and update strings. If your locale has decided not to use the pretranslation feature, then nothing will change and translated strings will be displayed once your team has them translated and approved in Pontoon.

Newly published localizer facing documentation

We’ve recently updated our testing instructions for Firefox for Android and for Firefox for iOS! If you spot anything that could be improved, please file an issue — we’d love your feedback.

Friends of the Lion

Image by Elio Qoshi

  • We’ve started a new blog series spotlighting amazing contributors from Mozilla’s localization community. The first one features Selim of the Turkish community.
  • A second localizer spotlight was published! This time, meet Bogo, a long-time contributor to Bulgarian projects.

Want to learn more from your fellow contributors? Who would you like to be featured? You are invited to nominate the next candidate!

Know someone in your l10n community who’s been doing a great job and should appear here? Contact us and we’ll make sure they get a shout-out!

Questions? Want to get involved?

If you want to get involved, or have any question about l10n, reach out to:

Did you enjoy reading this report? Let us know how we can improve it.

Open Policy & Advocacy — Pathways to a fairer digital world: Mozilla shares views on the EU Digital Fairness Act

The Digital Fairness Act (DFA) is a defining opportunity to modernise Europe’s consumer protection framework for the digital age. Mozilla welcomes the European Commission’s ambition to ensure that digital environments are fair, open, and respecting of user autonomy.

As online environments are increasingly shaped by manipulative design, pervasive personalization, and emerging AI systems, traditional transparency and consent mechanisms are no longer sufficient. The DFA must therefore address how digital systems are designed and operated – from interface choices to system-level defaults and AI-mediated decision-making.

Mozilla believes the  DFA, if designed in a smart way, will complement existing legislation (such as GDPR, DSA, DMA, AI Act) by closing long-recognized legal and enforcement gaps. When properly scoped, the DFA can simplify the regulatory landscape, reduce fragmentation, and enhance legal certainty for innovators, while also enabling consumers to exercise their choices online and bolster overall consumer protection. Ensuring effective consumer choice is at the heart of contestable markets, encouraging innovation and new entry.

Policy recommendations

1. Recognize and outlaw harmful design practices at the interface and system levels.

  • Update existing rules to ensure that manipulative and deceptive patterns at both interface and system architecture levels are explicitly banned.
  • Extend protection beyond “dark patterns” to include AI-driven and agentic systems that steer users toward outcomes they did not freely choose.
  • Introduce anti-circumvention and burden-shifting provisions requiring platforms to demonstrate the fairness of their design and user-interaction systems.
  • Harmonize key definitions and obligations across the different legislative instruments within consumer, competition, and data protection law.

2. Establish substantive fairness standards for personalization and online advertising.

  • Prohibit exploitative or manipulative personalization based on sensitive data or vulnerabilities.
  • Guarantee simple, meaningful opt-outs that do not degrade service quality.
  • Require the use of privacy-preserving technologies (PETs) and data minimisation by design in all personalization systems.
  • Mandate regular audits to assess fairness and detect systemic bias or manipulation across the ad-tech chain.

3. Strengthen centralized enforcement and cooperation across regulators. 

  • Adopt the DFA as a Regulation and introduce centralized enforcement to ensure consistent application across Member States.
  • Create formal mechanisms for cross-regulator coordination among consumer, data protection, and competition authorities.
  • Update the “average consumer” standard to reflect real behavioral dynamics online, ensuring protection for all users, not just the hypothetical rational actor.

A strong, harmonized DFA would modernize Europe’s consumer protection architecture, strengthen trust, and promote a fairer, more competitive digital economy. By closing long-recognized legal gaps, it would reinforce genuine user choice, simplify compliance, enhance legal certainty, and support responsible innovation.

You can read our position in more detail here.

The post Pathways to a fairer digital world: Mozilla shares views on the EU Digital Fairness Act appeared first on Open Policy & Advocacy.

Open Policy & Advocacy — California’s Opt Me Out Act is a Win for Privacy

It’s no secret that privacy and user empowerment have always been core to Mozilla’s mission.

Over the years, we’ve consistently engaged with policymakers to advance strong privacy protections. We were thrilled when the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) was signed into law, giving people the ability to opt-out and send a clear signal to websites that they don’t want their personal data tracked or sold. Despite this progress, many browsers and operating systems still failed to make these controls available or offer the tools to do so without third-party support. This gap is why we’ve pushed time and time again for additional legislation to ensure people can easily exercise their privacy rights online.

Last year, we shared our disappointment when California’s AB 3048 was not signed into law. This bill was a meaningful step toward empowering consumers. When it failed to pass, we urged policymakers to continue efforts to advance similar legislation, to close gaps and strengthen enforcement.

We can’t stress this enough: Legislation must prioritize people’s privacy and meet the expectations that consumers rightly have about treatment of their sensitive personal information.

That’s why we joined allies to support AB 566, the California Opt Me Out Act, mandating that browsers include an opt-out setting so Californians can easily communicate their privacy preferences. Earlier this month, we were happy to see it pass and Governor Newsom sign it into law.

Mozilla has long advocated for easily accessible universal opt-out mechanisms; it’s a core feature built into Firefox through our Global Privacy Control (GPC) mechanism. By requiring browsers to provide tools like GPC, California is setting an important precedent that brings us closer to a web where privacy controls are consistent, effective, and easy to use.

We hope to see similar steps in other states and at the federal level, to advance meaningful privacy protections for everyone online – the issue is more urgent than ever. We remain committed to working alongside policymakers across the board to ensure it happens.

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Mozilla Add-ons Blog — New Recommended Extensions arrived, thanks to our community curators

Every so often we host community-driven curatorial projects to select new Firefox Recommended Extensions. By gathering a diverse group of community contributors who share a passion for the open web and add-ons, we aim to identify new Recommended Extensions that meet Mozilla’s “highest standards of security, functionality, and user experience.”

Earlier this year we concluded yet another successful curatorial project spanning six months. We evaluated dozens of worthy nominations. Those that received highest marks for functionality and user experience were then put through a technical review process to ensure they adhere to Add-on Policies and our industry-leading security standards. A few candidates are still working their way through the final stages of review, but most of the new batch of Recommended Extensions are now live on AMO (addons.mozilla.org) and we wanted to share the news, so without further ado here are some exciting new additions to the program…

Yomitan is a dictionary extension uniquely suited for learning new languages (20+). An interactive pop-up provides not only word definitions but audio pronunciation guidance as well, plus other great features tailored for understanding foreign languages.

Power Thesaurus is another elite language tool that provides a vast world of synonyms just a mouse click away (antonyms too!).

Power Thesaurus brings a world of words into Firefox.

PhotoShow is a fabulous tool for any photophile. Just hover over images to instantly enlarge their appearance with an option to download in high-def. Works with 300+ top websites.

Simple Gesture for Android provides a suite of touch gestures like page scrolling, back and forth navigation, tab management, and more.

Immersive Translate is a feature-packed translation extension. Highlights include translations across mediums like web, PDF, eBooks, even video subtitles. Works great on both Firefox desktop and Android.

Time Tracker offers key insights into your web habits. Track the time you spend on websites — with an option to block specific sites if you find they’re stealing too much of your time.

Checker Plus for Gmail makes it easy to stay on top of your Gmail straight from Firefox’s toolbar. See email notifications, read, reply, delete, mark as read and more — without clicking away from wherever you are on the web.

YouTube Search Fixer de-clutters the YouTube experience by removing distracting features like Related Videos, For You, People Also Watched, Shorts — all that stuff intended to rabbit hole your attention. It’s completely customizable, so you’re free to tweak YouTube to taste.

YouTube Search Fixer puts you in control of what you see.

Notefox lets you leave notes to yourself on any website (per page or domain wide). It’s a simple, ideal tool for deep researchers or anyone who needs to leave themselves helpful notes around the web.

Sink It for Reddit features a bunch of “quality of life improvements” as its developer puts it, including color coded comments, content muting, adaptive dark mode, and more.

Raindrop.io helps you save and organize anything you find on the web. This is a tremendous tool for clipping articles, videos, even PDFs — and categorizing them by topic.

Show Video Controls for Firefox is a beloved feature for watchers of WebM formatted videos. The extension automatically enables video controls (volume/mute, play/pause, full screen, etc.).

Chrome Mask is a clever little extension designed to “mask” Firefox as the Chrome browser to websites that otherwise try to block or don’t want to support Firefox.

Congratulations to all of the developers! You’ve built incredible features that will be appreciated by millions of Firefox users.

Finally, a huge thank you to the Firefox Recommended Extensions Advisory Board who contributed their time and talent helping curate all these new Recommended extensions. Shout outs to Amber Shumaker, C. Liam Brown, Cody Ortt, Danny Colin, gsakel, Lewis, Michael Soh, Paul, Rafi Meher, and Rusty (Rusty Zone on YouTube).

We’re planning another curatorial project sometime in 2026, so if you’re the developer of a Firefox extension you believe meets the criteria to become a Recommended extension, or you’re the user of an extension you feel deserves consideration for the program, please email us nominations at amo-featured [at] mozilla [dot] org.

The post New Recommended Extensions arrived, thanks to our community curators appeared first on Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Mobile Progress Report: September-October 2025

A Brief Self-Introduction

Hello community, it’s a pleasure to be here and help take part in a product I’ve used for many years, but now with the focus on Mobile.  I am Jon Bott, and am the new Engineering Manager for the Thunderbird Mobile teams.  I am passionate about native mobile development and am excited to be helping both mobile apps moving forward.  

Refining our Roadmaps

For now, as we develop, we are refining the roadmap and making more concrete plans for iOS Thunderbird’s Alpha release in a couple of months, and finalizing our initial pass with Account Drawer on the Android (planned for release in the next beta).  We also have Notification and Message List improvements under development.

Carpaccio

As a mobile product, we’ve gone through several changes over the last year or so, from large annual releases, to our more recent monthly beta and release process.  Our next steps are to start sizing our features so they fit better into that monthly cadence, and you’ll see the benefits of this over the next few months as we simplify our planning & process – breaking our large features into smaller, more frequently delivered pieces.  This is based on the Carpaccio method for breaking down features into thin slices with the goal of delivering usable features to our users more quickly, and focusing more on the iterative process helping us take feedback sooner from the community on a feature experience and designs.  Not everything will fit in this, of course, but more will go out sooner as we carve away with our larger goals for the platforms.

Stay Tuned

Over the next few weeks we’ll update our timelines and roadmaps, to what pieces we have high confidence in delivering over the next few months, and a 50,000 foot (15,000 meter) view of our larger pieces we hope to tackle in the next year.  Ultimately our goal is to more quickly reduce pain points you might have, and keep adding polish to Thunderbird’s mobile experience. 

Progress with Thunderbird iOS

We are excited to show the progress we are making in getting the iOS up and running.  Some things are connected, others have sample data for now, but it helps us move quickly and start to share what the UI will be like moving forward.  Here are the actual screen we’ve coded up:

____

Jon Bott

Manager, Mobile Apps

The post Mobile Progress Report: September-October 2025 appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — Better search suggestions in Firefox

We’re working on a new feature to display direct results in your address bar as you type, so that you can skip the results page and get to the right site or answer faster.

Every major browser today supports a feature known as “search suggestions.” As you type in the address bar, your chosen search engine offers real-time suggestions for searches you might want to perform.

A Firefox browser window with a gray gradient background. The Google search bar shows “mozilla.” Google suggestions below include “mozilla firefox,” “mozilla thunderbird,” “mozilla careers,” “mozilla vpn,” and “mozilla foundation.”

This is a helpful feature, but these suggestions always take you to a search engine results page, not necessarily the information or website you’re ultimately looking for. This is ideal for the search provider, but not always best for the user.

For example, flight status summaries on a search results page are convenient, but it would be more convenient to show that information directly in the address bar:

A Firefox browser window with an orange gradient background. The Google search bar shows “ac 8170.” The result displays an Air Canada flight from Victoria (YYJ) to Vancouver (YVR), showing departure and arrival times and that it’s “In flight” or “On time.”

Similarly, people commonly search for a website when they don’t know or remember the exact URL. Why not skip the search?

A Firefox browser window with a green gradient background. The Google search bar shows “mdn.” Below, the top result is “Mozilla Developer Network — Your blueprint for a better internet,” with Google suggestions like “mdn web docs,” “mdn array,” and “mdn fetch.”

Another common use case is searching for recommendations, where Firefox can show highly relevant results from sources around the web:

A Firefox browser window with a gradient pink-to-purple background. The Google search bar shows the query “bike repair boston.” Below it, Google suggestions and a featured result for “Ballantine Bike Shop” appear, showing address, rating, and hours.

The truth is, browser address bars today are largely a conduit to your search engine. And while search engines are very useful, a single and centralized source for finding everything online is not how we want the web to work. Firefox is proudly independent, and our address bar should be too.

We experimented with the concept several years ago, but didn’t ship it1 because we have an extremely high standard for privacy and weren’t satisfied with any design that would send your raw queries directly to us. Even though these are already sent to your search engine, Firefox is built on the principle that even Mozilla should not be able to learn what you do online. Unlike most search engines, we don’t want to know who’s searching for what, and we want to enable anyone in the world to verify that we couldn’t know even if we tried.

We now have the technical architecture to meet that bar. When Firefox requests suggestions, it encrypts your query using a new protocol we helped design called Oblivious HTTP. The encrypted request goes to a relay operated by Fastly, which can see your IP address but not the text. Mozilla can see the text, but not who it came from. We can then return a result directly or fetch one from a specialized search service. No single party can connect what you type to who you are.

A simple black-and-white diagram with three rounded rectangles labeled “Firefox,” “Relay (Operated by Fastly),” and “Mozilla.” Double arrows connect them, showing a two-way flow between Firefox ↔ Relay ↔ Mozilla.

Firefox will continue to show traditional search suggestions for all queries and add direct results only when we have high confidence they match your intent. As with search engines, some of these results may be sponsored to support Firefox, but only if they’re highly relevant, and neither we nor the sponsor will know who they’re for. We expect this to be useful to users and, hopefully, help level the playing field by allowing Mozilla to work directly with independent sites rather than mediating all web discovery through the search engine.

Running this at scale is not trivial. We need the capacity to handle the volume and servers close to people to avoid introducing noticeable latency. To keep things smooth, we are starting in the United States and will evaluate expanding into other geographies as we learn from this experience and observe how the system performs. The feature is still in development and testing and will roll out gradually over the coming year.2

1 We did ship an experimental version that users could enable in settings, as well as a small set of locally-matched suggestions in some regions. Unfortunately, the former had too little reach to be worth building features for, and the latter had very poor relevance and utility due to the technical limitations (most notably, the size of the local database).

2 Where the feature is available, you can disable it by unchecking “Retrieve suggestions as you type” in the “Search” pane in Firefox settings. If this box is not yet available in your version of Firefox, you can pre-emptively disable it by setting browser.urlbar.quicksuggest.online.enabled to false in about:config.

Take Firefox with you

Download Firefox Mobile

The post Better search suggestions in Firefox appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

Mozilla L10N — Localizer spotlight: Bogo

About you

My name is Bogomil but people call me Bogo, and I am a translator for the Bulgarian locale. I think I got involved with the Mozilla project back in 2005 when I wrote a small search add-on/script. I became more active around 2008-2009 and with just a few gaps until this day.

I am European. I was born in Bulgaria, but I have been living for a long time in the Czech Republic. Bulgarian is my main language, but sometimes I contribute to localization projects in Turkish, Romanian, Macedonian and Czech.

Q&A

Q: What inspired you to join the Mozilla localization community?

A: As I mentioned here I decided to start localizing software because I knew some people had trouble using it in other languages. I believe everyone deserves the right to use software in a language they understand which helps them to get the maximum value out of it. As for Mozilla in particular I believe in the mission and this is the most efficient way for me to contribute.

Q: How do you solve challenges like bugs or workflow hiccups, especially when collaborating virtually?

A: Since we are a small team for the Bulgarian localizations we are almost always in sync on how to translate the strings. We are following some basic rules, such as using a common dictionary and instructions on how to localize software in Bulgarian (shared across multiple FOSS projects), set 15+ years ago and that are still relevant. When we have a conflict, I usually count on the team managers to share their wisdom, because they have a bit more knowledge than the rest of us.

Q: Which projects or new product features were you most excited about this year, and why?

A: In the last year I contributed mainly to the Thunderbird project. The items that are most exciting to me are:

  • That finally we decided to remove the word “Junk” and replace it with “Spam”, I think this is self-explanatory 🙂
  • The new Account Hub which improves significantly the consumer’s experience and their onboarding into the beautiful world of the free email. Free as in Freedom.
  • I am also excited about all the things in the roadmap to come.

Q: What tips, tools, or habits help you succeed as a localizer?

A: If you look at my Pontoon profile, you will see that for the last 2 months I contributed every day. I find this habit very useful for me, because it keeps me focused on my goal for consistently improving the localized experience.

Another item is that I like to provide a better experience to the mobile users. I often test and fix labels in Thunderbird for Android which, even translated correctly, are too long for a mobile phone UI.

And lastly, I love to engage with the community and ask them for help when we finish a section or a product. Last year we asked the Bulgarian community to help us validate a localization available in the beta version and we got some very helpful feedback.

Something fun

Q: Could you share a few fun or unexpected facts about yourself that people might not know?

  • I ran for the European Parliament in 2009 with the intention to fight for our digital rights.
  • I was on almost every media in the world in 2012 when I bought the data of millions of users for $5! This is the Forbes article.
  • I am a heavy metal fan and you can find me in underground clubs, enjoying bands you have never heard of.
  • Apart from technology I am an artist – I produced and performed my own theater play and shot a movie in Prague.
  • I realized my dream to have an opening talk at FOSDEM. I was opening the Sunday session… but still!

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Your Workflow, Supercharged

Extensions make Thunderbird truly yours, moving at your pace and reflecting your priorities. Thunderbird’s flexibility means you can tailor the app to how you actually work. We’ll cover tools for efficiency, consistency, and visibility so every send is faster and better informed, your future self will thank you.

Clippings

We’ve all been there, retyping the same line for the hundredth time and wondering if there’s a better way. Clippings lets you save text once and reuse it anywhere you compose in Thunderbird. You can organize by folders, apply color labels, and search by name with autocomplete, so the right text is always a couple of keystrokes away.

When you paste a clipping, you can include fill‑in prompts for names, dates, or custom notes, and even keep simple HTML formatting and images when needed. It’s like a spellbook for your inbox–summon, swap, send. 

