lemmeBe

Hopefully, I can shed some light because I'm in the process of looking for a new email provider so I've been researching extensively for the past few days.

Firstly, despite their strong marketing about privacy and encryption, ALL the privacy-focused email providers face the same fundamental limitation when it comes to incoming emails from external sources:

• They can read incoming external emails upon arrival.
• They process these emails (for spam filtering, etc.) before encryption.
• Only after this processing do they encrypt the emails for storage.

It's a limitation inherent to the current email infrastructure and affects virtually all email providers as far as I'm aware.

So, marketing claims about "zero-access encryption" often refer to emails at rest (in storage), not during transit or initial processing. For truly private communication, end-to-end encryption (like PGP) needs to be implemented by the sender before the email reaches any server.

That being said, Mailbox provides E2E encryption through standard PGP and S/MIME protocols, allowing users to encrypt both incoming and outgoing emails with their own encryption keys that can be generated or imported into the system. Beyond email encryption, they implement domain security and server-side encryption of all stored data, with the option to create secure aliases that only communicate over encrypted connections.

For Mailbox users communicating with other Mailbox users, there isn't an automatic E2E system in place by default (like Proton has). Doesn't matter to me because very little people I communicate with use Mailbox (it's currently the same situation with Proton for me).

You could register anonymously, use a VPN, and encrypt your messages with PGP and be safe that way. I, however, consider emails inherently unsafe means of communication and use them for registrations and meaningless communication only.

Also, Mailbox has Guard feature that creates a temporary mailbox for recipients without PGP. The recipient receives two emails - one with a link to the temporary mailbox and another with the password. You can also add an additional PIN for extra security that you communicate through another channel.

P. S. Their servers are powered by 100% renewable energy, if that carries any weight.

Sure, applies to getting to any level of profitability.

Independently of the Mozilla team, yes.

However, my understanding is that, if Thunderbird were to become ~~hugely~~ profitable, the Mozilla Foundation would benefit financially, though indirectly.

The organizational structure:

• Mozilla Foundation = parent organization
• MZLA Technologies Corporation (which owns Thunderbird) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation
• Mozilla Corporation (which produces Firefox) is also a subsidiary of the Foundation

When Thunderbird moved to MZLA Technologies Corporation in January 2020, this was specifically done to allow Thunderbird to "collect revenue through partnerships and non-charitable donations".

As a wholly owned subsidiary, any profits generated by MZLA would ultimately flow back to its parent organization, the Mozilla Foundation.

In the end, that revenue would probably go to all the smart investments we've seen the Mozilla Foundation make over the previous years. 🙄

And none of these will stick it to you on multiple fronts if it ever comes down to it.

You want safety, diversify. You want convenience, go all in.

Yeah, that scenario sounds awfully familiar to me as well. 😅

Even with them, it's sometimes guesswork. Without them, it's just stabbing in the dark. 😄

Spike's a short period set aside to research a problem before committing to how long it'll take to solve it.

My mentor at my first job was a mid-level dev 10 years younger than me. He was an all-around great and knowledgeable guy. When he'd get asked for an estimate on something without proper details in the ticket, he'd reply that a spike was needed before any kind of estimate, and that's how it would usually proceed.

Sometimes, however, the PM would insist on an immediate estimate. My mentor would then, without hesitation, reply: "8 points" (a full sprint in our company).

"But why that long when you don't know the details?"

"Exactly. Give me a spike to find out, and then it could be less."

None of us other devs contradicted him, junior or senior, because we understood where he was coming from. Needless to say, I learned a lot from him including how not to kill myself so someone else could get a tap on the back.

Exhaustive research was conducted on an impressive sample size of... one single device.

...and the provided details are astounding.

🥁 🥁 🎸🎸 🎬

Enjoy, people! 😊

I find that Television complements fd nicely.