Thunderbird 37.3.0 and 37.3.1 have been released

[harlan4096]

MZLA Technologies Corporation has released two new versions of the Thunderbird desktop email client this week.  Thunderbird 78.30 was released on September 24, 2020, and Thunderbird 78.3.1 just two days later on September 26, 2020.

Thunderbird installations that have not received either update yet are updated to version 78.3.1 automatically. Users of the email client can select Help > About Thunderbird to check the installed version and run a manual check for updates. The new release is also available as a manual download from the project's website.

Why two versions? A second version is pushed when the previous version has at least one critical issue, be it security or non-security, that has the potential to affect a large number of users. In this case, Thunderbird 78.3.1 fixes a crash that users experienced after Thunderbird was updated to version 78.3.0.

All changes of Thunderbird 78.3.0 are part of the minor update as well. It is a minor release that fixes non-security and security issues for the most part, and includes some improvements next to that.

The official release notes highlight OpenPGP improvements in this release. The decryption performance of large messages has been improvement when OpenPGP is used, and the external key UI is not shown when disabled in the preferences.

Other changes include that the installation of legacy extension has been disabled in that release, that the account setup wizard displays a popup when a server uses a self-signed SSL/TLS certificate, and that the reply-to header now appears under the From header. Lastly, this release includes unspecified improvements to the calendar's sidebar user interface.

As far as fixes are concerned, there are plenty:

• Selecting "Cancel" on the Master Password prompt at startup incorrectly reported corrupted OpenPGP data
  
• OpenPGP: Creating a new key pair did not automatically select it for use
  
• Dragging & Dropping recipient pills resulted in lost pills when an error was present
  
• Spellcheck suggestions were unreadable in dark theme
  
• Calendar: Multiple password prompts opened
  
• Linux Distributions: UI was not rendered completely when built without updater
  
• MailExtensions: browser.folders.delete failed on IMAP folders
  

Thunderbird 78.3 resolves several security issues, one of which is rated high, the second highest rating after critical. A total of four security issues are fixed in the release, the remaining three have received a rating of moderate each.

The developers list a single known issue: the mailing list is not focused on startup.

Now You: do you use Thunderbird? What is your take on the 78.x version of the email client?
...

Continue Reading