this may not be the right spot to ask this, but when doing an add-on for thunderbird, e.g. emojis, phoneity icons, why do they all require total access to everything on your computer? all that i've seen so far have the message;
''it requires your permission to:
have full, unrestricted access to Thunderbird, and your computer'
kinda makes me nervous about putting in any add-ons...
add-ons computer access
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tanstaafl
- Moderator
- Posts: 49647
- Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm
Re: add-ons computer access
That's a side effect of changing from legacy (XUL/XPCOM based) add-ons to MailExtension add-ons. Despite the scary warning they actually have less access/privileges than legacy add-ons, which can do anything that Thunderbird can. I wouldn't worry about it.
You can run Thunderbird in a sandbox using programs such as sandboxie if you want. A sandbox uses less memory/resources than a virtual machine (VM).
https://askleo.com/whats-the-difference ... l-machine/
https://www.ghacks.net/2021/01/29/sandb ... interface/
https://community.sophos.com/sandboxie/ ... or-message
You can run Thunderbird in a sandbox using programs such as sandboxie if you want. A sandbox uses less memory/resources than a virtual machine (VM).
https://askleo.com/whats-the-difference ... l-machine/
https://www.ghacks.net/2021/01/29/sandb ... interface/
https://community.sophos.com/sandboxie/ ... or-message
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DaveRo
- Posts: 69
- Joined: May 9th, 2008, 10:00 pm
Re: add-ons computer access
Not all Mail Extensions require that scary access. For example my own 'Limit non-BCC recipients' requires
Read and modify your address books and contacts
Read and modify your email messages as you compose and send them
To make conversion of the old XUL/XPCOM addons easier some tools are available which produce an addon which is a sort-of Mail Extension, but still has access to a lot of the old methods for modifying Thunderbird. I think it is these that require these wider permissions. And it tends to be the more complex and capable add-ons which are using these tools - bacause Mail Extension API's are not yet adequate.
The old add-ons always did have 'full, unrestricted access to Thunderbird, and your computer'. The difference is that you now know this!
Read and modify your address books and contacts
Read and modify your email messages as you compose and send them
To make conversion of the old XUL/XPCOM addons easier some tools are available which produce an addon which is a sort-of Mail Extension, but still has access to a lot of the old methods for modifying Thunderbird. I think it is these that require these wider permissions. And it tends to be the more complex and capable add-ons which are using these tools - bacause Mail Extension API's are not yet adequate.
The old add-ons always did have 'full, unrestricted access to Thunderbird, and your computer'. The difference is that you now know this!
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tbirdphil
- Posts: 23
- Joined: April 3rd, 2021, 11:49 am
Re: add-ons computer access
Thank you for the response. My wife had been using Incredimail which is now defunct and loved its easy interface. i've been trying to find something similar for her to use. I have her on emclient at present but she's not real happy with it. Thunderbird is the best i've found with the ability to change all the fonts/menus/colors/add icons instead of just text for menu selections, etc. i think she'll be happy with it when i get it totally set up. i'm on emclient too but think i'll probably switch over too, once i get everything set up(i'm running emclient & thunderbird both now for comparsion and get things set up like I want).
Anyway, I will check out the links that were in one of the answers and go from there and do some reading on MailExtensions. Thanks again.
Anyway, I will check out the links that were in one of the answers and go from there and do some reading on MailExtensions. Thanks again.