Think email client and the obvious example is Mozilla’s Thunderbird. But whether you’re a T long-time Thunderbird user or looking for a new email client, you may find that Betterbird is – if you’ll excuse the pun – a better fit. That’s particularly true if you’re missing features that have quietly been dropped from Thunderbird in recent years.
Betterbird is a fork of Thunderbird, but it’s careful to stick closely to its parent in what Betterbird describes is a “soft fork”. It closely follows the Thunderbird ESR release schedules to ensure it remains as secure as Thunderbird itself and is built from the latest version of Thunderbird ESR before applying its own fixes, features and customisations.
All of Betterbird’s bug fixes are submitted upstream to allow Thunderbird to benefit from them if it wishes – and many do eventually make their way into the main program. To find out more about the Betterbird project in general, check out the box (below).
Hatch your better chick
The easiest way to install Betterbird in Debian, Ubuntu or Mint is through the (subtly tweaked) Betterbird Dirty Update script.
The simplest way to get Betterbird on your system is via Flatpak (https://flathub.org/apps/eu.betterbird.
Betterbird), although there are glitches to consider, as outlined at its GitHub page (https://github.com/flathub/eu.betterbird.Betterbird). ArchLinux users will also find the app is available through its package repo.
Betterbird’s native executable is 64-bit only and built on Mint 20.2, which means it’s supported on 64-bit versions of Debian (11 or later), Ubuntu (20.04 or later) and Mint (20 or later). You can download and extract this directly from www.betterbird.eu/ downloads but a better option is to use the Betterbird Dirty Update script.
BE T TERBIRD – A BRIEF HISTORY
Betterbird couldn’t ask for better credentials. It was created by Jörg Knobloch, former maintainer of Thunderbird from 2014 to 2020.
Having spent much of that time keeping the project alive as Mozilla’s interest focused elsewhere, he was let go under rather unpleasant circumstances – visit www.betterbird.eu/faq/ former.html for full details.
After being banned from the Thunderbird community, Jörg turned his attention to producing Betterbird, enabling him to continue development on the email client from an independent standpoint. It follows the ESR release cycle, so the first patches were released under the version number 91.0b1-bb1 back in July 2021. On 14th July, the first official release – albeit still a beta – saw the light of day with Betterbird’s first restored feature: the header pane button customise option. It was also accompanied by the first of hundreds of bug fixes to Thunderbird’s own code, all of which have been submitted upstream for Thunderbird’s maintainers to incorporate if they wish. And despite the bad blood, Thunderbird has accepted many changes, while others still await approval,
Releases have steadily followed, fixing bugs, changing behaviours and restoring and adding features. Like Thunderbird, Betterbird has continued to support older versions even after newer releases have appeared, so the final release of the 91.x series came in September 2022, three months after Betterbird 102.0 was released. Betterbird 115.0 arrived in July 2023, and at the time of writing, Betterbird 115.9 had followed Thunderbird 115.9 out of the door on the same day.
BE T TERBIRD – A BRIEF HISTORY
Betterbird couldn’t ask for better credentials. It was created by Jörg Knobloch, former maintainer of Thunderbird from 2014 to 2020.
Having spent much of that time keeping the project alive as Mozilla’s interest focused elsewhere, he was let go under rather unpleasant circumstances – visit www.betterbird.eu/faq/ former.html for full details.
After being banned from the Thunderbird community, Jörg turned his attention to producing Betterbird, enabling him to continue development on the email client from an independent standpoint. It follows the ESR release cycle, so the first patches were released under the version number 91.0b1-bb1 back in July 2021. On 14th July, the first official release – albeit still a beta – saw the light of day with Betterbird’s first restored feature: the header pane button customise option. It was also accompanied by the first of hundreds of bug fixes to Thunderbird’s own code, all of which have been submitted upstream for Thunderbird’s maintainers to incorporate if they wish. And despite the bad blood, Thunderbird has accepted many changes, while others still await approval,
Releases have steadily followed, fixing bugs, changing behaviours and restoring and adding features. Like Thunderbird, Betterbird has continued to support older versions even after newer releases have appeared, so the final release of the 91.x series came in September 2022, three months after Betterbird 102.0 was released. Betterbird 115.0 arrived in July 2023, and at the time of writing, Betterbird 115.9 had followed Thunderbird 115.9 out of the door on the same day.
QUICK TIP
Nick Peers can still remember the days when email was considered the most advanced form of communication. It may be somewhat passé now, but no social media platform comes close.