Below is a quick glance at how Clippings can help you: 

  • Save and paste reusable snippets anywhere you write—no more repeat typing.
  • Include prompts for names, dates, or custom notes; HTML and inline images.
  • Organize with folders and labels; find snippets fast with autocomplete.
  • Paste instantly with keyboard shortcuts; import, export, or sync your library.
Link to Thunderbird Add-on library.




With the content process streamlined, now for a sign‑off that keeps your tone on track.

Signature Switch

We rotate hats as we write: buttoned‑up for clients, warm for teammates, and careful punctuation for legal. Signature Switch helps you with that. Keep multiple signatures, and swap them in with a click or shortcut right from the composer. Turn a signature off entirely, pick from your saved set, or append a different one without retyping a thing.

Use plain text for simplicity, or HTML with images and links for a more professional finish. Because everything is accessible while you write, choosing the right signature doesn’t break your flow—and it helps keep branding and tone consistent across messages. One click and your signature goes from handshake to high‑five.

Below is a quick glance at how Signature Switch can help you: 

  • Switch signatures on/off or choose from your saved set, no retyping.
  • Match by recipient, account, or context; keep tone aligned.
  • Use plain text or polished HTML with images and links.
  • Access quickly from the composer toolbar or menu while you write.
Link to Thunderbird Add-on library.




With the sign‑off sorted, now let’s measure the results.

ThirdStats

Looking for a way to interpret email trends on more than just vibes alone? ThirdStats turns your mailbox into clear, local analytics that reveal how your email work actually behaves, when volume spikes, which hours are busiest, how response times trend, and which folders see the most activity. Interactive charts make patterns easy to spot at a glance. 

You can compare accounts side by side, adjust date ranges to see changes over time, and focus on a specific folder for deeper context. All processing happens on your device with read‑only access, so your data isn’t transmitted elsewhere. It’s a simple, private way to understand your workload and time your effort better. 

Below is a quick glance at how ThirdStats can help you: 

  • Visualize volume, peak hours, response times, and folder activity with interactive charts.
  • Compare accounts side by side; filter by date ranges; view by folder.
  • Keep it private: analysis runs locally with read‑only access, no external transmission.
Link to Thunderbird Add-on library.




Do you have a favorite extension? Share it with us in the comments below.

To learn more about add-ons check out Maximize Your Day: Extend Your Productivity with Add-ons.

Your workflow deserves a client that adapts to it. Add what accelerates you, trim the rest, and keep improving. When you’re ready to go further, the Thunderbird Add-ons Catalog is the fastest path to new features. Check what’s popular, discover up‑and‑coming tools, and install directly from the page with built‑in version compatibility checks. Thanks for reading.

The post Your Workflow, Supercharged appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

Mozilla Add-ons Blog — Announcing data collection consent changes for new Firefox extensions

As of November 3rd 2025, all new Firefox extensions will be required to specify if they collect or transmit personal data in their manifest.json file using the browser_specific_settings.gecko.data_collection_permissions key. This will apply to new extensions only, and not new versions of existing extensions. Extensions that do not collect or transmit any personal data are required to specify this by setting the none required data collection permission in this property.

This information will then be displayed to the user when they start to install the extension, alongside any permissions it requests.

Screenshot of example Firefox extension installation prompt showing data that the extension collects Screenshot of example Firefox extension installation prompt showing that the extension claims it collects no data

This information will also be displayed on the addons.mozilla.org page, if it is publicly listed, and in the Permissions and Data section of the Firefox about:addons page for that extension. If an extension supports versions of Firefox prior to 140 for Desktop, or 142 for Android, then the developer will need to continue to provide the user with a clear way to control the add-on’s data collection and transmission immediately after installation of the add-on.

Once any extension starts using these data_collection_permissions keys in a new version, it will need to continue using them for all subsequent versions. Extensions that do not have this property set correctly, and are required to use it, will be prevented from being submitted to addons.mozilla.org for signing with a message explaining why.

In the first half of 2026, Mozilla will require all extensions to adopt this framework. But don’t worry, we’ll give plenty of notice via the add-ons blog. We’re also developing some new features to ease this transition for both extension developers and users, which we will announce here.

The post Announcing data collection consent changes for new Firefox extensions appeared first on Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog.

Mozilla Add-ons Blog — Developer Spotlight: Fox Recap

The Fox Recap team (pictured left to right): Taimur Hasan, Mozilla community manager Matt Cool, Kate Sawtell, Diego Valdez (not pictured: Peter Mitchell).

“What if we did a Spotify Wrapped for your browser?” wondered a group of Cal State Monterey Bay computer science students. That was the initial spark of an idea that became Fox Recap — a Firefox extension that leverages machine learning to give Firefox users fascinating insights into their browsing habits, like peak usage hours, types of websites commonly visited (news, entertainment, shopping, etc.), navigation patterns, and more.

Taimur Hasan was one of four CSMB students who built Fox Recap as part of a Mozilla-supported Capstone project. We spoke with Taimur about his experience building an AI-centered extension from scratch.

What makes Fox Recap an “AI” project?

Taimur Hasan: Fox Recap uses Machine Learning behind the scenes to classify sites and generate higher level insights, like top/trending categories and transition patterns. I kept the “AI” messaging light on the listing page to avoid hype and focus on the experience. Ideally the AI features feel seamless and natural rather than front and center.

What was your most challenging development hurdle?  

TH: For me, the most challenging part of development was creating the inference pipeline, which means the part where you actually use the AI model to do something useful. It took careful optimization to run well on a typical laptop as load times were a priority.

What is your perception of young emergent developers like yourself and their regard for privacy on the web?

TH: With data collection on the rise, privacy and security matter more than ever. Among dedicated and enthusiastic young developers, privacy will always be in mind.

How do you see AI and browser extensions interrelating in the coming years? Do you have a sense of mutual direction?

TH: I expect wider use of small, task specific models that quietly improve the user experience in most browser extensions. For mutual direction in the browser and add-on space I can see the use of AI in manipulating the DOM being done pretty heavily in the future.

Any advice for other extension developers curious about AI integration?  

TH: Be clear about the use case and model choice before investing in training or fine tuning. Start simple, validate the value, then add complexity only if it clearly improves the experience.

To learn even more about Fox Recap’s development process, please see Fox Recap: A student-built tool that analyzes your browsing habits.

The post Developer Spotlight: Fox Recap appeared first on Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog.

Open Policy & Advocacy — Behind the Manifesto: Standing up for encryption to keep the internet safe

Welcome to the first blog of the series “Behind the Manifesto,” where we unpack core issues that are critical to Mozilla’s mission. The Mozilla Manifesto represents Mozilla’s commitment to advancing an open, global internet. This blog series digs deeper on our vision for the web and the people who use it, and how these goals are advanced in policymaking and technology. 

At Mozilla, we’ve long said the internet is one of the world’s most important public resources, something that only thrives when guided by core principles. One of those principles is that individual security and privacy online are fundamental.

Encryption is the technology that makes secure and private online interactions possible. It protects our messages, our data, and our privacy, sitting in the center of security and trust on the internet. Given its critical role in online privacy, it can be a focal point for policymakers.

The truth is, encryption is integral to digital trust and safety. Strong encryption keeps us safe while weak encryption puts our personal, financial, and health data at risk. 

In recent years, we’ve seen governments around the world test ways to undermine encryption to access private conversations and data, often framing it as critical to combating crime. From proposals in the EU that could allow law enforcement to read messages before they are encrypted, to the UK Government’s pushback on Apple’s rollout of iCloud end-to-end encryption, or U.S. legislation that would require platforms to provide access to encrypted data, the pressure to weaken encryption is growing globally.

Governments and law enforcement agencies face complex and legitimate challenges in protecting the public from serious crime and emerging online threats. Their work is critical to ensuring safety in an increasingly digital world. But weakening encryption is not the solution. Strong encryption is what keeps everyone safe — it protects citizens, officials, and infrastructure alike. It is the foundation that safeguards people from intrusive surveillance and shields their most sensitive data from those who would exploit it for harm. We must work together to find solutions that both uphold public safety and prevent the erosion of the privacy and security that strong encryption provides.

With encryption increasingly under threat, this year’s Global Encryption Day (October 21) is the perfect moment to reflect on why strong encryption matters for every internet user.

At Mozilla, we believe encryption isn’t a luxury or privilege. It is a necessity for protecting data against unauthorized access. Our commitment to end-to-end encryption is strong because it is essential to protecting people and ensuring the internet remains open and secure.

That’s why Mozilla has taken action for years to protect and advance encryption. In 2023, we joined the Global Encryption Coalition Steering Committee, working with partners around the world to promote encryption and push back on proposals for backdoor access.

In the U.S., we’ve advanced encryption in our 2025 U.S. policy priorities, joined amicus briefs, and raised concerns with bills like the U.S. EARN IT Act. In the EU, we ran a multi-year campaign on the eIDAS Regulation working alongside civil society, academics, and industry experts to address concerns that Article 45 threatened to undermine the encryption and authentication technologies used on the web. With such a massive risk to web security, Mozilla, with allies, took action, releasing detailed position papers and joint statements.  All of our efforts have been to safeguard encryption, privacy, and digital rights. Why? Because the bottom line is simple: backdoor policies diminish the trust that allows the web to be a safe and reliable public resource.

Mozilla’s strong commitment to protecting privacy isn’t just a policy priority; it’s the foundation of our products and initiatives. Below, we’d like to share some of the ways in which Mozilla partnered with allies to make encryption a reality and a core function of the open internet ecosystem.

  • Mozilla is among the co-founders of Let’s Encrypt, a nonprofit Certificate Authority run by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), alongside partners like the EFF and the University of Michigan. This project made HTTPS certificates free and automatically renewable, transforming HTTPS from a costly, complex setup into a default expectation across the web. As a result, the share of encrypted traffic skyrocketed from less than 40% in 2016 to around 80% by 2019.
  • Mozilla closely collaborated with Cloudflare to roll-out Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) in Firefox in 2023, which encrypts the first “Hello” message of a user’s TLS connection so that even the website name is hidden from network observers.
  • Mozilla has most recently set a new standard for certificate revocation on the web, advancing encryption and security. In April 2025, Firefox became the first (and is still the only) browser that has deployed CRLite, the technology invented by a group of researchers that ensures revoked HTTPS certificates are identified quickly and privately without leaking unencrypted browsing activity to third parties.
  • In 2024, Firefox became the first browser to support DTLS 1.3 providing the most robust end-to-end encryption of real-time audio and video data, including all your web conferencing.

It’s easy to say we care about encryption, but it only works if the commitment is shared by the policymakers writing our laws and the engineers designing our systems.

As Neha Kochar, Director of Firefox Security and Privacy puts it: “Whether you’re visiting your bank’s website or sending a family photo, Firefox works behind the scenes to keep your browsing secure. With no shareholders to answer to, we serve only you — open-source and transparent by design, with verifiable guarantees that not even Mozilla knows which websites you visit or what you do online.”

That is why Global Encryption Day is such an important moment. If a system is weakened or broken, it opens vulnerabilities that anyone with the right tools can exploit. By standing up for encryption and the policies that protect it, we help ensure the internet remains safe, open, and fair for everyone.

To dig deeper on encryption, check out these partner resources: Global Encryption Coalition, Internet Society and Global Partners Digital.

This blog is part of a larger series. Be sure to follow Jenn Taylor Hodges and Sema Karaman on LinkedIn for further insights into Mozilla’s policy priorities.

The post Behind the Manifesto: Standing up for encryption to keep the internet safe appeared first on Open Policy & Advocacy.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest: September 2025

Hello again from the Thunderbird development team! This month’s sprints have been about focus and follow-through, as we’ve tightened up our new Account Hub experience and continued the deep work on Exchange Web Services (EWS) support. While those two areas have taken centre stage, we’ve also been busy adapting to a wave of upstream platform changes that demanded careful attention to keep everything stable and our continuous integration systems happy. Alongside this, our developers have been lending extra support to the Services team to ensure a smooth path for upcoming releases. It’s been a month of steady, detail-oriented progress – the kind that doesn’t always make headlines, but lays the groundwork for the next leaps forward.

Exchange Web Services support announcement for 145

While support for Microsoft Exchange via EWS landed in Thunderbird 144, the new “Account Hub” setup interface had a few outstanding priorities which required our attention. Considering that the announcement of EWS support will likely generate a large spike in secondary account additions, we felt it important enough to delay the announcement in order to polish the setup interface and make the experience better for the users taking advantage of the new features. The team working on the “back end” took the opportunity to deliver more features that had been in our backlog and address some bugs that were reported by users who are already using EWS on Beta and Daily:

  • Offline message policy
  • Soft delete / copy to Trash
  • Empty Trash
  • Notifications with message preview
  • Reply-to multiple recipients bug
  • Mark Folder as read
  • Experimental tenant-specific configuration options (behind a preference) now being tested with early adopters

Looking ahead, the team is already focused on our work week where we’ll have chance to put plans in place to tackle some architectural refactoring and the next major milestones in our EWS implementation for Calendar and Address Book.

We were also delighted to work with a community contributor who has been hard at work on adding support for the FindItem operation. We know some of our workflows are tricky so we very much appreciate the support and patience required!

Keep track of feature delivery here. 

Account Hub

We’ve now added the ability to manually edit any configuration from the first screen. This effectively bypasses the simpler detection methods which don’t work for every configuration. Upon detection failure, a user is now able to switch between protocols and choose EWS configuration.

Other notable items being rolled into 145 are:

  • Redirect warning and handling to prevent a hang for platforms using autodiscover on a 3rd party server
  • Authentication step added for Exchange discovery requiring credentials
  • Ability to cancel the account configuration detection process
  • Improvements to the experience for users with screen reading technology

The creation of address books through the Account Hub is now the experience by default on 145 which is coming to Beta release users this week and monthly Release users before I write next.

Follow progress in the Meta Bug

Calendar UI Rebuild

With the front end team mainly focused on Account Hub, the Calendar UI project has moved slowly this past month. We’ve concentrated the continued work in the following areas:

  • Acceptance widget
  • Title and close button
  • Dialog repositioning on resize
  • Migrating calendar strings from legacy .dtd files into modern .ftl files and preserving translations to avoid repeat work for our translation community.

Maintenance, Upstream adaptations, Recent Features and Fixes

With our focused maintenance sprint over, the team kept the Fluent Migration and moz-src migration projects moving in the background. They also handled another surge of upstream changes requiring triage. In addition to these items, the development community has helped us deliver a variety of improvements over the past month:

If you would like to see new features as they land, and help us find some early bugs, you can try running daily and check the pushlog to see what has recently landed. This assistance is immensely helpful for catching problems early.

—

Toby Pilling

Senior Manager, Desktop Engineering

The post Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest: September 2025 appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — Windows 10 updates are ending. Here’s what it means for Firefox users.

Firefox logo with orange fox wrapped around purple globe.

This week Microsoft released the final free monthly update to Windows 10. While this marks the end of support from Microsoft, Firefox will continue to support Windows 10 for the foreseeable future.

If you remain on Windows 10, you will continue to get the same updates to Firefox you do today, with all of our latest feature improvements and bug fixes. This includes our commitment to resolve security vulnerabilities as rapidly as we can, sometimes in less than 24 hours, with special security updates. Windows 10 remains a primary platform for Firefox users. Unlike older versions of Windows like Windows 7 and 8, where Mozilla is only offering security updates to Firefox, Windows 10 will get the latest and greatest features and bug fixes just like users on Windows 11. 

Should you upgrade to Windows 11?

While Mozilla will continue to deliver the latest updates to Firefox on Windows 10, security online also requires continued updates from Microsoft to Windows 10 itself, and to the many other software and devices that you use on your Windows 10 computer. That’s why we recommend upgrading to Windows 11 if your computer supports it. You can find out if your PC can run Windows 11 and upgrade to it for free from your Windows update settings. With this option, when you start up Windows 11 for the first time you’ll find that Firefox is still installed, and all of your data and settings are just like you left them. 

If your computer cannot run Windows 11, or you wish to remain on Windows 10 for other reasons, your next best option is to make sure you’re getting “extended security updates” from Microsoft. While these updates won’t deliver new Windows features or non-security bug fixes, they will fix security vulnerabilities that are found in Windows 10 in the future. You should see an option to “enroll” in these updates in your Windows update settings, and if you choose the “Windows Backup” option you’ll get the updates for free. Microsoft has more information on Windows 10 extended security updates if you have other questions. 

Preparing for a device upgrade or new PC

If you get a new Windows 11 PC you might be surprised to see that even if you used Windows Backup, non-Microsoft apps like Firefox haven’t migrated with you. You will typically get a link in your start menu or on your desktop to re-install Firefox, and after it’s installed you’ll find that everything is “fresh” — without your bookmarks, saved passwords, browsing history, or any of your other data and settings. 

This can be frustrating, but we do have a solution for you if you prepare in advance and back up your data using Firefox sync through a Mozilla account. To get started with sync, just choose “sign in” from the Firefox toolbar or menu, and we’ll walk you through the quick process of creating a Mozilla account and enabling sync. 

Firefox sync helps transfer your data securely

Sync isn’t just for people who have Firefox running on more than one computer. It’s also a safe way to back up your data and protect yourself against a lost laptop, a computer that breaks down or is damaged, or your own excited forgetfulness if you get rid of your old PC the moment you get a new one. And what many Firefox users may not realize is that Firefox sync is “end-to-end encrypted,” which is a fancy way of saying that not even Mozilla can read your data. Without your password, which we don’t know, your data is an indecipherable scramble even to us. But it’s safe on our servers nonetheless, which means that if you find yourself with a new PC and a “fresh” Firefox, all you need to do is log in and all your bookmarks, passwords, history and more will quickly load in. 

Meanwhile, you can also rest assured that if you continue to use Firefox on Windows 10 over the next few years, we’ll let you know through messages in Firefox if there is new information about staying secure and whether our stance regarding our support for Windows 10 needs to change. 

Thanks for using Firefox, and know that you can always reach us at Mozilla Connect. We’re eager for your feedback and questions.

Take Firefox with you

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The post Windows 10 updates are ending. Here’s what it means for Firefox users. appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Blog — Fox Recap: A student-built tool that analyzes your browsing habits

What would your browser history say about you? Whether you were getting things done this week or just collecting tabs, a new Firefox extension helps you reflect on your digital habits. 

Designed as a personal productivity tool, Fox Recap is a capstone project from a group of college seniors at California State University, Monterey Bay. It categorizes your browsing history, shows how much time you’re spending on different sites, and turns that data into simple visual reports. Everything happens locally on your device, so your information stays private.

