Thunderbird Email Client Now Ships with OpenPGP Support Enabled by Default

Thunderbird email client

It took a few releases, but the free, open-source and cross-platform Thunderbird email client, news and chat client is now shipping with OpenPGP support enabled by default in the latest release.

Just a few days after releasing the Thunderbird 78.2.0 update, which brought lots of improvements to the OpenPGP implementation that lets users send encrypted emails, here’s come another small, yet important update.

Thunderbird 78.2.1 has been released today and it finally enables the OpenPGP feature by default. That’s amazing news for privacy and security fans enthusiasts using the open-source email client as they won’t have to go to all the trouble of enabling OpenPGP in the latest Thunderbird 78 series.

After you update to Thunderbird 78.2.1, you’ll be able to access the OpenPGP Key Manager window from the Tools menu by clicking on the hamburger menu on the right side of the window (see the screenshot above for details).

Besides enabling OpenPGP by default, the Thunderbird 78.2.1 release lets users with sub-identities to encrypt or sign emails when switching identities, disables the use of MD5, SM2, and SM3 algorithms in the OpenPGP implementation, and adds dark mode support for the OpenPGP message security window.

You can download Thunderbird 78.2.1 right now from the official website. If it doesn’t show up there, you can always grab the 32-bit or 64-bit binaries, as well as the source tarball from Mozilla’s FTP servers here.

Again, keep in mind that you won’t be able to upgrade from Thunderbird 68 or previous versions. Upgrades are supported only from Thunderbird 78.0 and up, and a future version will offer upgrades from earlier releases.

Meanwhile, Mozilla is working on the next major release, which at the moment of writing this article appears to be Thunderbird 81. Highlights of this release include PDF.js viewer included by default, support for synchronizing CardDAV address books, improved support for vCard 2.1 attachments, and some Chat enhancements.

Last updated 4 years ago

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