[HN Gopher] Thunderbird Time Machine: Windows XP and Thunderbird...
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Thunderbird Time Machine: Windows XP and Thunderbird 1.0
Author : HieronymusBosch
Score : 85 points
Date : 2022-08-18 13:45 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.thunderbird.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.thunderbird.net)
| rob-olmos wrote:
| Still beats Gmail's UI/UX 20 years later
| gnuj3 wrote:
| What's email provider got to do with a software provider?
| kergonath wrote:
| > Visually, it prided itself on having a pretty consistent look
| across Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux distributions like CentOS 3.3
| or Red Hat.
|
| That's probably one reason why it never was very successful on OS
| X.
| TakeBlaster16 wrote:
| I'm all for nostalgia, but I can't say I recommend putting your
| email credentials into 20-year-old software running on a 20-year-
| old OS connected to the internet.
|
| EDIT: why the downvotes? Windows XP can be infected with malware
| merely by plugging in a network cable with no user action. If you
| follow this blog post you're likely to lose your account.
| https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/185642/how-can-...
| jcranmer wrote:
| If memory serves correctly, in the Thunderbird 1.0 era, all of
| the passwords would have been saved via encryption via NSS's
| secret decoder ring methods. So if you set up a master
| password, then the contents would be encrypted on-disk. (Even
| if you didn't, they're still not stored in plaintext--I just
| think it's encrypted with something like an empty password
| instead, but I'm not certain.)
|
| Additionally, I'm pretty sure even 20 years ago, Thunderbird
| would have still thrown up resistance at trying to connect to
| an email server without using STARTTLS or SSL.
| TakeBlaster16 wrote:
| I wouldn't be worried about encryption. I'd be worried about
| any of the hundreds of widely-known vulnerabilities that were
| patched between 2002 and today.
|
| https://www.cvedetails.com/product/3678/Mozilla-
| Thunderbird....
|
| https://www.cvedetails.com/product/739/Microsoft-Windows-
| Xp....
| badsectoracula wrote:
| Yes but there is a difference between possibility and
| probability: it is technically possible to hit these
| vulnerabilities, but the chances are practically zero,
| especially in the context here where someone might try it
| once like mentioned in the article. It isn't like there are
| many malware authors out there trying to infect people
| running 20 year old software (outside of targeted attacks).
|
| I think you are more likely to be affected by a
| vulnerability bug in some random modern macOS application
| with its own autoupdater than a vulnerability in a 20 year
| old Windows program.
|
| Remember that these issues existed when that software was
| actually mainstream and yet the overwhelming majority of
| people wasn't affected by them during the peak of their
| popularity.
| [deleted]
| TakeBlaster16 wrote:
| The difference is back then, the vulnerabilities weren't
| even discovered yet. Today, metasploit scanners are
| running 24/7 scanning the entire IPv4 address space for
| thousands of vulnerabilities at a time - including
| automated chaining of exploits through e.g. routers with
| misconfigured UPnP. You don't need to be targeted. As
| mentioned above, you can be exploited with no user action
| merely by plugging in an ethernet cable.
|
| But then again, I'm not your mom. If you really want to
| do this I can't stop you. Go ahead.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I wouldn't worry too much about encryption at rest, if
| nothing else then because it's only being stored on a local
| device that you control. What I _would_ worry about is that
| those credentials are then going to be sent to a server and a
| system of that age probably doesn 't speak any modern version
| of TLS.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Target audience is likely running it in a VM and behind a NAT,
| if they even have a copy of XP. SP3 wasn't as bad as folks
| remember, look into "slipstream" for the install.
|
| Also, there are not swarms of infected XP machines around to
| attack as there were back in the day. Likely no active attacks
| for TB 1.0 as well.