Related story: Developer Spotlight: Fox Recap

Gradient intro card inviting a dive into today’s browser activity overview
Browser activity stat card showing Technology as most-clicked with 37 visits

How Fox Recap works

Once you download and open the extension on Firefox for desktop, click on settings and grant permission to run the ML engine. From there, you can choose to view your browsing history for today, this week or this month. 

Fox Recap then lays out your activity in simple charts and categories like technology, shopping, education and entertainment.

“It’s really a tool for you to know how you use your browser,” said one of the student developers, Taimur Hasan. “Maybe you want to lessen the amount of time you spend on entertainment, and see that you use more education sites.”

Kate Sawtell wanted to create a tool that helps people see how they spend their time on the internet. “As a busy mom with a bunch of side projects, I love how it shows where my time online actually goes,” Kate said. “Am I researching, streaming shows or slipping into online shopping holes? It’s not super serious or judgmental, just a quick snapshot of my habits. Sometimes it makes me feel productive, other times it’s like, wow okay maybe I should chill on the shopping tab.”

Four people standing in front of a Firefox Recap project display at California State University, Monterey Bay. From left to right: Taimur Hasan, Mozilla community manager Matt Cool, Kate Sawtell, and Diego Valdez.<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Members of the Fox Recap team at California State University, Monterey Bay, presenting their capstone project. Pictured (left to right): Taimur Hasan, Mozilla community manager Matt Cool, Kate Sawtell, and Diego Valdez. Not pictured: Peter Mitchell.</figcaption>

‘Useful AI and strong privacy can coexist’

Firefox machine learning engineer Tarek Ziadé served as a mentor for the project. He was struck by how quickly Taimur, Kate, Diego and Peter internalized both the technical challenges of building AI features and their privacy implications. 

“I had assumed younger developers might treat privacy as an afterthought,” Tarek said. “I was wrong. They pushed for privacy by design from the start.”

Taimur, who trained the model himself rather than using an existing one, explained: “It’s not an off-the-shelf model that I pulled off the internet. I trained it myself using my gaming computer.”

Browser activity stat card showing Technology as most-clicked with 37 visits

Tarek believes that what the group built reflects the direction in which privacy-focused technology is headed.

“Intelligence should be local by default, data should be minimized, and anything that needs to leave the device should be explicit and consented,” Tarek said. “As AI capabilities become a commodity, the differentiator will be trust.”

That’s exactly where Mozilla should be leading, Tarek added: “making high-quality, on-device AI the default, and proving that useful AI and strong privacy can coexist.”

A glimpse of the next generation of web builders

For team member Diego Valdez, the project’s value is personal and practical: “I hope people who use Fox Recap can learn about their browsing activity in an engaging way, in hopes [of helping them] improve their productivity.”

Mozilla community manager Matt Cool sees it in a larger frame. “It’s a scary and exciting time to enter the tech industry,” Matt said. “The next generation of open web builders is already stepping up. Right here in Monterey, they’re building real-world projects, contributing to open-source, and tackling some of the toughest problems facing the future of the web.”

Fox Recap is one of several student projects showcased at this spring’s Capstone Festival by the School of Computing and Design at Cal State Monterey Bay. Professor Bude Su, who chairs the department, emphasized the value of mentorship as students prepare for what comes next.

“Mozilla’s involvement brought an added layer of motivation for our students,” Professor Su said. “The opportunity to work on a real-world project under industry mentorship has been invaluable for our students’ learning and professional growth.”

The collaboration shows what can happen when education, mentorship and Mozilla’s values of openness and trust come together. Fox Recap helps make sense of the tabs we collect, but it also points to something bigger: a new wave of developers building tools that respect the people who use them.

Take Firefox with you

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The post Fox Recap: A student-built tool that analyzes your browsing habits  appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — State of the Thunder 13: How We Make Our Roadmap

Welcome back to our thirteenth episode of State of the Thunder! Nothing unlucky about this latest installment, as Managing Director Ryan Sipes walks us through how Thunderbird creates its roadmap. Unlike other companies where roadmaps are driven solely by business needs, Thunderbird is working with our community governance and feedback from the wider user community to keep us honest even as we move forward.

Want to find out how to join future State of the Thunders? Be sure to join our Thunderbird planning mailing list for all the details.

Open Source, Open Roadmaps

In other companies, product managers tend to draft roadmaps based on business needs. Publishing that roadmap might be an afterthought, or might not happen at all. Thunderbird, however, is open source, so that’s not our process.

A quick history lesson provides some needed context. Eight years ago, Thunderbird was solely a community project driven by a community council. We didn’t have a roadmap like we do today. With the earlier loss of funding and support, the project was in triage mode. Since then, thanks to a wonderful user community who has donated their skill, time, and money, we’ve changed our roadmap process.

The Supernova release (Thunderbird 115) was where we first really focused on making a roadmap with a coherent product vision: a modernized app in performance and appearance. We developed this roadmap with input from the community, even if there was pushback to a UI change.

The 2026 Roadmap Process

At this point, the project has bylaws for the roadmap process, which unites the Thunderbird Council, MZLA staff, and user feedback. Over the past year we’ve added two new roadmaps: one for the Android app and another for ThunderbirdPro. (Note, iOS doesn’t have a roadmap yet. Our current goal is: let’s be able to receive email!) But even with these changes and additions, the Mozilla Manifesto is still at the heart of everything we do. We firmly believe that making roadmaps with community governance and feedback from the larger community keeps us honest and helps us make products that genuinely improve people’s lives.

Want to see how our 2025-2026 Roadmaps are taking shape? Check out the Desktop Roadmap, as well the mobile roadmaps for Android and iOS.

Questions

Integrating Community Contributions

In the past, community contributors have picked up “nice to have” issues and developed them alongside us. Or people want to pursue problems or challenges that affect them the most. Sometimes, either of these scenarios coincide with our roadmap, and we get features like the new drag and drop folders!

Needless to say, we love when the community helps us get the product where we hope it will go. Sometimes, we have to pause development because of shifted priorities, and we’re trying to get better at updating contributors when these shifts happen on places like the tb-planning and mobile-planning mailing lists.

And these community contributions aren’t just code! Testing is a crucial way to help make Thunderbird shine on desktop and mobile. Community suggestions on Mozilla Connect help us dream big, as we discussed in the last two episodes. Reporting bugs, either on Bugzilla for the desktop app or GitHub for the Android app, help us know when things aren’t working. We encourage our community to learn more about the Council, and don’t be afraid to get in touch with them at council@thunderbird.net.

Telemetry and the Roadmap

While we know there are passionate debates on telemetry in the open source community, we want to mention how respectful telemetry can make Thunderbird better. Our telemetry helps us see what features are important, and which ones just clutter up the UI. We don’t collect Personally Identifying Information (PII), and our code is open so you can check us on this. Unlike Outlook, who shares their data with 801 partners, we don’t. You can read all about what we use and how we use it here.

So if you have telemetry turned off, please, we ask you to turn it on, and if it’s already on, to keep it on! Especially if you’re a Linux user, enabling telemetry helps us have a better gauge of our Linux user base and how to best support you.

Roadmap Categories and Organizing

Should we try to ‘bucket’ similar items on our roadmap and spread development evenly between them, or should we concentrate on the bucket that needs it most? The answer to this question depends on who you ask! Sometimes we’re focused on a particular area of focus, like UI work in Supernova and current UX work in Calendar. Sometimes we’re working to pay down tech debt across our code. That effort in reducing tech debt can pave the way for future work, like the current efforts to modernize our database so we can have a true Conversation View and other features. Sometimes roadmaps reveal obstacles you have to overcome, and Ryan thinks we’re getting faster at this.

Where to see the roadmaps

The current desktop roadmap is here, while the current Android roadmap is on our GitHub repo. In the future, we’re hoping to update where these roadmaps live, how they look, and how you can interact with them. (Ryan is particularly partial to Obsidian’s roadmap.) We ultimately want our roadmaps to be storytelling devices, and to keep them more updated to any recent changes.

Current Calls for Involvement

Join us for the last few days of testing EWS mail support! Also, we had a fantastic time with the Ask a Fox replython, and would love if you helped us answer support questions on SUMO.

Watch the Video (also on PeerTube)

Listen to the Podcast

The post State of the Thunder 13: How We Make Our Roadmap appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — State Of The Bird 2024/25

The past twelve months have been another remarkable chapter in Thunderbird’s journey. Together, we started expanding Thunderbird beyond its strong desktop roots, introducing it to smartphones and web browsers to make it more accessible to more people. Thunderbird for Android arrived in the fall and has been steadily improving thanks to our growing mobile team, as well as feedback and contributions from our growing global family. A few months later, in December 2024, we celebrated an extraordinary milestone: 20 years of Thunderbird! We also looked toward a sustainable future with the announcement of Thunderbird Pro, with one of its first services, Appointment, already finding an audience in closed beta. 

The past year also saw a shift in how Thunderbird evolves. Although we recently released our latest annual ESR update (codenamed Eclipse), the bigger news is that our team built the new Monthly Release channel, which is now the default for most of you. This change means you’ll see more frequent updates that make Thunderbird feel fresher, more responsive, and more in tune with your personalized needs. 
Before diving into all the details, I want to pause and express our deepest gratitude to the incredible global community that makes all of this possible. To the hundreds of thousands of people who donated financially, the volunteers who contributed their time and expertise, and the beta testers who carefully helped us polish each update: thank you! Thunderbird thrives because of you. Every milestone we celebrate is a shared achievement, and a shining example of the power of community-driven, open source software development.

Team and Product Updates

Desktop and release updates

In December 2024, we celebrated Thunderbird’s 20th anniversary. Two decades of proving that email software can be both powerful and principled was not without its ups and downs, but that milestone reaffirmed something we hear so often from our community: Thunderbird continues to matter deeply to people all over the world. 

One of the biggest changes this year was the introduction of a new monthly release channel, simply called “Thunderbird Release.” Making this shift required an enormous amount of coordination and care across our desktop and release teams. Unlike the long-standing Extended Support Release (ESR), which provides a single major update every July, the new Thunderbird Release delivers monthly updates. This approach means we can bring you useful improvements and new features significantly faster, while keeping the stability and reliability you rely on.

Over the past year, our desktop team focused heavily on introducing changes that people have been asking for. Specifically, changes that make Thunderbird feel more efficient, intuitive, and modern. We improved visual consistency across system themes, gave you more ways to control the appearance of your message lists and how they’re organized, modernized notifications with native OS integration and quick actions, and moved closer to full Microsoft Exchange support. 

Many of you who switched from the ESR to the new Thunderbird Release channel started seeing these updates as early as April. For those who stuck with the ESR, the annual update, codenamed Eclipse, arrived in July. Thanks to the solid foundation established in those smaller monthly updates, Eclipse enjoyed the smoothest rollout of any annual release in Thunderbird’s history. 

In-depth details on Desktop development can be found in our monthly Developer Digest updates on our blog. 

Thunderbird Mobile

Android

It took longer than we originally anticipated, but Thunderbird has finally arrived as a true smartphone app. The launch of Thunderbird for Android in October 2024 was one of our most exciting steps forward in years. Releasing it took more than two years of active development, beta testing, and invaluable community feedback. 

​​This milestone was made possible by transforming the much-loved K-9 Mail app into something we could proudly call Thunderbird. That process included a full redesign of the interface, including bringing it up to modern design standards, and building an easy way for people to bring their existing Thunderbird desktop accounts directly into the Android app.

We’ve been encouraged by the enthusiastic response to Thunderbird on Android, but we’re also listening closely to your feedback. Our team, together with community contributors, has one very focused goal: to make Thunderbird the best Android email app available. 

iOS

We’ve also seen the overwhelming demand to build a version of Thunderbird for the iOS community. Unlike the Android app, the iOS app is being built from the ground up. 

Fortunately, Thunderbird for iOS took some major steps forward this year. We published the initial repository (a central location for open-source project files and code) for the Thunderbird mobile team and contributors to work together, and we’re laying the groundwork for public testing. 

Our goal for the first public alpha will be to support manual account setup and basic inbox viewing to meet Apple’s minimum review standards. These early pre-release versions will be distributed through TestFlight, allowing Thunderbird for iOS to benefit from your real-world feedback. 

When we started building Thunderbird for iOS, a core decision was made to use a modern foundation (JMAP) designed for mobile devices. This will allow for, among other advantages, faster mail synchronization and more efficient resource usage. The first pieces of that foundation are already in place, with the basic ability to view folders and messages. We’ve also set up internal tools that will make regular updates, language translations, and community testing possible. 

Thunderbird for iOS is still in the early stages of development, but momentum is strong, our team is growing, and we’re confidently moving toward the first community-accessible release. 

In depth details on mobile development can be found in our monthly Mobile Progress Report on our blog. 

Thundermail and Thunderbird Pro services

It’s no secret we’ve been building additional web services under the Thunderbird Pro name, and 2025 marked a pivotal moment in our vision for a complete, open-source Thunderbird ecosystem. 

This year we announced Thundermail, a dedicated email service by Thunderbird. During the past decade, we’ve seen a large move away from dedicated email clients to products like Gmail, partially because of the robust ecosystem around them. The plan for Thundermail is to eventually offer an alternative webmail solution that protects your privacy, and doesn’t use your messages to train AI or show you ads. 

Here’s what else we’ve been working on in addition to Thundermail: 

During its current beta, Thunderbird Appointment saw great improvements in managing your schedule, with many of the changes focused on reliability and visual polish.

Thunderbird Send, an app for securely sharing encrypted files, also saw forward momentum. Together, these services are steadily moving toward a wider beta launch this fall, and we’re excited to see how you’ll use them to improve your personal and professional lives. 

All of the work going into Thundermail and Thunderbird Pro services is guided by a clear goal: providing you with an ethical alternative to the closed-off “walled gardens” that dominate our digital communication. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your values and give up your personal data to enjoy convenience and powerful features. 

In depth details on Thunderbird Pro development can be found in our Thunderbird Pro updates on our blog. 

2024 Financial Picture

The generosity of our donors continues to power everything we do, and the importance of these financial contributions cannot be understated. In 2024, the Thunderbird project once again saw continued growth in donations which paved the way for Thundermail and the Thunderbird Pro services you just read about. It also gave us the opportunity to grow our mobile development team, improve our user support outreach, and expand our connections to the community. 

Here’s a detailed breakdown of our donation revenue in 2024, and why many of these statistics are so meaningful. 

Contribution Revenue

In 2024, financial contributions to Thunderbird reached $10.3 million, representing a 19% increase over the previous year. This support came courtesy of more than 539,000 transactions from more than 335,000 individual donors. A healthy 25% of these contributions were given as recurring monthly support.

What makes this so meaningful to us isn’t the total revenue, or the scale of the donations. It’s how those donations break down. The average contribution was $18.88, with a median of $16.66. Among our recurring donors, the average monthly gift was only $6.25. In fact, 53% of all donations were $20 or less, and 94% were $35 or less. Only 17 contributions were $1,000 or more. 

What does this represent when we go beyond the numbers? It means Thunderbird isn’t sustained by a handful of wealthy benefactors or corporate sponsors. Rather, it is sustained by a global community of people who believe in what we’ve built and what we’re still building, and they come together to keep it moving forward.

And that global reach continues to inspire us. We received contributions from more than 200 countries. The top ten contributing countries – Germany, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Japan, Italy, Austria, and Canada – accounted for 83% of our total revenue.

But products aren’t just numbers and code. Products are the people that work on them. To support the ambitions of our expanding roadmap, our team grew significantly in 2024. We added 14 new team members throughout the year, closing out 2024 with 43 full-time staff members. Much of this growth strengthened our mobile development, web services, and desktop + release teams. 80% of our staff focuses on technical work – things like product development and infrastructure – but we also added more roles to actively support users, improve community outreach, and smooth out internal operations. 

Expenses

When we talk about how we use financial contributions, we’re really talking about investments in our shared values. The majority of our spending goes to personnel; the talented individuals who write code, design interfaces, test features, and support our users. Infrastructure is the next largest expense, followed by administrative costs to keep operations running smoothly. 

Below is a breakdown of our 2024 expenses:

Community Snapshot

Contributor & Community Growth

For two decades, Thunderbird has survived and thrived because of its dedicated open-source community. In 2024, we continued using our Bitergia dashboard to give our community a clear view of the project’s overall activity across the board. (You can read more about how we collaborated on and use this beneficial tool here.)

This dashboard helps us track participation, identify and celebrate successes, and find areas to improve, which is especially important as we expand the Thunderbird ecosystem with new products and services. 

For this report, we’ve highlighted some of the most notable community metrics and growth milestones from 2024. 

For reference, Github and Bugzilla measure developer contributions. TopicBox measures activity across our many mailing lists. Pontoon measures the activity from volunteers who help us translate and localize Thunderbird. SUMO (the Mozilla support website) measures the impact of Thunderbird’s support volunteers who engage with our users and respond to their varied support questions.

We estimate that in 2024, the total number of people who contributed to Thunderbird – by writing code, answering support questions, providing translations, or other meaningful areas – is more than 20,000. 

It’s especially encouraging to see the number of translation locales increase from 58 to 70, as Thunderbird continues to find new users around the world. 

But there are areas of opportunity, too. For example, making it less complicated for people who want to start contributing to Thunderbird. We’ve started addressing this by recording two Community Office Hours videos, talking about how to write Knowledge Base articles, and how to effectively answer questions on the Mozilla Support website. 

Mozilla Connect is another portal that lets anyone interested in the betterment of Thunderbird suggest ideas, openly discuss them, and vote on them. In 2024, four desktop ideas as well as four of your ideas in our relatively new mobile space were implemented, and we saw more than 500 new thoughtful ideas suggested across mobile and desktop. Our staff and community are watching for your ideas, so keep them coming! 

Thank you

As we close out this year’s State of the Bird, we want to once again shine a light on the incredible global community of Thunderbird supporters. Whether you’ve contributed your valuable time, financial donations, or simply shared Thunderbird with colleagues, friends, and family, your support continues to brighten Thunderbird’s future. 

After all, products aren’t just numbers on a chart. Products are the people who create them, support them, improve them, and believe in crucial concepts like privacy, digital wellbeing, and open standards. 

We’re so very grateful to you.

