Thunderbird to support OpenPGP encryption standard in 2020
The next major version of the open source cross-platform email client Thunderbird will support the OpenPGP encryption standard natively.
Thunderbird users may use the extension Enigmail currently to use OpenPGP functionality in the email client; this adds encryption and digital signature support to the email client to protect emails from unauthorized access (emails are transferred in plain text by default). Jack Wallen reviewed Enigmail back in 2009 and I published an updated guide in September 2017 detailing how to encrypt emails in Thunderbird using Enigmail.
The development team released Thunderbird 68 in August. Thunderbird shares code with the Firefox web browser and a consequence of that was that the team had to make changes to the extensions system just like Mozilla did when it released Firefox 57. Thunderbird 68.0 does not support certain types of classic extensions and the next major version of Thunderbird, version 78, finalizes the migration.
One consequence of the move is that classic add-ons, Enigmail being one of them, won't be supported anymore in the new version of the email client. Some extensions may be ported while others may not as it depends on API support and a developer's willingness to migrate the extension.
Enigmail is used by over 119,000 users currently and discontinuation of the extension would affect these users severely. The development team decided to explore options and one of them was to integrate the OpenPGP standard natively in the client; this would allow users of Enigmail to migrate to the built-in functionality and make encryption functionality available to all users of the email client.
Thunderbird 78, which will be released in Summer 2020, will support native encryption. Enigmail won't be compatible with Thunderbird 78 anymore. The developer of the Enigmail extension agreed to work with the Thunderbird team to implement OpenPGP functionality in the email client.
Enigmail users will get options to migrate existing keys and settings, and most things should work just like before. Whether indirect key ownership confirmations will be supported has not been decided yet.
Thunderbird 78 "will encourage" users of Enigmail to perform ownership confirmations of keys and notify the user if the key of the correspondent changed.
Encryption won't be enabled automatically for users who have not used Enigmail in the past but the team plans to integrate discovery options in the client.
A wiki page highlights the plans in detail.
Closing Words
Thunderbird 78 will support native OpenPGP standard support; that is a good thing as it unlocks encryption options to every user of the client. The original developer will work on the integration and existing users may migrate to the native solution once it lands in Thunderbird. A few uncertainties remain as the development plan has not been finalized yet.
Now You: do you encrypt your emails?(via Deskmodder)
You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!