|
| Worst case something might sniff an email password from an old
| version of SSL. Don't log in to important accounts I'd say.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Oh what's the worse that could happen! :)
| superkuh wrote:
| Your private data gets accessed by a random person instead of
| by a megacorp.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Same thing happens whenever you use any of those
| alternative "frontends" for sites like reddit, youtube,
| twitter etc.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >why the downvotes?
|
| The blog post wasn't recommending putting your credentials into
| ancient software. It said if you're feeling adventurous you
| could fiddle around with it yourself by downloading it from the
| archives.
| TakeBlaster16 wrote:
| Perhaps, but I can't imagine how you would fiddle around with
| an email client without adding an account, unless you just
| wanted to look at an empty list.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The few interested are already willing to go through the
| trouble of setting up a VM with an ancient OS. Presumably
| they could find some old database or virtualize a mail
| server for it or some other workaround I'm not imagining.
|
| I doubt anyone is going to read that and say "what a good
| idea, let's install Windows 98 on my hardware and muck
| about."
| floren wrote:
| If you're a ProtonMail user, you could run the Proton Bridge on
| a Linux system in your network, then use PuTTY on Win XP to
| forward the ports from there to Windows. Then Thunderbird is
| only sending bridge-specific passwords unencrypted to
| localhost, and it's all modern encryption from there on out.
| Aeolun wrote:
| As opposed to say, logging into Google?
| jonathantf2 wrote:
| Not related to Thunderbird but I think it's a testament to
| Microsoft's backwards compatibility that you can just run a
| program from 2003 with no issues whatsoever.
| mxuribe wrote:
| See, I'm torn on this. Part of me feels that the ability to use
| older hardware and hence older software (without being forced
| to upgrade both HS and SW) is liberating, fun, and gosh darn
| useful! ...And it helps with folks who financially lack the
| means to constantly keep upgrading. But, then, the other side
| of my brain says: there are some legitimate reasons for *some*
| upgrades like security updates, simpler ways of doing the same
| processes, etc. Also, developing software without needing to be
| too backwards-compatible does make it so many more people can
| participate in development without too much burden. I imagine
| some yound person new dev and full of creative new ideas need
| not to learn tons of legacy code only for backwards
| compatibility. That approach of freshness can be liberating
| too!
| captainmuon wrote:
| What's interesting to me is that I actually like the old
| interface better than the current one. But the part that matters,
| the actual email list, has barely changed in 20 years. This is
| the place where I feel they need to modernize most. Thunderbird
| needs a robust, clean conversation view, like GMail or macOS
| Mail.app (That app is actually one of the main reasons I use a
| Mac right now. If there was an on par OSS version I would
| probably use Linux.)
|
| Also, I miss proper Outlook (Office365/Exchange) integration. I
| hate it, but if you use it at work it has to work. There is an
| integration, but it is a paid plugin.
|
| That said, I really hope Thunderbird succeeds and becomes
| relevant again. If you have a certain amount of mail, a real mail
| client is just so much better than webmail, and it is great to
| have an OSS version.
| heldergg wrote:
| > the actual email list, has barely changed in 20 years
|
| That's about to change:
|
| https://developer.thunderbird.net/planning/roadmap
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| > conversation view
|
| One webmail I use has this, but shows only one line per
| message, with giant headers. I have to expand the thread anyway
| so don't see the point. Maybe if it could show most of each
| message like a chat client it would be useful.
|
| > becomes relevant again
|
| Been using it since it was called "Netscape Mail."