The post State Of The Bird 2024/25 appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — VIDEO: Conversation View

Welcome back to another edition of the Community Office Hours! This month, we’re showing you our first steps towards a long awaited feature: a genuine Conversation View! Our guests are Alessandro Castellani, Director of Desktop and Mobile Apps and Geoff Lankow, Sr. Staff Software Engineer on the Desktop team. They recently attended a work week in Vancouver that brought together developers and designers to create our initial vision and plan to bring Conversation View from dream to reality. Before Geoff flew home, he joined Alessandro and us to discuss his backend database work that will make Conversation View possible. We also had a peek at the workweek itself, other features possible with our new database, and our tentative delivery timeline.

We’ll be back next month with an Office Hours all about Exchange Support for email, which is landing soon in our monthly Release channel.

September Office Hours: Conversation View

Some of you might be asking, “what IS Conversation View?” Basically, it’s a Gmail-like visualization of a message thread when reading emails. So, in contrast to the current threaded view, you have all the messages in a thread. This both includes your replies and any other messages that may have been moved to a different folder.

So, why hasn’t Thunderbird been able to do this already? The short answer is that our code is old. Netscape Navigator old. Our current ‘database,’ Mork, makes a mail folder summary (an .msf file) per folder. These files are text-based unicode and are NOT human readable. In Thunderbird 3, we introduced Gloda, our Global Search and Indexer, to try and work around Mork’s limitations. It indexes what’s in the .msf file and stores the data in a SQLite file. But as you might already know, Gloda itself is clunky and slow.

Modern Solutions for Modern Problems

If we want Conversation View (and other features users now expect), we need to bring Thunderbird further into the 21st century. Hence, our work on a new database, which we’re calling Panorama. It’s a single SQLite database with all your messages. Panorama indexes emails as soon as they’re received, and since it’s SQLite, it’s not only fast, but it can be read by so many tools.

Since all of your messages will be in a single SQLite database, we can do more than enable a true Conversation view. Panorama will improve global search, enable improved filters, and more. Needless to say, we’re excited about all the possibilities!

Conversation View Workweek

To get these possibilities started, we decided to bring developers and designers together for a Conversation View Workweek in Vancouver in early September. This brought people out of Zoom calls, emails, and Matrix messages, and across the Pacific Ocean in Geoff’s case, into one place to discuss technical and design challenges.

We’ve spoken previously about our design system and how we’ve collaborated between design and development on features like Account Hub. In-person collaboration, especially for something as complicated as a new database and message view, was invaluable. By the end of the week, developers and designers alike had plenty to show for their efforts.

Next Steps

Before you get too excited, the new database and Conversation view won’t land until after next year’s ESR release. There’s a lot of work to do, including testing Panorama in a standalone space until we’re ready to run Mork and Panorama alongside each other, along with the old and new code referencing each database. We need the migration to be seamless and easily reversible, and so we want to take the time to get this absolutely right.

Want to stay up to date on our progress? We recommend subscribing to our Planning and UX mailing lists, State of the Thunder videos and blog posts, and the meta bug on Bugzilla.

VIDEO (Also on Peertube):

Slides:

Conversation-View-Community-Office-Hours-PresentationDownload

Resources:

The post VIDEO: Conversation View appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

SUMO Blog — Ask a Fox: A full week celebration of community power

From September 22–28, the Mozilla Support team ran our first-ever Mozilla – Ask a Fox virtual hackathon. In collaboration with the Thunderbird team, we invited contributors, community members, and staff to jump into the Mozilla Community Forums, lend a hand to Firefox and Thunderbird users, and experience the power of Mozillians coming together.

Rallying the Community

The idea was simple: we want to bring not only our long time community members, but newcomers and Mozilla staff together for one-week of focused engagement. The result was extraordinary.

  • The event generated strong momentum for both new and returning community members. This was reflected in the significant growth in total contributors, which rose by 41.6 %.
  • For the past year, our Community Forum had been struggling to maintain a strong reply rate as inbound questions grew. During the event, however, we achieved our highest weekly reply rate of the year, which was more than 50% above our daily average from the first half of 2025.
  • Time to first response (TTFR) also improved by 44.6%, which signal significant improvement in community responsiveness. The event also highlighted the importance of time to first response (TTFR) not just for users, but for the community as a whole. We saw a clear correlation: the faster users received their first reply, the more likely they were to return and continue the conversation.

Together, we showed just how responsive and effective our community can be when we rally around a common goal.

More Than Answering Forum Questions

Ask a Fox wasn’t only about answering questions—it was about connection. Throughout the week, we hosted special AMAs with the WebCompat, Web Performance, and Thunderbird teams, giving contributors the chance to engage directly with product experts. We also ran two Community Get Together calls to gather, share stories, and celebrate the spirit of collaboration.

For some added fun, we also launched a and ⚡ emoji hunt accross our Knowledge Base articles.

Recognizing contributors

We’re grateful for the incredible participation during the event and want to recognize the contributors who went above and beyond. Those who participated in our challenges should receive exclusive SUMO badges in their profile by now. And the following top five contributors for each product will soon receive a $25 swag voucher from us to shop our limited-edition Ask a Fox swag collection, available in the NA/EU swag store.

Firefox desktop (including Enterprise)

Congrats to Paul, Denyshon, Jonz4SUSE, @next, and jscher2000.

Firefox for Android

Congrats to Paul, TyDraniu, GerardoPcp04, Mad_Maks, and sjohnn.

Firefox for iOS 

Congratulations to Paul, Simon.c.lord, TyDraniu, Mad_Maks, and Mozilla-assistent.

Thunderbird (including Thunderbird for Android)

Congratulations to Davidsk, Sfhowes, Mozilla98, MattAuSupport, and Christ1.

 

We also want to extend a warm welcome to newcomers who made impressive impact during the event: mozilla98, starretreat, sjohnn, Vexi, Mark, Mapenzi, cartdaniel437, hariiee1277, and thisisharsh7.

And finally, congratulations to Vincent, winner of the staff award for the highest number of replies during the week.

Ask a Fox was more than a campaign—it was a celebration of what makes Mozilla unique: a global community of people who care deeply about helping others and shaping a better web. Whether you answered one question or one hundred, your contribution mattered.

This event reminded us that when Mozillians come together, we can amplify our impact in powerful ways. And this is just the beginning—we’re excited to carry this momentum forward, continue improving the Community Forums, and build an even stronger, more responsive Mozilla community for everyone.

Mozilla L10N — Localizer Spotlight: Selim

About You

My name is Selim and I’m the Turkish localization manager. I’m from İstanbul, Türkiye. I’ve been contributing to Mozilla since 2010.

Your Contributions

Selim (first left) with fellow Turkish Mozillians Onur, Didem and Serkan (Mozilla Summit Brussels)

Selim (first left) with fellow Turkish Mozillians Onur, Didem and Serkan (Mozilla Summit Brussels)

Q: Over the years, do you remember how many projects you’ve been involved in (including ones that may no longer exist)?

A: It’s been so many! I began with Firefox 15 years ago, but I think I’ve been involved in around 30 projects over the years. We currently have 23 projects active in Pontoon, and I’ve been involved in every single one of them to some degree.

Q: Roughly how many Mozilla events have you joined — whether localization meetups, company-wide gatherings, MozFest, or others?

A: I’ve attended six of them. My first one was the Mozilla Balkans Meetup 2011 in Sofia. Then I had the chance to meet fellow Mozillians in Zagreb, Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and my hometown İstanbul. They were all great experiences, both enlightening and rewarding.

Q: Looking back, are there any contributions or milestones you feel especially proud of?

A: When I first began contributing, my intention was to complete a few missing translations I had noticed in Firefox. However, I quickly realized that the project was huge and there was much more to it than met the eye. Its Turkish localization was around 85% complete at that time, but the community lacked the resources to push it forward. I took it as my duty to reach 100% first, and then spellcheck and fix all existing translations. It took me a few months to get there, but Firefox has clearly had the best Turkish localization among all browsers ever since.

Your Background

Q: Does your professional background support or connect with your work in localization?

A: I currently work as a freelance editor and translator, translating and editing print magazines (mostly tech, popular science, and general knowledge titles), and localizing software and websites.

And the event that kickstarted my career in publishing and professional translation was volunteering for localization. (No, not Firefox. It didn’t even exist yet!) Back in high school, I began localizing an open-source CMS called PHP-Nuke to be used on my school’s website. PHP-Nuke became very popular in a short amount of time, and a computer magazine editor approached me to build the magazine’s website using open-source tools, including PHP-Nuke. I’ve been an avid reader of those magazines since my childhood but never imagined that one day I’d be working for Türkiye’s best-selling computer magazine!

In time, I began translating and writing articles for the magazine as a freelancer and joined the editorial staff after graduating from university.

I’ve written hundreds of software and website reviews and kept noticing that some of them were high-quality products that needed better localization. Now, with a better understanding of how things work and with some technical background, I began contributing to more and more open-source projects in my free time, and Firefox was one of them.

I was lucky that the previous Turkish contributors did a great job “localizing” Firefox, not just translating it. I learned a great deal from them, and it had a huge impact on my later professional work.

I was also approached and/or approved by several clients who had seen my volunteer localization work.

So, in a way, my professional background does support my work in localization — and vice versa.

Q: In what ways has being part of Mozilla’s localization community influenced you — whether in problem-solving, leadership, or collaborating across cultures?

A: Once I started contributing, I quickly realized that Mozilla had something none of the other projects I had contributed to previously had: a community that I felt part of. These people loved the internet, and they were having fun localizing stuff, just like me.

The localization community helped me improve myself both professionally and personally in a lot of ways: I learned how to collaborate better with a team of volunteers from different backgrounds, how to use different translation tools, how to properly report bugs, how to deal with different time zones, and how to get out of my comfort zone and talk to people from abroad both in virtual and face-to-face events.

Your Community

Q: As a long-time contributor, what motivates you to continue after all these years?

A: First and foremost, I believe in Mozilla’s mission wholeheartedly. But there’s a practical motivation too: Turkish is spoken by tens of millions of people, so the potential impact of localization is huge. Ensuring my fellow nationals have access to high-quality, localized open-source software is a driving force. And I’m still having fun doing it!

Q: Many communities struggle with onboarding or retaining contributors, especially after COVID limited in-person events. What are the challenges you face as a manager and how do you address them? And how do you engage with active contributors today? Do you have a process or approach for welcoming newcomers?

A: The Turkish community had its fair share of struggles with onboarding and retaining contributors, but it never became a huge challenge because of an advantage we had: The first iteration of the community started very early. Firefox 1.0 was already available in Turkish, and they maintained a good localization percentage for most Mozilla products, even if not 100%. So when I joined, there were things to do but not a single project that needed to be started from scratch. They were maintainable by one or two enthusiastic localizers. And when I took on the manager role, I always tried to keep it that way. I did approve a number of new projects, but not before ensuring that we had the resources to always keep them at least 90% complete.

But that creates a dilemma: New Turkish contributors usually face strings that are harder to grasp without context or are more difficult to translate, because the easier and more visible strings have already been translated. I guess that makes newcomers frustrated and they leave after translating a few strings. In fact, over the past 10 years, we’ve had only one contributor (Grk) who has translated more than 10,000 strings (apart from myself), and two contributors (Ali and Osman) with more than 1,000 strings. I’d like to thank them once again for their awesome contributions.

The Turkish community has always been very small: just a few people contributing at a time, and that has worked for us. So I’m not anxiously trying to onboard or retain contributors, but if I see an enthusiastic newcomer, I try to guide them by commenting on their translations or sending a welcome email to let them know how things work.

Something Fun
Q: Could you share a few fun or unexpected facts about yourself that people might not know?

A: Certainly:

  • I’m a metalhead, and the first thing I ever translated as a hobby was the lyrics of a Sentenced song. I’ve been translating song lyrics ever since, and I have a blog where I publish them.
  • My favorite documentary is Helvetica.
  • I built my first website when I was 13, by manually typing HTML in Windows Notepad. That’s when I discovered the internet’s endless possibilities and fell in love with it.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest: August 2025

Hello again from the Thunderbird development team! As autumn settles in, we’re balancing the steady pace of ongoing projects with some forward-looking planning for 2026. Alongside coding and testing, some of our recent attention has gone into budgets, roadmaps, and setting priorities for the year ahead. It’s not the most glamorous work, but it’s essential for keeping our momentum strong and ensuring that the big features we’re building today continue to deliver value well into the future. In the meantime, plenty of exciting progress has landed across the application, and here are some of the highlights.

Exchange support for email is here

Exchange support has officially landed in Thunderbird 144, which will roll out as our October monthly release. A big final push from the team saw a number of important features make it in before the merge:

  • Undo/Redo operations for move/copy/delete
  • Notifications
  • Basic Search
  • Folder Repair
  • Remote message content display & blocking
  • Status Bar feedback messaging
  • Account Settings screen changes
  • Autosync manager for message downloads
  • Attachment delete & detach
  • First set of advanced server settings
  • Experimental tenant-specific configuration options (behind a preference) now being tested with early adopters

The QA team is continuing to work through their test plans with support from a small beta test group, and their findings will guide the documentation and support we share more broadly with users on monthly release 144, as well as the priorities to tackle before we head into the next chapter.

Looking ahead, the team is already focused on:

  • Expanding advanced server settings for more complex environments
  • Improving search functionality
  • Folder Quotas & Subscriptions
  • Refining the user experience as more real-world feedback comes in
  • A planning session to scope work to support calendar and address book via EWS

Keep track of feature delivery here.

Conversation View Work Week

One of the biggest milestones this month was our dedicated Conversation View Work Week which recently wrapped up, where designers and engineers gathered in person to tackle one of Thunderbird’s most anticipated UX features. 

The team aligned early on goals and scope, rapidly iterated on wireframes and high-fidelity mockups, and built out initial front-end components powered by the new Panorama database. 

By the end of the week, we had working prototypes that collapsed threads into a Gmail-style conversation view, demonstrated the new LiveView architecture, and produced detailed design documentation. It was an intense but rewarding sprint that laid the foundation for a more modern and intuitive Thunderbird experience.

Account Hub

We’ve now added the ability to manually edit an EWS configuration, as well as allow for users to create an advanced EWS configuration through the manual configuration step

The ability to cancel any loading operation in account hub for email has been completed and will be added to daily shortly

  • This also had the side effect of users who click “Stop” in the account old setup with an OAuth window open now closing the OAuth window automatically
  • We will be uplifting this change to beta and then ESR

Progress is being made with adding a step for 3rd party hosting credentials confirmation, with the UI complete and the logic being worked on

  • This progress will have to take into account changes from the cancel loading patch, as there are conflicting changes
  • Once this feature is complete, it will be uplifted to beta, and then ESR

Work will soon be starting to enable the creation of address books through account hub by default.

Follow progress in the Meta Bug

Calendar UI Rebuild

After a long pause, work on the Calendar re-write has resumed! We’ve picked things back up by continuing focus on the event read dialog. A number of improvements have already landed, including proper handling of description data and several small bug fixes.

We have seven patches under review that cover key areas such as:

  • Accessibility improvements, including proper announcements of event and calendar titles.
  • Adding the footer for acceptance.
  • Updating displays and transitioning current work to use the mod-src protocol.
  • Handling resizing

Development is also underway to add attendee support, after which we’ll move on to polishing the remaining pieces of the read dialog UI.

Maintenance, Recent Features and Fixes

August was set aside as a focus for maintenance, with a good number of our team dedicated to handling upstream liabilities such as our continued l10n migration to Fluent and module loading changes. In addition to these items, we’ve had help from the development community to deliver a variety of improvements over the past month:

  • Tree restyling following upstream changes – solved
  • An 18 year old bug to enable event duplication via drag & drop – solved
  • A 15 year old bug to sort by unread in threads correctly – solved
  • Implementation of standard colours throughout the application. [meta bug]
  • Modernization of module inclusion. [meta bug]
  • and many more which are listed in release notes for beta.

If you would like to see new features as they land, and help us squash some early bugs, you can try running daily and check the pushlog to see what has recently landed. This assistance is immensely helpful for catching problems early.

—

Toby Pilling

Senior Manager, Desktop Engineering

The post Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest: August 2025 appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — State of the Thunder 12: Community, Android, and Mozilla Connect

We’re back with our twelfth episode of the State of the Thunder! In this episode, we’re talking about community initiatives, filling you in on Android development, and finishing our updates on popular Mozilla Connect requests.

Want to find out how to join future State of the Thunders? Be sure to join our Thunderbird planning mailing list for all the details.

Austin RiverHacks and Ask-A Fox

Thunderbird is a Silver sponsor for Austin RiverHacks NASA Space Apps Challenge 2025! If you’re in or around Austin, Texas from October 4th-5th, and want to join an in-person event where curious minds delve into NASA data to tackle real-life problems, we’d love to see you.

This week (as in right now! Check it out and get involved!), we’re joining forces with Firefox for the Ask-A-Fox event on Mozilla Support! Earn swag, join an incredible community, and help fellow Thunderbird users on desktop and Android! Want a great overview of how to contribute to SUMO? Watch our Community Office Hours with advice on getting started.

Android Plans for Q4 2025

It’s hard to believe we’re almost into the last three months of the year! We’ve just released our joint July/August Mobile Progress report. We also want to give you all an update on our overall progress on the roadmap we created at the beginning of the year.

The new Account Drawer, currently in Beta, isn’t finished yet. We’re still working on real, proper unified folders! We’ll have mockups of the account drawer progress before the end of the month and more info in the next beta’s release notes. We’ll also have updates soon on message list status notifications (similar to the desktop). In the single message view, we have improvements coming! This includes making attachments quicker to see and open.

The battle for proper IMAP fetch continues. Different server setups complicate this struggle, but we want to get this right, nonetheless. This will bring the Android app more on par with other emails apps.

Unfortunately, work on things like message sync, notifications, and Android 15 might delay features like HTML signatures.

Mozilla Connect Updates, Continued

We’re tackling more of the most frequently requested changes and features on Mozilla Connect, and we’re answering questions about native operating system integration, conversation view, and Thunderbird Pro related features!

Native Operating System Integration

When your operating system is capable of something Thunderbird isn’t, we share your frustration. We want things like OS-native progress bars that show you how downloads are going. We’ve started work on OS-native notification actions, like deleting messages. We love how helpful and time-saving this is, and want to expand it to things like calendar reminders.

There’s possibility and limitation in this, thanks to both Firefox and the OS itself. Firefox enables us more than it restricts us. For example, our work on the progress bar comes straight from Firefox code. Though there are some limits, and Thunderbird’s different needs as a mail client sometimes mean we need to improve an aspect of Firefox to enable further development. But the beauty of open source means we can contribute our improvements upstream! The OS often constrains us more. For example, we’d love snoozeable native OS calendar notifications, but they just aren’t possible yet.

