I am beginning to use Thunderbird and am confused. Four things I noticed from the privacy/security settings page:
There are boxes for: “Remember web sites and links I’ve visited” and “Accept cookies from sites”
This makes no sense to me. It is an email client, not a browser. Which sites does Thunderbird know I visit? How can it accept cookies? Is Thunderbird a browser and if so, how do I use it as such?
I can tick boxes to allow scam detection and anti virus analysis. Both are screaming privacy violations, aren’t they not?
There is a section on Thunderbird data collection and use. Obviously I should disable these if I am concerned, but I noticed these boxes are not on Betterbird, which I also downloaded for comparison purposes. I presume Betterbird automatically disabled them? Generally speaking, is Betterbird potentially superior to Thunderbird from privacy perspective?
There is a box to automatically enable encryption when possible. Does it mean that OpenPGP will be used if I set it up and send mail to someone who has also set up? Or is there another type of encryption I am missing here.
Thunderbird is not a web browser; however it is based on a heavily modified version of Firefox.
The “Remember web sites and links I’ve visited” and “Accept cookies from sites” are both settings that may be necessary for various functions of Thunderbird. For example when i set up Thunderbird i had disabled “Accept cookies from sites” and this broke the single sign on process for my email provider.
This be a privacy issue; though if you trust your anti virus/the spam detection service this is not an issue.
I have no experience with Betterbird. However i would prefer the transparency of having the check box option; as opposed to needing to assume the option has been disabled.
Yes, this option uses OpenPGP, if you have imported your keys and will automatically encrypt a conversation when communicating with someone else who has OpenPGP setup.
Thank you for clarifying this. I thought this was the situation; though i haven’t used PGP with Thunderbird in a while so i was a little fuzzy on the details.
Emails can utilize HTML and include calls to server-side for processing and such. Usually images, as they aren’t sent as attachments. And including tracking pixels.
I’d have to assume that with HTML, there may be cookies that get dropped and used while reading messages.
The “Remember web sites and links I’ve visited” and “Accept cookies from sites” are both settings that may be necessary for various functions of Thunderbird.
So the “Remember web sites and links” applies only to instances where I click on a link which opens a webpage? What is confusing me, is that this something opens through my default browser, and other times, through a new tab in thunderbird itself. I presume this box is similar to “remember browsing history” settings, but I cannot find where this history is in Thunderbird?
This be a privacy issue; though if you trust your anti virus/the spam detection service this is not an issue.
But it appears it is their spam detection service, not the spam detection of my email provider. If I disable this, does it mean by email account provider’s spam detection is disabled? This can’t be true.
As for anti-virus, again, i see nothing on integrating my anti-virus with Thunderbird. It’s as if it is Thundebird’s own anti-virus.
Trackers can be simply inserted in HTML emails?? Stuff which wouldn’t be blocked out by disabled “enable remote content in messages” ? If so, I am baffled by how it is not mentioned in the Privacy Guide,
I am not sure where/how to view the browser history in thunderbird.
Thunderbird has it’s own scam detection method which differs from the spam detection methods of your email provider. In my earlier post i accidentally referred to this as spam detection which may have caused some confusion. If you are interested in how the scam detection works, i’ve linked a Mozzila help article on the topic.
As for integrating anti viruses
This is a tool to quarantine pottentially malicious email if detected by a system anti virus (Windows Defender, ClamAV); it is not thinderbird’s on Anti Virus.