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| yes, I recall eagerly installing Mozilla + Thunderbird 1.0 in
| 2004 but on Hoary Hedgehog (Ubuntu 5.04) not WinXP.
| haunter wrote:
| I'd pay for a modern (secure) Eudora port. It was a great
| software and 7.1 source code is available
| https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-eudora-email-client-sou...
|
| There was a Thunderbird Eudora client (well it was an extension)
| but got abandoned quickly
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudora_OSE
| fimdomeio wrote:
| I don't know if it's nostalgia, if it's XP being the pinacle of
| user interface design, or if it was the thunderbird designers,
| but the screenshot looks better than current thunderbird. The
| balance between the items and how much that ask for your
| attention feels just right
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| > pinnacle
|
| It was nearby. The class of NeXTSTEP, Win2k, SGI, and aspects
| of the Amiga/MacOS9 around the turn of the century are some of
| the best computing interfaces ever made.
|
| Intuitive, direct, consistent, easy to learn & use. Labels
| concise. Apps respected system themes with the exception of a
| few "skinz" media players, and they were even customizable!
| _Gentlemen, we have the technology._
|
| I'd prefer one of these with the addition of modern niceties
| like menu search. Mate is close, but it is slowly rotting via
| GTK3/4 from the bottom up. I.e. the Disks app on a 4k monitor
| is a mess.
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| I think KDE still has the style of older systems, or at least
| to me it seems like it does. GTK DEs are all a total disaster
| and definitely a sinking ship for anyone wishing to have any
| customization or usability over their system, I booted up
| XFCE the other day on Linux Mint, and 3 different programs
| all had their own title bars. Things like that don't ever
| seem to happen on Windows or KDE.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Yes. KDE however suffered for many years from what I like
| to call "programmer art." Including bad fonts and padding.
| It also had a bewildering amount of control panels and
| tweak-ability.
|
| Better than a lack of them, but Win2k had it just about
| right. A reasonable amount of configurability, mostly good
| defaults, and just about anything possible via a setting
| hidden underneath.
|
| Gnome and KDE seem to have chosen opposite sides of that
| happy medium.
|
| Looking at recent screen shots KDE seems to have fixed the
| first problem. I'll have to try it again.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| You might also be interested in Hot Dog Linux, mlvwm, nsCDE,
| MaXXdesktop or any of the "novelty" CSS themes such as:
|
| https://github.com/andersevenrud/retro-css-shell-demo
|
| https://github.com/arturbien/React95
|
| https://github.com/botoxparty/XP.css
|
| https://github.com/Gioni06/terminal.css
|
| https://github.com/jdan/98.css
|
| https://github.com/jianzhongli/csswin10
|
| https://github.com/khang-nd/7.css
|
| https://github.com/kristopolous/BOOTSTRA.386
|
| https://github.com/lachsfilet/Renkbench
|
| https://github.com/lolstring/window98-html-css-js
|
| https://github.com/micah5/PSone.css
|
| https://github.com/nostalgic-css/NES.css
|
| https://github.com/npjg/classic.css
|
| https://github.com/robbiebyrd/platinum
|
| https://github.com/bryanbraun/after-dark-css
|
| https://github.com/npjg/new-dawn
|
| https://github.com/ritenv/retro-desktop
|
| https://github.com/RoelN/c64css3
|
| https://github.com/sakofchit/system.css
|
| https://github.com/vinibiavatti1/TuiCss
|
| https://code.divshot.com/geo-bootstrap/
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Neat, but these don't have the directness that even Win 3.x
| had, click on a widget and set the color.
| polski-g wrote:
| Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of GUIs. Things have gotten worse
| since then. In the past five years they've fallen off a cliff.
| Absurd amounts of whitespace. Buttons without borders. Icons
| only instead of text buttons. And I have to reiterate the
| absurd whitespace quantities.
| pjerem wrote:
| I'll be honest, I liked the XP "Fisher Price" look even more.
|
| Yes it was hype to mock its colorful style, but it's
| forgetting that every UI control was refined, consistent,
| with enough relief and contrast but still sober enough to not
| steal the app identity.
|
| It was flashy for sure but for me it was a breadth of oxygen
| after decades of grey. Icons were very discoverable, Control
| Panel was just the OG control panel but sorted into
| categories.
|
| It was a beautiful OS for the present, not an UI coming from
| a futuristic movie like everything today where animations and
| great looking empty space are more important than usability.