Conversation View

We just finished an entire in-person work week focused on this in Vancouver! Conversation view, if you’re not familiar with it, includes ALL messages in a conversation, including your replies and messages moved to different folders. This feature, along with others, depends on having a single database for all messages in Thunderbird. Our current database doesn’t do this; instead, each folder is its own database.

The new SQLite database, which we’re calling Panorama, will enable a true Conversation View. During the work week, we thought about (and visualized) what the UI will look like. Having developers and designers in the same room was incredibly helpful for a complicated change. (Having a gassy Boston Terrier in said room, less so.) The existing code expects the current database, so we’ll have to rebuild a lot and carefully consider our decisions. The switch to the new database will probably occur next year after the Extended Support Release, behind a preference.

This change will help Thunderbird behave like a modern email client! Moving to Panorama will not only move us into the future, but into the present.

Thunderbird Pro Related-Requests

Three Mozilla Connect requests (Expanding Firefox Relay, a paid Mozilla email domain, and a Thunderbird webmail) were all out of our control once. But now, with the upcoming Thunderbird Pro offerings, these all will be possible! We’re even experimenting with a webmail experience for Thundermail, in addition to using Thunderbird (or even another email client if you want.) We’ll have an upcoming State of the Thunder dedicated to Thunderbird Pro with more info and updates!

Watch the Video (also on PeerTube)

Listen to the Podcast

The post State of the Thunder 12: Community, Android, and Mozilla Connect appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

SeaMonkey — SeaMonkey 2.53.22 Beta is out!

Hi All,

The SeaMonkey Project is pleased to announce the immediate release of SeaMonkey 2.53.22 Beta 1.

Please checkout [1] and/or [2].

Please also note, just to be explicit,  SeaMonkey 2.53.22 Beta 1 dropped support for the x86 binaries (Linux i686 and Win32).  So 2.53.21 is the last SeaMonkey version to support Linux i686 and Win32.    I actually use both Linux i686 and Win32 binaries, so I’m kinda sad to see them go.  Anyone remember the OSX x86 binaries (I think it was called Universal binary).  ?    C’est la vie, I guess.   In one way, this lessens the burden of the devs.

Now it’s all x86_64, baby!   x86 binaries have died.  Long live x86 binaries!

:ewong

[1] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.22

[2] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/2.53.22b1

Mozilla Add-ons Blog — Now you can roll back to a previous version of your extension

Firefox logoIn response to feedback we’ve heard from the community, AMO (addons.mozilla.org) just introduced a new feature allowing developers the ability to quickly roll back to a previously approved extension version. The most common need for roll-back ability are occasions when developers may release a new version they later discover has critical bugs. Now in such cases, instead of needing to make fast fixes and quickly submit an even newer version, which could be further delayed during a review process, developers are free to revert back to a previously approved version.

For users who may have already installed the buggy version that’s later pulled, the extension will update to the roll-back version when Firefox checks for the next update (which occurs every 24 hours by default, save for users who’ve turned off automatic updates from the Add-ons Manager).

To learn more about the new roll-back feature, please visit Extension Workshop.

The post Now you can roll back to a previous version of your extension appeared first on Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Mobile Progress Report – July/August 2025

Hello wonderful community, it has been a while since the last Mobile update.

A lot has happened in the past 2 months, so let’s jump right into a quick overview of current work in progress and primary efforts.

Account Drawer in progress

If you’re rocking the Beta version of Thunderbird for Android, you might have noticed that all your unified folders have disappeared! Don’t panic, that’s just temporary.

We’re still churning through the technical debt and the database inconsistencies in order to create through virtual unified folders for all your accounts.

The final goal is the same as the one we shared in a previous update, which you can see the final mock-ups here:

Expect more updates in the coming releases.

iOS account setup

The work on the iOS version is moving at full speed!

We found ourselves in a bit of a tight spot due to the recent announcements of Apple with their new iOS 26 version, and a somewhat complete redesign of all the SwiftUI and general Human Interface Guidelines.

When will iOS 26 be widely available and adopted?

Will we have our iOS version of Thunderbird ready before that?

If we build it on current iOS 18 design guidelines, how would that look on the new version?

Will we need to update everything right after releasing the first version?

Due to these uncertainties, we decided to focus only on the new iOS 26 user interface and be compatible with the new version right off the bat.

We will need to test and explore carefully how that behaves on iOS 18 and prior, hoping for some available translation layers in order to guarantee compatibility.

For now, here’s a sneak peek of the Account Setup flow for iOS!

Read/Unread status improvements in Android

As we move through an old codebase and we work hard to modernize components and layouts, it is unfortunately inevitable that we accidentally break old features or setups that are familiar to users.

We apologize for the inconvenience, especially in this latest highlighted issue which created some discomfort when it comes to the visual distinction between read and unread messages.

The old UI offered an option to customize the background color of those states. Even if this solution sounds like a good approach, it created multiple problems related to following system themes, light/dark mode variations, and the overall outdated implementation that needed to be removed.

Some users were dissatisfied, and rightly so, due to the less than optimal visual distinction between those states that solely relied on background colors.

We already improved the overall visual consistency and distinction in that area, but we’re working towards implementing a much clearer visual representation for each state that doesn’t just rely on background colors.

We’re implementing a combination of background and foreground colors, font weight variation, and a visual indicator that specifically represents unread and new messages.

This approach will remove any confusion and hopefully completely fix this problem.

Thank you all those involved for your feedback and concerns, and for using the Beta version to provide early feedback and test the new updates.

A new release cadence

Starting from September, we’re switching to a faster and more consistent release cadence.

The first week of every month we will release a new beta version, for example v13b1, followed by a new incremental beta version with improvements and fixes directly from the main branch, being released every week during that month (eg: v13b2, v13b3, etc).

At the end of that month, the current beta, after being deemed reliable and having passed our QA steps, will be promoted as a stable version and at the same time a new beta branch will be released.

In summary, starting from September you can expect a new stable version and a new beta cycle every month.

Changing our cadence will allow us to expose new and work in progress features more quickly to our beta audience, and shorten the waiting time for users on the stable branch, with smaller and consistent incremental improvements.

Cheers,

—

Alessandro Castellani(he, him)
Director, Desktop and Mobile Apps | Mozilla Thunderbird

The post Mobile Progress Report – July/August 2025 appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — State of the Thunder: Mozilla Connect Updates

Welcome back to the latest season of State of the Thunder! After a short break, we’re back and ready to go. Michael Ellis, our Manager of Community Programs, is helping Alessandro with hosting duties. Along with members of the Thunderbird team and community, they’re answering your questions and keeping everyone updated on our roadmap progress for our projects.

In this episode, we’re talking about our initiatives for regular community feedback, tackling a variety of questions, and providing status updates on the top 20-ish Mozilla Connect Thunderbird suggestions.

Community Questions

Accidental Message Order Sorting

Question: Clearly the number one issue with Thunderbird that breaks for many of my clients is that if they accidentally click on a column header the sorting of the message is changed. “My messages are gone” is what I then hear all the time from my clients. It would be wonderful if the sorting of the message could be locked and not changed through such an easy operation, which often is invoked accidentally.

Answer: This is a great usability question and a complicated one. Alessandro recommends switching to CardsView, as it’s harder to accidentally change. This one one of the reasons we implemented it! However, we can definitely explore options to lock the message order in through enterprise policies. We would want to be mindful of users who wanted to change the order.

Michael discusses the option of a pop-up warning that could inform the user they’re about the change the message sorting order. Increased friction through a pop-up, though, as Alessandro and Jesse Miksic from the design team both point out, can cause its own issues. But this is certainly something we’ll look into more!

Move Focus Keyboard Shortcut

Question: Could there be consideration to add a keystroke to immediately move the focus to the list of messages in the currently open mailbox? Even better if keystrokes that would automatically do this for the inbox folder or the default account.

Answer: Alessandro notes Thunderbird already has this ability, but it’s not super noticeable. The F6 key allows you to switch focuses between the main areas of the application. So we’re approaching this problem from two directions: implementing tabular keyboard navigation and customizable shortcuts. We don’t have an expected delivery date on the latter, but we plan to have a searchable keyboard shortcut hub. We know our interface can be a little daunting, and we’re tackling it from multiple angles.

Option for Simplified Thunderbird?

Question: I work for a company which develops a Raspberry Pi-based computer made specific… specifically for blind consumers. Thunderbird is installed on this device by default. Many of our users are not tech-savvy. and just want a simple email client. I would love to have an easy method for removing some of the clutters with the goal of having a UI with fewer controls. Currently, users often have to press the tab key many times just to move to the list of messages in their inbox. For some users, all they really want is the message list and the list of folders, with the menu bar open, and that’s it. A bit like we once had with Outlook Express.

Answer: Alessandro and Ryan Sipes, our director, have talked about the need for a lighter version of Thunderbird a lot. This would help users who don’t need all the power of Thunderbird, and just want to focus on their messages (not even their folders). However, Ryan doesn’t want a separate version of Thunderbird we’d need to maintain, but to build a better usability curve into Thunderbird. Answering this question means having a Thunderbird that is simple by default, but more powerful and customizable if needed, without upsetting our current users.

Heather Ellsworth from the community team also supports the idea of a user preference for a lighter Thunderbird. At conferences and co-working spaces, she constantly hears the requests for a slightly simpler version of Thunderbird.

Thunderbird PPA

Question: I’m using Linux, one of the Ubuntu-derived flavors. And I have Thunderbird 128.14 ESR installed through the Mozilla Team PPA. I would love to know when the ESR version of 140 will be available in this PPA.

Answer: Heather, who works a lot with Linux packaging, takes this question. This PPA isn’t an official distribution channel for Thunderbird, which leads to some confusion. Our official Linux packages are the Snap and flatpak, and the tarball available on our website. A community member named Rico, whose handle is ricotz, maintains this PPA. In the PPA, you can click on his name to learn how to contact him for question like this.

Top 20-ish Mozilla Connect Posts

If you’ve ever posted an idea to make Thunderbird better in a blog comment, social media post, or a SUMO (Mozilla Support) thread, you’ve probably been prompted to share your suggestion on Mozilla Connect. This helps us keep our community feedback in one place, which helps our team prioritize features the community wants!

Where we’re falling short, however, is keeping the community updated on the progress of their suggestions. With a dedicated community team, this is something we can do better! Right now, we’d like to provide a quick status update on the top 20-ish Mozilla Connect posts related to Thunderbird.

Sync

We implemented this in the Daily build of the desktop app last year, using a staging environment for Firefox Sync. But Firefox Sync is called Firefox Sync because it’s built for Firefox. Thunderbird profiles, in comparison, have a lot more data points. This meant we had to build something completely different.

As we started to spin up Thunderbird Pro, we decided it made more sense to have a Thunderbird account that would manage everything, including Sync. Unfortunately, this meant a lot of delays. So Sync is still on our radar, and we hope to have it next year, barring further complications.

GNOME Desktop Integration

Yes, we’re working on this, starting with native desktop notifications. Ideally, we want to be integrated with more Linux desktop environments through expanded native APIs.

Color for Thunderbird Accounts

We already have it! You can access your account settings and customize the colors of each account.

Show full email address on mouse-over

Already have this too. If this doesn’t happen, it’s a bug, and we’d definitely appreciate a report at Bugzilla.

Don’t save passwords as plain text, but rather integrate with the OS storage system

We’re exploring this as both part of our increased native OS integrations and strengthening and security integrations with Thunderbird.

Thunderbird should, by default, have all telemetry as an opt-in option, or have zero telemetry

We’re already adopting opt-in telemetry for an upcoming release of Thunderbird for Android, and we want to make this the default for desktop in the future. While desktop is currently opt-out, Alessandro stresses we only have a few limited telemetry probes for desktop Thunderbird. And those probes can show how the majority of users are using the app and help us avoid bad UX choices.

Thunderbird for iPhone and iPad

In progress!

JMAP Support

Currently in the works for the upcoming iOS release, with plans for support on desktop and Android. Thundermail will also come with JMAP.

Firefox Translate

Exploring this is low on our list right now. This is both because of performance concerns and we want to be very cautious with anything concerning machine learning, which includes translation.

Watch the Video (Also on Peertube)

Listen on the Thundercast!

Our Next State of the Thunder


Anxious to know the rest of the top 20 Mozilla Connect posts? Join us on Tuesday, September 16 at 3 PM Pacific (22:00 UTC)! Find out how to join on the TB Planning mailing list. We think this will be a great season and who knows, by the end of it, we may even have a jingle. See you next time!


The post State of the Thunder: Mozilla Connect Updates appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

Open Policy & Advocacy — Mozilla Meetup: “The Future of Competition: How to Save the Open Web”

The promise of an open and competitive internet hangs in the balance. From the future of AI agents to the underappreciated role of browsers and browser engines, the technological landscape continues to evolve. Getting the regulatory and enforcement backdrop right is critical: from competition bills in Congress to the EU’s DMA, the stakes for innovation, privacy and consumer choice have never been higher.




The post Mozilla Meetup: “The Future of Competition: How to Save the Open Web” appeared first on Open Policy & Advocacy.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — VIDEO: Thunderbird Accessibility Study

Welcome back to another edition of the Community Office Hours! This month, we’re taking a closer look at accessibility in the Thunderbird desktop and mobile apps. We’re chatting with Rebecca Taylor and Solange Valverde, members of our designer, about a recent accessibility (often shortened as a11y) study. We wanted to find out where Thunderbird was doing well, and where we could improve. Rebecca and Solange walk us through the study and answer our questions!

We’ll be back next month with the latest Community Office Hours! If you have a suggestion for a topic or team you’d love us to cover, please let us know in the comments!

August Office Hours: Thunderbird Accessibility Study

The Thunderbird Team wants to make desktop and mobile apps that maximizes everyone’s productivity and freedom. This means making Thunderbird accessible for all of our users, and the first step is finding where we can do better. Thanks to our relationship with Mozilla, our design team commissioned a study with Fable, who connects companies building inclusive products to experienced testers with disabilities. We asked participants to evaluate the Thunderbird desktop app using assistive tech, including screen readers, alternative navigation, and magnification. And we also asked a user on the cognitive spectrum to evaluate how our language, layouts, and reminders helped or hindered their use of the app.

Members of the design team then conducted 60 minute moderated interviews with study participants. In these talks, participants pointed out where they struggled with accessibility roadblocks, and what strategies they used to try and work through them.

Screen Reader Users

Screen readers convert on-screen text to either speech or Braille, and help blind or low-vision users navigate and access digital content. Our study participants, many of whom switch between multiple screen readers, let us know where Thunderbird falls short.

Some issues were common to all screen readers. Keyboard shortcuts didn’t follow common norms, and workflows in search and filter results made for a confusing experience. Thunderbird could benefit from a table view with ARIA, a W3C specification created to improve accessibility.

Other issues were specific to the individual screen reader programs. In Narrator, for example, expected confirmation for actions like moving messages was missing, and the screen reader didn’t recognize menu stage changes in submenus. In JAWS, meanwhile, message bodies were unreadable in email and compose windows with Braille display, and filter menus opened silently, not announcing the content or state to the user. Finally, with NVDA, users noted confusing structures and organization that lacked the structure and context they expected, as well as poor content prioritization.

Cognitive Usability

In a previous office hours, we talked about how we wanted to make Thunderbird more cognitively accessible with our work on the Message Context Menu. Cognition relates to how we think, learn, understand, remember, and pay attention, and clear language, regular layouts, and meaningful reminders all improve cognitive accessibility. Our cognitive accessibility tester expressed concerns about a lack of a quick, non-technical setup, imbalances in our whitespace, and unpredictable layout controls, among other issues.

Alternative Navigation and Magnification

Our alternative navigation users tested how well they could use Thunderbird with voice controls and eye tracking software. Our voice control testers found room for improvement with menu action labels, better autofocus shift when scrolling through emails, and a larger font size for more comfortable voice-driven use. Likewise, our eye tracking software tester found issues with font sizes. They also noted concerns with composition workflow and focus, too-small controls, and a drag-and-drop bug.

Our magnification tester found where we could improve visual contrast and pane layouts. They also found off-screen elements could steal focus from new messages, and that folder paths and hierarchies could use more clarification.

Conclusions and Next Steps

We’re incredibly grateful for the insights we learned from this study on the many aspects of accessibility we want to improve in all of our apps. We want to thank Mozilla for their helping us take the next step in accessibility research, and Fable for providing a fantastic platform for accessibility testing. We’re also so grateful to our study participants for all their time and sharing their perspectives, concerns, and insights.

This is far from the end of our accessibility journey. We’re looking forward to working what we learned in this study into deeper research and ultimately our desktop roadmap. We can’t wait to start accessibility research on our mobile apps. And we hope this study can help other open source projects start their own accessibility research to improve their projects.

One way you can get involved is to report accessibility bugs on the desktop app. Go to the Thunderbird section on Bugzilla, and under ‘Component’ select ‘Disability Access.’ Additionally, click ‘Show Advanced Fields’ and enter ‘access’ into the ‘Details > Keywords’ section. Add screenshots when possible. Be sure to describe the bug so others can try and reproduce the it for better troubleshooting.

If you want to learn more about our accessibility efforts, please join our User Experience mailing list! If you think you’re ready to get involved, please join our dedicated Matrix channel. We hope you help us make Thunderbird available, and accessible, everywhere!

VIDEO (Also on Peertube):

Slides:

ThunderbirdCommunityHoursAccessibilityReport-compressedDownload

Resources:

  • Bugzilla Disability Access bugs and enhancement requests: https://mzl.la/41jrnuv
  • Fable: https://makeitfable.com/
  • Thunderbird A11y Matrix channel: https://matrix.to/#/%23tb-a11y:mozilla.org
  • Thunderbird User Experience Mailing List: https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/ux
  • Thunderbird suggested tools and resources for Accessibility: https://bolt.thunderbird.net/8b179dbfd/p/33ddcb-accessibility
  • Config 2024: Pitching accessible design like a pro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoHIDWF0d6I

The post VIDEO: Thunderbird Accessibility Study appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Thunderbird Monthly Release 142 Recap

We’re back with another exciting Monthly Release recap! Thunderbird 142.0 brings a host of user-requested features and important bug fixes that make your email experience smoother and more reliable. From better folder management to smarter PDF handling, this release focuses on the details that matter most to your daily workflow.

A quick reminder – these updates are for users on our monthly Thunderbird Release channel. For our users still on the ESR (Extended Standard Release) channel, these updates won’t land until next July 2026. For more information on the differences between the channels and how to make the switch:

Now let’s dive into what’s new in 142.0!

