Now 91.1.0: Current shipping Thunderbird: 78.13.0 or 91.0.2?

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Thunderbird
DN123ABC
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Re: Current shipping Thunderbird: 78.13.0 or 91.0.2?

Post by DN123ABC »

So, now it seems Thunderbird is on 2 different "release" development paths:

78.14.0 just came out yesterday as the update to 78.13.0

and 91.1.0 came out as the update to 91.0.3.

They tell you they both have security fixes. Which one is preferred? I would think the newest 91.1.0 has the most fixes, right?

What do you do when you are trying to maintain multiple users and computers, and want to keep the best one installed everywhere? Let them upgrade themselves, and meanwhile go around leapfrogging to the newest?
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tanstaafl
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Re: Current shipping Thunderbird: 78.13.0 or 91.0.2?

Post by tanstaafl »

The "party line" is that you should always update to the latest version to get the current security fixes. Its a good idea to stay uptodate. However security fixes are over-rated as despite most of them being listed as high impact, they are usually for a potential vulnerability that is not a risk unless javascript is enabled, and javascript is not enabled for mail accounts. This causes an issue whenever a new major version is released and its not obvious whether its mature enough to meet your needs.

You can look at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/ if you want more details about the security fixes. Note the "In general, these flaws cannot be exploited through email in the Thunderbird product because scripting is disabled when reading mail, but are potentially risks in browser or browser-like contexts"

Its going to take a while for many add-ons to be updated to support 91.*. Auto-update will probably be enabled for 91 soon. I suggest you encourage people to wait until 91 is available by autoupdate. If that's not practical I suggest you encourage anybody who has a lot of add-ons to stick with 78 for the moment.

https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/enterprise would be a good place to ask other admins for their advice. You didn't mention anything about whether you are using any sort of remote deploy tool, that might be a factor to consider.
DN123ABC
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Re: Current shipping Thunderbird: 78.13.0 or 91.0.2?

Post by DN123ABC »

tanstaafl wrote:The "party line" is that you should always update to the latest version to get the current security fixes. Its a good idea to stay uptodate. However security fixes are over-rated as despite most of them being listed as high impact, they are usually for a potential vulnerability that is not a risk unless javascript is enabled, and javascript is not enabled for mail accounts. This causes an issue whenever a new major version is released and its not obvious whether its mature enough to meet your needs.
"Mature enough"? I should think 91 has everything and more that 78 has as far as security. This is why it is a bit confusing that the new release is available, but the old one won't update to it yet.

tanstaafl wrote:Its going to take a while for many add-ons to be updated to support 91.*. Auto-update will probably be enabled for 91 soon. I suggest you encourage people to wait until 91 is available by autoupdate. If that's not practical I suggest you encourage anybody who has a lot of add-ons to stick with 78 for the moment.
Interesting. The only addons I know of in use are "Lookout (fix version)", and "Provider for Google Calendar". Maybe "Compact Headers", but I don't know whether that is needed any longer. Oh, and "Remove Duplicate Messages". By "soon", do you mean within days, or a month?


https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/enterprise would be a good place to ask other admins for their advice. You didn't mention anything about whether you are using any sort of remote deploy tool, that might be a factor to consider.[/quote]
wsmwk
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Re: Current shipping Thunderbird: 78.13.0 or 91.0.2?

Post by wsmwk »

DN123ABC wrote: "Mature enough"? I should think 91 has everything and more that 78 has as far as security. This is why it is a bit confusing that the new release is available, but the old one won't update to it yet.
It sounds like you don't know of a reason to do otherwise, so let Thunderbird do your updating. That's why the process exists.
DN123ABC
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Re: Current shipping Thunderbird: 78.13.0 or 91.0.2?

Post by DN123ABC »

wsmwk wrote:
DN123ABC wrote: "Mature enough"? I should think 91 has everything and more that 78 has as far as security. This is why it is a bit confusing that the new release is available, but the old one won't update to it yet.
It sounds like you don't know of a reason to do otherwise, so let Thunderbird do your updating. That's why the process exists.
The trouble is it is not always an update. I found the new version "accidentally" when I went to install Thunderbird on a new computer. When I saw the totally different version, I started on this path of exploration. Still no real good explanation for what to do here. If there were at least a simple timeline of what is happening, people would be better able to make informed decisions.
DN123ABC
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Re: Now 91.1.0: Current shipping Thunderbird: 78.13.0 or 91.

Post by DN123ABC »

See comment here:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=3078166


(maybe a "moderator" could merge these two posts/"threads")
DN123ABC
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Re: Now 91.1.0: Current shipping Thunderbird: 78.13.0 or 91.

Post by DN123ABC »

DN123ABC
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Re: Now 91.1.0: Current shipping Thunderbird: 78.13.0 or 91.

Post by DN123ABC »

FYI:
78 is now updating to 91 under Help:About.
John-Jay
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Re: Now 91.1.0: Current shipping Thunderbird: 78.13.0 or 91.

Post by John-Jay »

DN123ABC wrote:FYI:
78 is now updating to 91 under Help:About.
Well, I haven't been offered the Update yet!! I'm still being told that my 78.14.0 (64-bit) is fully up to date!
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tanstaafl
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Re: Now 91.1.0: Current shipping Thunderbird: 78.13.0 or 91.

Post by tanstaafl »

One of the posts in tb-planning said:

"Next week manual updates will be enabled for users on version 78. A few days after that change, when we have success with more users on version 91, we will then enable automatic updates from version 78. (Caveat - some language/locale issues are still being resolved. Until that work is completed, only en-US installs will be enabled for updates.)"

Perhaps you're using a different locale than en-US.
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