New Features:

Reset Manual Folder Sorting

Bug 1972710

Ever tweaked your folder order and wished you could start fresh? We hear you! Thunderbird 142 introduces a simple way to reset your folder sorting back to defaults. 

Benefits:

  • The new Reset Folder Order option lets users right‑click an account in the Folder Pane to instantly clear any custom sorting. 
  • Provides a quick clean slate and avoids manually dragging folders back to default positions.

Note: This feature resets sorting order but doesn’t restore folders that were moved inside different parent folders.

PDF Signatures and Attachment Handling

Bug 1970796

Thunderbird now lets you add visual signatures to PDF attachments opened inside the app. This update brings Thunderbird in line with modern PDF functionality, making it easier to handle contracts, forms, and other documents without leaving your inbox.

Benefits:

  • Add a handwritten-style visual signature directly in Thunderbird.
  • No need for external tools to sign simple PDF documents.
  • Keeps everyday document handling faster and more convenient.

Custom OAuth Support for Add-on developers

Bug 1967370

New add-on API support for OAuth client registration now allows developers and organizations to add custom OAuth providers at runtime. Instead of requiring changes in Thunderbird’s core code, an add-on can handle the setup. 

Benefits:

  • Supports custom OAuth providers through add-ons.
  • Works with enterprise policies for organizational deployments.
  • Simplifies integration with unique authentication systems.

Bug Fixes

Respect for “Do Not Disturb”

Bug 1876310

Your focus time is sacred, and Thunderbird now honors that across all operating systems.

Benefits:

  • Native OS notifications now respect the “Do Not Disturb” setting of every operating system, including blocking calendar reminders and chat notification sounds.
  • Delivers protected focus time and consistent behavior with other applications.

Improved Dark Reader Mode Toggle

Bug 1962931

Reading flow is now smoother when switching between light and dark message modes.  An issue was reported where toggling the setting in the message header would reset your scroll position and pull focus away from the message body. 

Benefits:

  • Keep your scroll position in the message when switching between light and dark mode so you can continue reading without interruption.
  • Retain focus on the message body for easier keyboard navigation.
  • Reduce extra clicks and scrolling, making reading more seamless.

Message List Scrolling Fix

Bug 1968967

Unwanted scrolling of the message list that happened when returning to the Mail tab after opening a message is now a thing of the past. Instead of jumping to the top and slowly scrolling back down, the list now stays put.

Benefits:

  • Keep your place in the message list when switching tabs.

PDF Attachments Reload Correctly on Startup

Bug 1970615

Thunderbird now correctly reloads PDF attachments that were left open in tabs when you restart the app. Previously, these tabs would fail to open and display an error, forcing you to reload them manually.

Benefits:

  • Open PDF attachments are restored automatically on startup.
  • No more error messages when resuming work.

The post Thunderbird Monthly Release 142 Recap appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Thunderbird Pro August 2025 Update

In April of this year we announced Thunderbird Pro, additional subscription services from Thunderbird meant to help you get more done with the app you already use and love. These services include a first ever email service from Thunderbird, called Thundermail. They also include Appointment, for scheduling meetings and appointments and Send, an end-to-end encrypted filesharing tool. Each of these services are open source, repositories are linked down below.

Thunderbird Pro services are being built as part of the broader Thunderbird product ecosystem. These services are enhancements to the current Thunderbird application experience. They are optional, designed to enhance productivity for users who need features like scheduling, file sharing and email hosting, without relying on the alternate platforms. For users who opt in, the goal is for these services to be smoothly integrated into the Thunderbird app, providing a natural extension of the familiar experience they already enjoy, enhanced with additional capabilities they may be looking for. For updates on Thunderbird Pro development and beta access availability, sign up for the mailing list at thundermail.com. 

Progress So Far

Thundermail

Development has been moving steadily forward and community interest in Thundermail has been strong. The upcoming email hosting service from Thunderbird will support IMAP, SMTP and JMAP out of the box, making it compatible with the Thunderbird app and many other email clients. If you have your own domain, you’ll be able to bring it in and host it with us. Alternatively, grab an email address provided by Thunderbird with your choice of @thundermail.com or @tb.pro as the domains.  The servers hosting Thundermail will initially be located in Germany with more countries to follow in the future. Thunderbird’s investment in offering an email service reflects our broader goal of strengthening support for open standards and giving users the option to keep their entire email experience within Thunderbird. 

Thunderbird Appointment (Repo)

We originally developed the scheduling tool as a standalone web app. On the current roadmap, however, we’re tightly integrating Appointment into the Thunderbird app through the compose window, allowing users to insert scheduling links without leaving the email workflow. It will be easy for organizations and individuals to self-host, fork and adapt the tool to their own needs. The future is for Appointment to support multiple meeting types, like Zoom calls, phone meetings, or in-person coffee chats. Each of these will have its own settings and scheduling rules.

One of the most requested future features is group scheduling, which would allow multiple team members to offer shared availability via a single link. The current calendar protocols don’t fully support this flow, however Thunderbird is participating in discussions around open standards like VPOLL to help move things forward. Usability studies are helping refine the MVP and community feedback is shaping the roadmap.

Thunderbird Send (Repo)

A secure, end-to-end encrypted file sharing tool, built on Thunderbird app’s existing Filelink feature. It supports large file transfers directly from the email client. This allows users to bypass platforms like Google Drive or OneDrive. Pro users will receive 500 GB of storage to start, with no individual file size limit, only constrained by their total quota. We’re planning support for chunked uploads and encryption to ensure reliability and data protection. We’ll deliver Send as a system add-on which lets the team push updates faster. This also avoids locking new capabilities behind major Thunderbird release cycles.

All Thunderbird Pro tools are open source and self-hostable. For users who prefer to run their own infrastructure or work in regulated environments, both Send and Appointment can be deployed independently. Thunderbird will continue to support these users with documentation and open APIs.

A Look Ahead

Thunderbird is exploring additional Pro features beyond the current lineup. While we’ve made no commitments yet, there is strong interest in adding markdown based Notes functionality, especially as lightweight personal knowledge management becomes more popular. Heavier lifts like collaborative docs or spreadsheets may follow, depending on adoption and sustainability.

Another worthy mention: a fourth, previously announced service called Assist, which will eventually enable users to take advantage of AI features in their day-to-day email tasks, is still in the research and development phase. It will not be part of the initial lineup of services. This initiative is a bigger undertaking as we ensure we get it right for user privacy and make sure the features included are actually things our users want. More to come on this as the project progresses.

To improve transparency and invite community collaboration, Thunderbird is also preparing a public roadmap covering desktop, mobile and Pro services. We’re developing the roadmap in collaboration with the Thunderbird Council. Our goal is to encourage participation from contributors and users alike.

Free vs Paid

Adding these additional subscription services will never compromise the features, stability or functionality our users are accustomed to in the free Thunderbird desktop and mobile applications. These services come with real costs, especially storage and bandwidth. Charging for them helps ensure that users who benefit from these tools help cover their cost, instead of donors footing the bill. 

Thunderbird Pro is a completely optional suite of (open source) services designed to provide additional productivity capabilities to the Thunderbird app and never to replace them. The current Thunderbird desktop and mobile applications are, and always will be, free. They will still heavily rely on ongoing donations for both development and independence.

If you haven’t already, join our waiting list to be one of the early beta testers for Thunderbird Pro. While we don’t have a specific timeline just yet, we will be sharing ongoing updates as development progresses.

—

Ryan Sipes
Managing Director, Product
Mozilla Thunderbird

The post Thunderbird Pro August 2025 Update appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

hacks.mozilla.org — CRLite: Fast, private, and comprehensive certificate revocation checking in Firefox

Firefox is now the first and the only browser to deploy fast and comprehensive certificate revocation checking that does not reveal your browsing activity to anyone (not even to Mozilla).

Tens of millions of TLS server certificates are issued each day to secure communications between browsers and websites. These certificates are the cornerstones of ubiquitous encryption and a key part of our vision for the web. While a certificate can be valid for up to 398 days, it can also be revoked at any point in its lifetime. A revoked certificate poses a serious security risk and should not be trusted to authenticate a server.

Identifying a revoked certificate is difficult because information needs to flow from the certificate’s issuer out to each browser. There are basically two ways to handle this. The browser either needs to ask an authority in real time about each certificate that it encounters, or it needs to maintain a frequently-updated list of revoked certificates. Firefox’s new mechanism, CRLite, has made the latter strategy feasible for the first time.

With CRLite, Firefox periodically downloads a compact encoding of the set of all revoked certificates that appear in Certificate Transparency logs. Firefox stores this encoding locally, updates it every 12 hours, and queries it privately every time a new TLS connection is created.

You may have heard that revocation is broken or that revocation doesn’t work. For a long time, the web was stuck with bad tradeoffs between security, privacy, and reliability in this space. That’s no longer the case. We enabled CRLite for all Firefox desktop (Windows, Linux, MacOS) users starting in Firefox 137, and we have seen that it makes revocation checking functional, reliable, and performant. We are hopeful that we can replicate our success in other, more constrained, environments as well.

Better privacy and performance

Prior to version 137, Firefox used the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) to ask authorities about revocation statuses in real time. Certificate authorities are no longer required to support OCSP, and some major certificate authorities have already announced their intention to wind down their OCSP services. There are several reasons for this, but the foremost is that OCSP is a privacy leak. When a user asks an OCSP server about a certificate, they reveal to the server that they intend to visit a certain domain. Since OCSP requests are typically made over unencrypted HTTP, this information is also leaked to all on-path observers.

Having gained confidence in the robustness, accuracy and performance of our CRLite implementation, we will be disabling OCSP for domain validated certificates in Firefox 142. Sealing the OCSP privacy leak complements our ongoing efforts to encrypt everything on the internet by rolling out HTTPS-First, DNS over HTTPS, and Encrypted Client Hello.

Disabling OCSP also has performance benefits: we have found that OCSP requests block the TLS handshake for 100 ms at the median. As we rolled out CRLite, we saw notable improvements in TLS handshake times.

A graph showing "Median TLS Handshake Time (ms)" and "Revocation mechanism usage" over time. As the percentage of revocation checks performed with CRLite increases from 0% to 80%, the median TLS handshake time decreases from 56.4 ms to 39.9 ms.

Bandwidth requirements of CRLite

Users with CRLite download an average of 300 kB of revocation data per day: a 4 MB snapshot every 45 days and a sequence of “delta updates” in-between. (The exact sizes of snapshots and delta updates fluctuate day by day. You can explore the real data on our dashboard.)

To get a sense for how compact CRLite artifacts are, let’s compare them with Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs). A CRL is a list of serial numbers that each identify a revoked certificate from a single issuer. Certificate authorities in Mozilla’s root store have disclosed approximately three thousand active CRLs to the Common CA Database. In total, these three thousand CRLs are 300 MB in size, and the only way to keep a copy of them up-to-date is to redownload them regularly. CRLite encodes the same dynamic set of revoked certificates in 300 kB per day. In other words, CRLite is one thousand times more bandwidth-efficient than daily CRL downloads.

Of course, no browser is performing daily downloads of all CRLs. For a more meaningful comparison, we can consider Chrome’s CRLSets. These are hand-picked sets of revocations that are delivered to Chrome users daily. Recent CRLSets weigh in at 600 kB and include about 1% of all revocations (thirty-five thousand of the four million total). Firefox’s CRLite implementation uses half the bandwidth, updates twice as frequently, and includes all revocations.

Including all revocations is essential for security as there is no reliable way today to distinguish security-critical revocations from administrative revocations. Roughly half of all revocations are made without a specified reason code, and some of these revocations are likely due to security concerns that the certificate’s owner did not wish to highlight. When reason codes are used, they are often used in an ambiguous way that does not clearly map to security risk. In this environment, the only secure approach is to check all revocations, which is now possible with CRLite.

State-of-the-art blocklist technology

You may recall a series of blog posts on our experiments with CRLite back in 2020. We followed these experiments with successful deployments to Nightly, Beta, and 1% of Release users. But the bandwidth requirements for this early CRLite design turned out to be prohibitive.

We solved our bandwidth issue by developing a novel data structure—the “Clubcard” set membership test. Where the original CRLite design used a “multi-level cascades of Bloom filters”, Clubcard-based CRLite uses a “partitioned two-level cascade of Ribbon filters”. The “two-level cascade” idea was presented by Mike Hamburg at RWC 2022, and “partitioning” is an innovation of our own that we presented in a paper at IEEE S&P 2025 and a talk at RWC 2025.

Future improvements

We are working on making CRLite even more bandwidth efficient. We are developing new Clubcard partitioning strategies that will compress mass revocation events more efficiently. We are also integrating support for the HTTP compression dictionary transport, which will further compress delta updates. And we have successfully advocated for shorter certificate validity periods, which will reduce the number of CRLite artifacts that need to encode any given revocation. With these enhancements, we expect the bandwidth requirements of CRLite to trend down over the coming years, even as the TLS ecosystem itself continues to grow.

Our Clubcard blocklist library, our instantiation of Clubcards for CRLite, and our CRLite backend are freely available for anyone to use. We hope that our success in building fast, private, and comprehensive revocation checking for Firefox will encourage other software vendors to adopt this technology.

The post CRLite: Fast, private, and comprehensive certificate revocation checking in Firefox appeared first on Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog.

Open Policy & Advocacy — Is Germany on the Brink of Banning Ad Blockers? User Freedom, Privacy, and Security Is At Risk.

Across the internet, users rely on browsers and extensions to shape how they experience the web: to protect their privacy, improve accessibility, block harmful or intrusive content, and take control over what they see. But a recent ruling from Germany’s Federal Supreme Court risks turning one of these essential tools, the ad blocker, into a copyright liability — and in doing so, threatens the broader principle of user choice online.

Imagine you are watching television and you go to the kitchen for a snack during an ad break. Or you press the fast-forward button to skip some ads while listening to a podcast. Or perhaps you get a newspaper delivered to your house, and you see that it includes a special section made up of hallucinated AI content, so you drop the inset into the trash before taking the rest of the paper inside. Were these acts of copyright infringement? Of course not. But if you do something like this with a browser extension, a recent decision from the German Federal Supreme Court suggests that maybe you did infringe copyright. This misguided logic risks user freedom, privacy, and security.

There are many reasons, in addition to ad blocking, that users might want their browser or a browser extension to alter a webpage. These include changes to improve accessibility, to evaluate accessibility, or to protect privacy. Indeed, the risks of browsing range from phishing, to malicious code execution, to invasive tracking, to fingerprinting, to more mundane harms like inefficient website elements that waste processing resources. Users should be equipped with browsers and browser extensions that give them both protection and choice in the face of these risks. A browser that inflexibly ran any code served to the user would be an extraordinarily dangerous piece of software. Ad blockers are just one piece of this puzzle, but they are an important way that users can customize their experience and lower risks to their security and privacy.

The recent court ruling is the latest development in a legal battle between publisher Axel Springer and Eyeo (the maker of Adblock Plus) that has been winding its way around the German legal system for more than a decade. The litigation has included both competition and copyright claims. Until now Eyeo has largely prevailed and the legality of ad blockers has been upheld. Most significantly, in 2022, the Hamburg appeal court ruled that Adblock Plus did not infringe the copyright of websites but rather was merely facilitating a choice by users about how they wished their browser to render the page.

Unfortunately, on July 31, the German Federal Supreme Court partially overturned the decision of the Hamburg court and remanded the case for further proceedings. The BGH (as the Federal Supreme Court is known) called for a new hearing so that the Hamburg court can provide more detail regarding which part of the website (such as bytecode or object code) is altered by ad blockers, whether this code is protected by copyright, and under what conditions the interference might be justified.

The full impact of this latest development is still unclear. The BGH will issue a more detailed written ruling explaining its decision. Meanwhile, the case has now returned to the lower court for additional fact-finding. It could be a couple more years until we have a clear answer. We hope that the courts ultimately reach the same sensible conclusion and allow users to install ad blockers.

We sincerely hope that Germany does not become the second jurisdiction (after China) to ban ad blockers. This will significantly limit users’ ability to control their online environment and potentially open the door to similar restrictions elsewhere. Such a precedent could embolden legal challenges against other extensions that protect privacy, enhance accessibility, or improve security. Over time, this could deter innovation in these areas, pressure browser vendors to limit extension functionality, and shift the internet away from its open, user-driven nature toward one with reduced flexibility, innovation, and control for users.

The post Is Germany on the Brink of Banning Ad Blockers? User Freedom, Privacy, and Security Is At Risk. appeared first on Open Policy & Advocacy.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest – July 2025

Hello again from the Thunderbird development team! As the northern hemisphere rolls into late summer and the last of the vacation photos trickle into our chat channels, the team is balancing maintenance sprints with ongoing feature-related projects. Whether you’re basking in the sun or bundled up for a southern winter, we’ve got plenty to share about what’s been happening behind the scenes, and what’s coming next.

Exchange support

It’s been a whirlwind of progress since our last update and with the expanded team collaborating regularly. It has felt like we’ve hit our stride and the finish line is in sight. Driven by a dramatic increase in automated test coverage, the team has been able to detect gaps and edge cases to help improve many areas of the existing code, and close out a good number of bugs.

As we ready the feature set for wider release, we’ve taken the opportunity to revisit the backlog and feel confident enough with our pace to prioritize a few features and address them sooner than originally planned.

The July roadmap worked out very well, with our planned features landing and a number of bonus items also complete:

  • Automated test coverage
  • Message filtering
  • Setting as Junk/Not Junk
  • Remote content display/blocking
  • Callback modernization/simplification
  • Propagation of certificate and connection errors
  • Archiving
  • Saving Drafts
  • Back-off handling

Items we’ve prioritized for the next few weeks are:

  • Undo/Redo operations for move/copy/delete
  • Status Bar feedback messaging
  • Bug backlog

Keep track of feature delivery here.

Account Hub

A few users have reported issues following end user adoption of this feature, so we’re addressing these while finalizing Account Hub for Address Book items, such as LDAP configuration. The team is also planning the implementation of telemetry which will help us determine areas for improvement in this important part of the application.

Global Message Database [Panorama]

The team has been focused on Exchange implementation and larger scale refactoring which isn’t directly tied to this project, so no updates to note here. The next time I write will be during a work week that has been dedicated to “Conversation View”, which is one of the key drivers for our database overhaul. Stay tuned for updates and decisions coming out of that collaboration.

To follow their progress, take a look at the meta bug dependency tree. The team also maintains documentation in Sourcedocs which are visible here.

Maintenance, Recent Features and Fixes

August is set aside as a focus for maintenance, with half our team dedicated to inglorious yet important items from our roadmap. In addition to these items, we’ve had help from the development community to deliver a variety of improvements over the past month:

If you would like to see new features as they land, and help us squash some early bugs, you can try running daily and check the pushlog to see what has recently landed. This assistance is immensely helpful for catching problems early.

—

Toby Pilling

Senior Manager, Desktop Engineering

The post Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest – July 2025 appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

Open Policy & Advocacy — The EU’s AI Act at One Year: Continuing to push for open-source AI and transparency

Saturday, August 2, marked the first anniversary of the entry into force of the EU AI Act, the EU’s contested landmark legislation putting in place rules for AI sold and deployed on its internal market. With a staggered timeline for when different rules take effect, Mozilla continues its work to ensure that the law’s implementation is a success. 

Beginning last week, the AI Act imposes new obligations for the developers of so-called “general-purpose AI models” (GPAI), that is, large AI models like OpenAI’s GPT, Google’s Gemini, or xAI’s Grok models (often also refered to as “foundation models”). Mozilla has long advocated for such rules to be included in the AI Act to ensure that large AI labs must play their part in making the technology they develop safer and more transparent and that due diligence obligations are not entirely passed down the value chain to smaller developers and deployers. These new rules include new transparency and disclosure mandates as well as obligations relating to GPAI developers safety and security practices.

To mark the occasion, Mozilla, in partnership with Hugging Face and Linux Foundation, published a guide for open-source AI developers aiming to help them navigate these rules. Amongst other questions, the guide explains what exactly constitutes a GPAI model or a “GPAI model with systemic risk”, what obligations developers need to meet, and when they might benefit from the AI Act’s exemptions for open-source AI. It builds on and synthesizes the recently adopted Code of Practice for GPAI developers as well as the European Commission’ newly published GPAI guidelines. The guide also includes an interactive flowchart meant to help developers on their AI Act “user journey”. This builds on Mozilla’s long-standing work advocating for better conditions for open-source AI development, including our advocacy to ensure that open-source developers receive proportionate treatment under the AI Act.

In addition, in late July, the European Commission also published a template for the “sufficiently detailed summary” that GPAI developers are now mandated to publish about the data used to train their AI models. While the template falls short of expectations in many respects, it does in parts mirror recommendations made by Mozilla building on our work in partnership with Open Future over the past year.

With additional rules taking effect over the course of the coming years and the European Commission building up its capacity to enforce them, work on the AI Act is not over — it is entering a new phase. Amid discussions of regulatory simplification, a potential revision of the AI Act in the context of the EU’s omnibus, and calls to “stop the clock” on enforcing the AI Act, Mozilla will continue its work to help make the AI Act’s implementation a success. This is grounded in our conviction that good regulation and innovation aren’t inherently contradictory, but rather complements when it comes to steering innovation in a direction that is beneficial to all.

The post The EU’s AI Act at One Year: Continuing to push for open-source AI and transparency appeared first on Open Policy & Advocacy.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Engage Your Inbox with ‘Getting Things Done’

David Allen’s “Getting Thing Done” (GTD) system has been around for longer than Thunderbird! First published in a book of the same name in 2001, this approach to productivity is focused on freeing your brain from chaos, giving it “focus, clarity, and confidence” for creativity and new ideas. As I’m also a fan of freedom from chaos, I decided to dive back into our productivity blogs and highlight how to use tags and keyboard shortcuts to use GTD in Thunderbird.

Five Steps to Get Things Done

To start, let’s summarize the GTD system, for anyone who might not be familiar. GTD uses five key steps to go from unorganized to unstoppable, whether in your inbox or elsewhere: Capture, Clarify, Organize, Reflect, and Engage.

Let’s think about these steps in terms of managing your inbox! First, Capturing involves collecting the things that have your attention. In other instances, this could mean brainstorming a to-do list. For email, this means your inbox. Clarifying entails taking those items and figuring out what they mean. For the Getting Things Done system, you need to figure out if you can act on something (for example, an email) or not. If it’s not actionable, where does it needs to go Is this reference? Is this on hold for some reason? Or can it just go in the trash?

Once this clarifying is done, it’s time to Organize, aka putting the things that have your attention or reminders of them in a place you can act on, whether that’s now or later. Reflecting isn’t a one-time step, but something you do consistently to fine-tune your system and make sure it’s still working for you.

All of these steps make the last step, Engaging, possible. You have a system you can trust, honed through reflection. Your inbox management system is like a starship where everything and everyone is working together, efficiently and effectively. This frees up your brain so your brain can soar through a cosmos of deep, interesting, meaningful work. Maybe while drinking a cup of tea, Earl Grey, hot.

Using Tags and Keyboard Shortcuts to Clarify and Organize Your Inbox

Adapting the GTD system to your Thunderbird inbox takes advantages of two features I am coming to love: labels and keyboard shortcuts.

I’m going to suggest three initial labels, and a few possibilities for labels for non-actionable emails, and walk you through how to set up the labels and use the keyboard shortcuts to apply them – with screenshots!

First, go into Settings > General > Tags to create/adjust your tags. The four example tags we set are “Do Now,” “Do,” “Waiting For,” and “Later.”

Wait, why have a “Do Now” and “Do” tag? This tip came from Henk Postma’s blog, who gave me a lot of inspiration. “Do Now” is urgent, and it needs doing without delay. “Do” doesn’t have this urgency, but the email is actionable.

The “Waiting For” label means there’s something you need to act on this email. Maybe it’s more information, or permission. This label can keep hold those emails until you’re ready. The “Later” tag is a bit of a catch-all. Like reference information, or things you’re interested in but can’t pursue yet. Maybe you want to break down your “Later” labels. The choice is yours!

Now that we have our labels set up, and associated with a number, we’re ready to start organizing. Once a message comes in, click the number for the tag you want. If you accidentally press the wrong number, don’t worry! Just press ‘0’ to clear whatever label you applied.

And that’s it! Well, except putting your system into practice, and David Allen has some further advice on using GTD in your inbox. If you have any tips on how you make your email organization a habit and not an afterthought, I’d love to hear them! As always, if there’s a productivity topic you’d like me to explore, let me know in the comments!

The post Engage Your Inbox with ‘Getting Things Done’ appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Monthly Release 141 Recap

We’re launching a brand new series that will highlight features and improvements with Thunderbird 141.0 – your front row ticket to Thunderbird’s monthly enhancements! (No more waiting in the wings so to speak). Learn what’s new, why it matters, and how it’ll transform your inbox experience.

In March, we introduced a new monthly Release channel and swapped it as the default option on the Thunderbird.net downloads page.

As a quick refresher, Thunderbird now offers two core release channel options:

  1. Release Channel: Updated monthly with new features, performance boosts, and bug fixes as they land.
  2. ESR (Extended Support Release): Receives all of the above in one major annual update, focusing on stability, with point security and stability patches in between.

While both versions are equally stable, the Release channel provides faster access to cutting-edge tools and optimizations, while the ESR channel may provide more stability when using add-ons with Thunderbird.

Feedback on the Release channel has been overwhelmingly positive, with many users transitioning from ESR. To join them:

Now that we’ve gotten the formalities out of the way, let’s jump in to what’s new in 141.0!

New Features

Warning for Expiring PGP Keys

Thunderbird loves PGP like cats adore cardboard boxes! We prioritize user trust by making end-to-end encrypted email simple for everyone, from newcomers to experienced users. To help you get started or refresh your knowledge, our team and volunteers have written an excellent introduction to the topic, as well as a How-to and FAQ.

Key expiration serves as a security safeguard, requiring proactive renewal procedures that reinforce operational encryption competencies.

What changed:

  • Your warning light is lit: If your public key expires in 31 days, Thunderbird now flashes a red alert in the compose window. No post-expiry panic!

Why it matters:

  • Safety net: A key that auto-expires nudges you to refresh it.
  • Piece of mind: Before Thunderbird told you after-the-fact your key died. Now? Your inbox is proactive.

Archive from OS Notifications

The improvements to native notifications keep coming. Now, in addition to deleting a message, marking it as spam, or starring it, you can archive a message directly from your operating system’s notifications. 

By default, the notifications you see include “Mark as Read” and “Delete”, however they can be customized further by going to Thunderbird Settings → General→ Incoming Mails and clicking on Customize.

Here you can select the information you want to see in your notification, as well as the actions you’d like to perform with it.

What changed:

  • New mail notifications have added the ‘Archive’ action.

Why it matters:

  • No need to go into the Thunderbird app to archive an incoming email now. More actions in notifications give you time to do the things you want, instead of managing your inbox.

Bug Fixes

Prioritize Link Hover URL in Status Bar

Thunderbird includes numerous features to protect you from suspicious mail and bad actors. One of these tools involves checking the URL of a link by hovering your mouse over the link text. The status bar would display the link URL, but it could be overwritten in fractions of a second by “Downloading message” and “Opening folder” messages. We’ve fixed this, and now the URL you’re hovering over will get priority in the status bar.

What changed:

  • Hovering over a link in an email will display it in the status bar without being immediately overwritten by other messages.

Why it matters:

  • Knowing where an email wants to send you is a major security boost, especially with the widespread threat of phishing emails.

Dots, Dashes, and Advanced Address Book Search

Three months ago, a community member noted that while the CardBook add-on could find phone numbers that used dots for separators, the Advanced Address Book Search in Thunderbird could not. Since we want users to be able to find contacts, and use the phone number formatting they want as well, we’ve built this ability into Thunderbird.

What changed:

  • The advanced address book in Thunderbird now recognizes phone numbers that use dots for separators.

Why it matters:

  • Saves time: Finds contacts faster and more accurately, no matter their format or storage location, eliminating need for manual cleanup or repeat searches.

Performance Improvements

Message List Scroll

To address message list scrolling performance, we adjusted how new rows are rendered but inadvertently introduced display delays. We’re reverting to the original row-handling method to properly assess performance impact before considering this change for Extended Support Release adoption. This allows precise measurement of optimizations against potential trade-offs, ensuring reliable performance in production environments.

What changed:

  • Reverting back to the previous method for how rows are updated.

Why it matters:

  • To accurately measure how the update affects scrolling performance before considering inclusion in an ESR.

The post Monthly Release 141 Recap appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

Mozilla L10N — L10n Report: July Edition 2025

Please note some of the information provided in this report may be subject to change as we are sometimes sharing information about projects that are still in early stages and are not final yet. 

Welcome!

New localizers

Are you a locale leader and want us to include new members in our upcoming reports? Contact us!

What’s new or coming up in Firefox desktop

Where’s Firefox Going Next?

Before getting into all the new features that recently landed in Nightly, we’re trying something new and would love your help. Check out this thread over on Mozilla Connect where you can help Firefox’s product managers plan their upcoming AMA (Ask Me Anything) by letting them know what you’ve always wanted to ask the Firefox team and which topics should be covered during the AMA.

Trust Panel

Available to translate and test in Nightly, the trust panel is a new feature designed to communicate to users what Firefox is doing to protect their privacy in friendly and easy to understand language. To check the feature out and review your translations, make sure to update your Nightly to the latest version (143) then navigate to “about:config” by typing it into your URL bar, click past the warning, then search browser.urlbar.trustPanel.featureGate and toggle the value to true.

Navigate to a website and the icon will appear on the side of your URL bar.

Firefox address bar showing a shield icon to access the trust panel.Clicking on it will show you the trust panel with a friendly Firefox letting you know you’re protected!

Screenshot of the new unified trust panel in Firefox, displayed when clicking the shield icon.Profile Icons

Also recently landed was a large number of strings related to icons users can set as part of the recently added profiles feature. While we tried to make the comments as helpful as possible, there’s no substitute for seeing the image in context. You can check the icons out within Nightly yourself by editing or creating a new profile by clicking the Account button on your toolbar and selecting the Profiles menu. Or, you can refer to the following image with a screenshot and the associated name used in the string IDs.

Screenshot of new profile icons and their accessible names.Text Fragments

You can now test the text fragments creation UI (these strings were added a few months back, but they have just been activated in Firefox Nightly). This feature allows you to share/reference a link anchor to any text snippet in a page. See the team’s post about this feature here.

What’s new or coming up in mobile

The menu settings on Firefox for Android and iOS are being redesigned, which requires updates to some strings. Stay tuned as more are coming in!

What’s new or coming up in web projects

Firefox.com

The new Firefox.com site officially launched earlier this month following a soft launch period, which allowed time to identify and resolve any initial issues. Thank you to everyone who reported bugs during that time. Most of the content on the new site was copied from Mozilla.org. However, the team plans to remove duplicated pages over the next few months except for a few that will remain on both sites, such as the Thank You page. More substantial updates are planned for later this year and beyond.

What’s new or coming up in Pontoon

Unified plurals UI

We’ve updated how plural gettext (.po) messages are handled in Pontoon. Specifically, they now use the same UI we’ve already been using for Fluent strings.

We’d really appreciate your feedback! To explore the new plural editor, try searching for strings that include .match, which commonly contain plural forms. We’re especially interested in whether the new experience feels intuitive and “right”, and — most importantly — if you manage to break it.

Screenshot of UI in Pontoon showing a string with plurals in a gettext based projectNew REST API Now Available

We’re excited to announce that Pontoon now offers a new REST API, built with Django REST Framework! This API is designed to provide a more reliable and consistent way to interact with Pontoon programmatically, and it’s already available for use.

You can explore the available endpoints and usage examples in the API README.

GraphQL API Scheduled for Deprecation

As part of this transition, we’ll be deprecating the Pontoon GraphQL API on November 5th, 2025. If you’re currently using the GraphQL API, we strongly encourage you to begin migrating to the new REST API, which will become the only supported interface going forward.

If you have any questions during the transition or run into issues, please don’t hesitate to open a discussion or file an issue. We’re here to help!

Events

Want to showcase an event coming up that your community is participating in? Contact us and we’ll include it.

Friends of the Lion

Image by Elio Qoshi

Know someone in your l10n community who’s been doing a great job and should appear here? Contact us and we’ll make sure they get a shout-out!

Useful Links

Questions? Want to get involved?

If you want to get involved, or have any question about l10n, reach out to:

Did you enjoy reading this report? Let us know how we can improve it.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — State of the Thunder: Answering Community Questions!

For the past few months, we’ve been talking about our roadmaps and development and answering community questions in a video and podcast series we call “State of the Thunder.” We’ve decided, after your feedback, to also cover them in a blog, for those who don’t have time to watch or listen to the entire session.

This session is focused on answering inquiries from the community, and we’ve got the questions and summaries of the answers (with helpful links to resources we mentioned)! This series runs every two weeks, and we’ll be creating blogs from here on in. If you have any questions you’d like answered, please feel free to include them in the comments!

Supporting and Sustaining FOSS Projects We Use

Question: As we move toward having more traditionally commercial offerings with services that are built on top of other projects, what is our plan in helping those projects’ maintenance (and financial) sustainability? If we find a good model, can we imagine extending it to our apps, too?

Answer: Right now, the only project we’re using to help build Thunderbird Pro is Stalwart, and we’ll have more details on how we’re using it soon. But we absolutely want to make sure the project gets financial support from us to support its sustainability and well-being. We want to play nice!

Appointment and Assist are from scratch, and Send is from old Firefox code, and so there isn’t another project to support with those. But to go back to a point Ryan Sipes has frequently made, while people can use all of these tools for free by self-hosting, they can subscribe as a way of both simplifying their usage and making sure these projects are supported for regular maintenance and a long life.

Future UI Settings Plans

Question: The interface is difficult to customize but more importantly is difficult to discover all the options available because they’re scattered around settings, account settings, top menu bar, context menus, etc. 140 Introduced the Appearance section in the settings, any plans to continue this effort with some more drastic restructuring of the UI?

Answer: Yes, we do have plans! We know the existing UI isn’t the most welcoming, since it is so powerful and we don’t want to overwhelm users with every option they can configure. We have a roadmap that’s almost ready to share that involves restructuring Account Settings. Right now, individual settings are very scattered, and we want to group things together into related sections that can all be changed at the same time. We want to simplify discoverability to make it easier to customize Thunderbird without digging into the config panel.

Account Setup and Manual Configuration

Question: Using manual configuration during email setup has become more difficult with time with the prioritization of email autoconfiguration.

Answer: Unfortunately, manual setup has confused a lot of casual users, which is why we’ve prioritized autodiscovery and autosetup. We’ve done a lot of exploration and testing with our Design team, and in turn they’ve done a lot of discussion and testing with our community. You can see some of these conversations in our UX mailing list. And even if you have to start the process, there is a link in it to edit the configuration manually. Ultimately, we have to have a balance between less technical and more technical users, and to be as usable and approachable as we can to the former.

Balancing Complexity and Simplicity

Question: Thunderbird is powerful with a lot of options but it should have more. Any plans to integrate ImportExportTools  (and other add-ons) and add more functionalities?

Answer: Thunderbird’s Add-ons are often meant for users who like more complexity! When we tackle this question, there’s two issues that come to mind. First, several developers get financial support from their users, and we want to be mindful of that. Second is the eternal question of how many features are too many features? We already have this issue in feedback between “Thunderbird doesn’t have enough features” and “Thunderbird is too complicated!” Every feature we add gives us more technical debt. If we bring an add-on into core, we can support it for the long term.

We think this question may also come from the fact that Add-ons often “break” with each ESR release. But we’re trying to find ways to support developers to use the API to increase compatibility. We’re also considering how we can financially support Add-on developers to help them maintain their apps. Our core developers are pressed for time, and so we’re beyond grateful to the Add-on developers who can make Thunderbird stronger and more specialized than we could on our own!

Benefits of the New Monthly Release Channel

Question: Is the new Release channel with monthly versions working properly and bringing any benefits?

Answer: Yes, on both counts! Right now, we have 10 to 20 percent of Thunderbird desktop users on the Release channel. While we don’t have hard numbers for the benefits YET, we’d love to get some numbers on improvements in bug reactivity and other indicators. We noticed this year’s ESR had far fewer bugs, which probably owed to Release users testing new features. While we’ve always had Beta users, we have so many more people on Release. So if something went wrong, we could fix it, let it “ride the train,” and have the fix in the next version.

And our developers have stopped wondering when our features will make it to users! Things will be in users’ hands in a month, versus nearly a year for some features.

JMAP Support in Thunderbird

Question: Any plans on supporting JMAP?

Answer: 100% yes. Though JMAP is still something of a niche protocol, with doesn’t yet have widespread support from major providers. But now, with Thundermail we’ll be our own provider, and it will come with JMAP. Also, with the upcoming iOS app, it will be easy to add support for JMAP. First, we’re making the app from scratch so we have no technical debt. Second, we can do things properly from the start and be protocol agnostic.

Also, we’ve taken several lessons from our Exchange implementation, namely how to implement a new protocol properly. This will help us add support for JMAP faster.

Maintaining Backups in Thunderbird

Question: I have used Thunderbird since its first release and I always wondered how to properly and safely maintain backups of local emails. No matter how much I hate Outlook it offers built-in backup archives of .pst files that can be moved to other installations. The closest thing in Thunderbird is to copy the entire profile folder, but that comes with many more unpredictable outcomes.

I might be asking for something uncommon but I manage many projects with a very heavy communication flow between multiple clients, and  when the project is completed I like to export the project folder with all the messages into a single PST file and create a couple of back-ups for safety, so no matter if my email server has problems, or the emails on my server and computer are accidentally deleted, I have that folder back-up as a single file which I can import into a new installation.

Answer: We’d love for anyone with this question to come talk to us about how to improve our Import/Export tools. Unfortunately, there’s no universal email archive format, and a major issue is that Outlook’s backup files are in a proprietary format. We’ve rebuilt the Import/Export UI and done a bit on the backend. Alas, this is all we’ve had time for.

So, if you’d like to help us tackle this problem, come chat with us! You can find us on Matrix and in the Developers and Planning mailing lists. We think there’s definitely room for a standard around email backups.

Watch the Video (also available on TILvids)

Listen to the Podcast

The post State of the Thunder: Answering Community Questions! appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

Open Policy & Advocacy — Open by Design: How Nations Can Compete in the Age of AI

The choices governments make today, about who gets to build, access and benefit from AI, will shape economic competitiveness, national security and digital rights for decades.

A new report by UK think tank, Demos, supported by Mozilla, makes the case that if the UK wants to thrive in the AI era it must embrace openness. And while the report is tailored to the UK context, its implications reach far beyond Westminster.

Unlike the US or China, the UK and many other countries cannot outspend or outscale on AI, but they can out-collaborate. Demos’ report The Open Dividend: Building an AI openness strategy to unlock the UK’s AI potential, argues that making key AI resources – models, datasets, compute and safety tools, more openly accessible can spur innovation, lower the costs of AI adoption, enable safer and more transparent development, boost digital sovereignty and align AI more closely with public value. A recipe, if there ever was one, for ‘winning’ at AI.

The wider market certainly reflects these trends – the AI sector is shifting toward value accruing in smaller, specialised and more efficient models. Developments all spurred on by open source innovation. But this also means open models aren’t just more accessible and customisable, they’re becoming more capable too.

This echoes another recent study Mozilla supported, this time a survey of more than 700 businesses conducted by McKinsey. Among its top findings – 50% of respondents are already leveraging an open source solution across their stack. More than three-quarters reported that they intended to grow this usage. Most significantly, the first movers – organisations that see AI as vital to their future competitive advantage – are more than 40% more likely to use open source models and tools than respondents from other organisations. Similar research just published by the Linux Foundation has also found openness is fast becoming a competitive edge. Demos’s report expands upon these stats – strategically utilising openness in AI is not just about sharing code, it’s about shaping a more resilient and prosperous ecosystem.

The risks of centralisation are well known and global. We have seen it before with the development of the internet. If we let AI ecosystems become concentrated, so that all power remains in the hands of a few firms and their proprietary models, this will make it much harder to ensure AI serves people – rather than the other way around. It also raises more urgent concerns about market dominance, bias, surveillance, and national resilience.

If we want AI to serve humanity, we all have a stake in getting this right.

As the Demos report argues, openness isn’t just a value – it’s a strategy. We were proud to support the development of this timely report – read it here.

The post Open by Design: How Nations Can Compete in the Age of AI appeared first on Open Policy & Advocacy.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Welcoming New Faces to the Thunderbird Community Team

Community First

Thunderbird is (and has always been) powered by the people. The project exists because of the amazing community of passionate code contributors, bug-bashers, content creators, and all-around wonderful humans who have stood behind it and worked to support and maintain it over the years.

And as the Thunderbird community grows, we want to ensure that we [the team supporting you] grow alongside you, so that we can continue to collaborate and build effectively and efficiently together. 

That’s why we’re thrilled to announce a refreshed and growing Thunderbird Community Team here at MZLA! Expect a little more structure, a lot more collaboration, and an open invitation to our users and contributors to join us and help shape what comes next.

Meet the Team

Whether you’re filing your first bug, searching for support, writing documentation, or just dropping into Matrix to say hi, this is the team working hard behind the scenes to make sure your experience is productive, constructive, and superconductive:

Michael Ellis | Manager of Community Programs

Hey there! I’m Michael, and I’m joining the Thunderbird family as Manager of Community Programs to help grow and support our awesome community. I’ll be working on programs that help improve contributor pathways and make it easier for more people to get involved in the work we do and the decisions we make on a day-to-day basis.

I come from a background of managing developer communities and running large-scale programs at organizations like Mozilla, Ionic, and NXP Semiconductors. I believe open-source communities are strongest when they’re welcoming, engaging, and well-supported. I like gifs and memes very much. 

I look forward to seeing you in the Thunderbird community and saying hello to one another on Matrix!  

Until then, Keep on Rocking the Free Web!

Wayne Mery | Senior Community Manager

Greetings everyone.  Wayne here, also known as wsmwk.  I have used open source for forty years, been a user of and contributor to Thunderbird for twenty years, and am a founding member of the Thunderbird Council, and have run several of the council elections. 

I love to mentor and connect to our community members who assist Thunderbird users in Reddit, Connect, matrix (chat), bugzilla, github, topicbox forums, Thunderbird support in SUMO (SUpport MOzilla), and other venues.  And I help manage these venues and assist users, to bring the concerns of the user community to developers.  I also assist in developing content for users (including knowledge base articles in SUMO) and assist in our general communications with users.  

There are many ways you can participate in small ways or large, including through praise or constructive feedback through the venues listed above and those listed on our participate web page – I encourage you to do so at your convenience. And I look forward to connecting with you soon. 

Heather Ellsworth | Senior Developer Relations Engineer

Hi everyone! *waves*

I’ve been part of the Thunderbird family for nearly two years, working with the awesome Desktop team. Now, I’m thrilled to be joining the Community team, led by Michael, where I’ll be focusing on initiatives to support and grow our amazing contributor community.

My work will include creating helpful video content to make it easier for folks to get started, as well as improving our technical documentation at source-docs.thunderbird.net and developer.thunderbird.net.

If you’re interested in contributing or need help getting started, don’t hesitate to reach out to me on Matrix — I’d love to chat!

What’s the Road Ahead?

Community is at the heart of everything Thunderbird does. As our product continues to evolve and improve, we want our community experience to keep pace with that growth. This means not only working to keep Thunderbird open, but striving towards better contributor pathways, clearer communication, and more opportunities to participate.

We’re here to listen, collaborate, and help you succeed. You can expect to see more initiatives, experiments, and outreach from us soon, but you don’t have to wait till then to weigh in.

Have thoughts or suggestions? Drop a comment below to share them directly, or visit our Connect thread to see what others are saying and add your own ideas there. Together, we can help shape the future of the Thunderbird community and product.

After all, Thunderbird is powered by the people, & that includes you.

The post Welcoming New Faces to the Thunderbird Community Team appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — VIDEO: Thunderbird 140.0 ESR “Eclipse”

Welcome back to another edition of the Community Office Hours! This month, we’re taking a closer look at Thunderbird 140.0 ESR “Eclipse,” our latest Extended Support Release! Sr. Manager of Desktop Engineering Toby Pilling (who so helpfully provides the Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest) is walking us through the latest Thunderbird. He’ll let us know what’s in, what’s out, and why you should give the new monthly Release channel a try. We’re also introducing a new member of the Thunderbird Team, Manager of Community Programs Michael Ellis.

Michael (and the Thunderbird team!) are here to listen, collaborate, and help you succeed. You can expect to see more initiatives, experiments, and outreach from us soon, but you don’t have to wait till then to weigh in. Have thoughts or suggestions on how to improve the community? Drop a comment below to share them directly, or visit our Connect thread to see what others are saying and add your own ideas there. Together, we can help shape the future of the Thunderbird community and product.

Next month, we’ll be talking with Product Design Rebecca Taylor and Associate Designer Solange Valverde to talk about our team’s recent efforts to make Thunderbird more accessible. This not only involves seeing where we’re doing well, but finding where we’re falling short. It’s been a while since we’ve talked about Accessibility here, and we’re excited to continue the conversation. If you have questions about Accessibility in either the desktop or Android app you’d like us to ask our guests, please leave them as a comment below!

July Office Hours: Thunderbird 140.0 ESR “Eclipse”

As Toby shows us in his introduction, the major theme of Thunderbird 140.0 ESR “Eclipse” is stability. We took lessons from last year’s ESR, when we introduced code to 128.0 that was a little harder to test than expected given when it landed. We’re also waiting on some major changes in the works, namely the refreshed Calendar UI and the database backend rewrite. This was, every feature that made it to this year’s ESR was fully baked.

What’s In

And there’s a lot of features to discuss! Toby walks through what’s new in 140.0, starting with a trio of visual improvements. Thunderbird now adapts the message window to dark mode, and provides a toggle to switch dark mode off in case of styling issues. In the new Appearance Settings, users can globally take control of their message list, toggling between Cards and Table View, Threaded and Unthreaded, and Grouped by Sort across all their accounts. This feature also allows switching Cards View between a 2 and 3 row preview, and to propagate default sorting orders to all folders. Finally, a community-powered and staff-supported feature allows users to reorder user-created folders by manually dragging and dropping them.

140.0 ESR Also introduces the Account Hub, which we covered in a previous Office Hours! You’ll see this when you add a second account, and it will seamlessly walk you through setting up not only your email, but connected address books and calendars.

To help maximize your time and minimize your clicks, Thunderbird now uses Native Notifications for Linux, Mac, and Windows. While for now you can delete messages and mark them as read directly from notifications, we have more actions up our sleeve, coming soon to the monthly Release channel!

Finally, we close out our new features. Experimental Exchange Support, which can be enabled via preference, introduces native Exchange email support to desktop Thunderbird. Though for a fully supported experience, we encourage you to switch to the monthly Release channel, where more Exchange improvements are coming. Export for Mobile allows you to generate a QR code to import your account configurations and credentials into the Thunderbird Android app. And Horizontal Scroll for Table View allows you to scroll the message list horizontally and read complex tabular data more like a spreadsheet.

What’s Out

But for everything we put in to 140.0 ESR, we had to leave some things out. Experimental Exchange Support only includes email, not calendar or address books. We also don’t yet support Graph API. Additionally, 140.0 ESR doesn’t include a new UI for Tasks, Chat, or Settings. Account Hub won’t be enabled for first-time user experiences in ESR, though this will be coming to monthly Release, as will the new Account Hub for Address Books.

Try the Monthly Release Channel

While we’re excited and proud to introduce Thunderbird 140.0 ESR “Eclipse,” we also hope you’ll try out new monthly Release channel. Read more about it and learn how you can get new features faster in our announcement.

Watch, Read, and Get Involved

Thanks for reading, and as always, you can learn more by watching the video (with handy chapter markers, if you just want to hear about your favorite new feature) and reading the presentation slides. If you’re looking to get involved with the community, from QA to support to helping develop new features, check out our “Get Involved” page on our website. You can also check out the specific resources below! See you all next month.

VIDEO (Also on Peertube):

Slides:

Community-Office-Hours-140-ESRDownload

Resources:

  • Thunderbird UX Mailing List: https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/ux
  • Interested in the Thunderbird Accessibility Committee? Email laurel@thunderbird.net
  • Suggest new features: https://connect.mozilla.org
  • Account Hub Office Hours blog: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/04/video-the-new-account-hub/
  • Manual Folder Sort Bug (and Community Development): https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1846550
  • Exchange Support Wiki: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Exchange
  • Get Involved With Exchange: email heather@thunderbird.net
  • Thunderbird + Rust Office Hours Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMY3ZzVsXXyqN6yL9Snm6W19WhBPntj1Z
  • QR Code Import Knowledge Base Article: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/thunderbird-android-import
  • Release Channel Blog: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/03/thunderbird-release-channel-update/

The post VIDEO: Thunderbird 140.0 ESR “Eclipse” appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

Mozilla Gfx Team — Shipping WebGPU on Windows in Firefox 141

After years in development, we will be releasing WebGPU on Windows in Firefox 141! WebGPU gives web content a modern interface to the user’s graphics processor, enabling high-performance computation and rendering. We’re excited about WebGPU because we believe it will raise the ceiling for games, visualization, and local computation on the web.

You can find a tutorial on WebGPU at webgpufundamentals.org, try out the WebGPU Samples, and read documentation for the API at MDN. WebGPU is defined in two W3C standards, WebGPU and WGSL, whose development Mozilla has participated in since it began in 2017.

WebGPU has been available in Google Chrome since 2023, and is expected to be available in Safari 26 this fall.

Although Firefox 141 enables WebGPU only on Windows, we plan to ship WebGPU on Mac and Linux in the coming months, and finally on Android. Windows was our first priority because that’s where the great majority of our users are, but we are looking forward to enabling it on the other platforms as soon as it is robust and our test coverage is adequate. (Your humble author is strictly a Linux user, so this concern is close to his heart.) Note that WebGPU has been available in Firefox Nightly on all platforms other than Android for quite some time.

Firefox’s WebGPU implementation is based on WGPU, a Rust crate that provides a unified, portable interface to the low-level graphics APIs of the underlying platform: Direct3D 12, Metal, and Vulkan. WGPU is developed as an independent open source project on GitHub, but Mozilla is a major contributor. WGPU is widely used outside Firefox, and has an active community, so if you are a Rust developer interested in contributing to Firefox’s WebGPU support, WGPU is a good place to start.

WebGPU is a large, complex API. We’ve focused our efforts so far on making high-visibility WebGPU applications and demos run smoothly, and we believe it should work well in Firefox 141 for many use cases. However, there is plenty of work remaining to be done to improve our performance and compliance with the specification. In particular:

  • Firefox uses unbuffered inter-process communication to convey web content’s requests to the GPU sandbox process, which introduces significant overhead. We addressed this in Bug 1968122, which improved performance significantly. The fix will appear in Firefox 142.
  • Firefox currently uses an interval timer to tell when the GPU has completed a task, adding significant latency to many applications where the task finishes quickly. There are better ways to do this, we are changing Firefox to use them. You can follow our progress in Bug 1870699.
  • Firefox does not yet support WebGPU’s importExternalTexture method, which lets the GPU read decompressed video content directly from the decoder. You can follow our progress in Bug 1827116.

Please give WebGPU a try in Firefox! If you encounter problems, please report them in the WebGPU component in Bugzilla. As always, provide us with as detailed instructions as you can to make the bug occur, and attach the contents of about:support to the bug so we can see what kind of system you are using.

It’s been a big project, but we’re done tinkering with the engine and taking test drives — we’re finally ready to roll WebGPU out of the garage and hand it over to you for daily use. We’re looking forward to seeing what you can do with WebGPU in Firefox!

The Mozilla Thunderbird Blog — Mobile Progress Report – June 2025

Welcome back to another update on how things are going on mobile. 

Thunderbird for iOS

We’ve been going back and forth between database and JMAP for Thunderbird for iOS. Most of the visible work has flown into creating an initial JMAP library that we can use to access the parts that we need from Thunderbird for iOS. This work will continue into July as well. Progress so far means making JSON requests and parsing responses and making standard get/set/query requests. There is support for working with sessions as well.

In July we’ll have a few things to show for viewing actual folders and email messages. Very preliminary, but already quite some progress! I’m almost tempted to post the screenshots now but I’ll wait until next month. We’ll also be releasing a new (currently still internal) Testflight version when everything has landed.

Thunderbird for Android

We want to make Thunderbird for Android more accessible to contributors and improve some of our documentation. Part of that is our brand new testing guide which talks about which testing patterns to use, how to adhere to our naming conventions and some guidelines around fakes vs mocks. We’ve recently been talking about making more use of the Maestro testing framework, as it makes it very simple to add tests even for folks without engineering experience. 

Further we’ve made some strides on our overall architecture documentation. If you’ve been reluctant to contribute because of the learning curve, this might be your chance to make another attempt. Even if you are an existing contributor, we believe the docs will help you understand the codebase a bit better. Let us know what you think, if you see a way that our documentation can be improved go ahead and file an issue.

Next up, we’re nearing the end of the drawer updates we’ve been working on. We know a bunch of folks weren’t very happy with the navigation rail given the extra horizontal space it uses, and it being unclear which account you actually have selected. We’re returning the account selector to the top, and sporting a separate “Unified Account” where you can find not just your unified inbox, but also some other unified folders. If you’ve set up custom unified folders previously these will appear there as well. 

Additional updates

  • Ashley has worked on sync debug tooling so we can get a better understanding of any issues related to emails not arriving in time.
  • Jan has switched the EHLO string from 127.0.0.1 to ehlo.thunderbird.net to increase compatibility with email servers that don’t accept 127.0.0.1.
  • João has improved accessibility of the contact pictures in the message view, and fixed an issue where the “Download Complete Message” button was hidden by the navigation bar.
  • Rafael has been working on the foundations of in-app error notifications. He improved swiping actions for when the account does not have an archive folder set, to avoid surprises. Through this work a bunch of files have been migrated from Java to Kotlin, great work!
  • Stefan has fixed an issue where some I/O errors were not correctly caught. I’m particularly excited about this since it smooths over the situation where you change from one network to the next, so that push email will arrive a little more reliably.
  • Wolf has revamped some of our internal logging support to be more consistent. We really don’t need multiple different loggers and might want to change the implementation once in a while 🙂 There has also been a bunch of Java/Kotlin conversion going on, and some refactoring in the local search code. Above mentioned work on the drawer and documentation was also Wolf’s work. 
  • Shamim continues to rock the refactoring. By far the most Java to Kotlin conversion, fixing a crash when adding an account after removal, making threaded view update correctly when in the message list. Notably, the [Gmail] folder placeholder is now no longer visible, you’ll see the subfolders directly.

—
Philipp Kewisch (he/him)
Thunderbird Mobile Engineering | Mozilla Thunderbird
thunderbird.net

The post Mobile Progress Report – June 2025 appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

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