| walrus01 wrote:
| if you like windows 2000 as a pinnacle of GUIs, you should be
| quite happy with the current stable versions of XFCE4
| bombcar wrote:
| Exactly this. Aero was great not because of itself, but
| because it was basically Fisher-Price Windows 2000, where
| things were clearly things.
|
| The Mac from around that time was similar, even if
| pinstriped.
|
| Touch and the anti-skeumorphism has destroyed computer UIs.
| wtallis wrote:
| IIRC, Aero was the Windows Vista UI disaster, while Luna
| was the reasonably usable (albeit excessive) Windows XP
| theme.
| sigzero wrote:
| Agree with you there.
| domador wrote:
| I would call the design aesthetic du jour "the White
| Wasteland". It's a symptom of what I'd call
| "fundaminimalism". Minimalism isn't automatically better when
| it comes to user interface design, but too many designers
| seem to think it is.
|
| On a related note, why does everyone have to slavishly
| imitate Google's ugly, bland, undifferentiated interfaces,
| why?!? Nowadays, GUI seems to stand for Google-Ugly
| Interface.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| > the White Wasteland
|
| > fundaminimalism
|
| > Google-Ugly Interface
|
| The irony is that you put more effort into coining those
| pejoratives than the UX designers put into their UIs.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I'm think it's a combination of nostalgia and familiarity.
| Those were the kinds of UI's I used when I took classes about
| computer programs and spent a lot of time independently
| learning programs.
|
| All those hours spent makes it feel more comfortable though it
| may not actually be better.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I think ""preferred familiarity" over time is literally the
| only meaningful definition of "better."
|
| I'm growing quite tired of the deeply stupid idea that these
| UX/UI people understand how I work better than I do.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| "Preferred familiarity" is a subjective thing, and since
| you've developed your preferences there have been a billion
| new computer users who are more familiar with the modern
| designs. That's why the designs change, things like
| Thunderbird aren't the trend setters.
|
| Ideally both UI gets maintained, but that's not always
| feasible.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Sure, but lets keep clear what you're saying:
|
| "Despite the existence of working preferences, so called
| modern-designers spend their days changing things for
| potentially no reason -- but even if there is a good
| reason -- they're also breaking backward compatibility."
|
| In other words, let's not pretend how design-fashion is
| executed is always good or even neutral in operation in
| terms of helping people.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >let's not pretend how design-fashion is executed is
| always good or even neutral in operation in terms of
| helping people.
|
| This isn't unique to modern design. Your preference is
| also full of bad decisions that don't always help people.
| You've spent decades using them and are now accustomed to
| the way they work and don't even see them as flaws.
|
| It's largely familiarity, and is another form of "things
| were better back in my days."
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > since you've developed your preferences there have been
| a billion new computer users who are more familiar with
| the modern designs. That's why the designs change
|
| That is logically impossible; the designs cannot change
| due to the emergence of users who are more familiar with
| future designs than they are with present designs. No
| such users can ever exist.
| stormbrew wrote:
| I'm still mad at whoever decided to hide the entire menu bar in
| a burger menu and made everything in it take twice as long to
| find and use.
| Narishma wrote:
| If it's like Firefox, the menu bar shows up when you press
| Alt.
| heldergg wrote:
| And with two clicks you can make it permanently visible.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| When they take new designs to user research, one of the
| questions asked is "Which one of these options looks
| 'cleaner' in your opinion, A or B?" And when one of the
| objectives of the org has been declared as "clean up the UI"
| I'm sure you can imagine why we end up with the disgusting
| hamburger menus everywhere. And the people who championed a
| 'win' from such a change will parachute to the next company
| and do the same thing.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| It's not just nostalgia:
|
| - the buttons are big
|
| - there is high contrasts
|
| - sections are clearly delimited
|
| I have the current Thunderbird open all day, and I'm constantly
| searching for things. It looks much better, much leaner and
| cleaner. But nothing stands out from the rest, everything is a
| shade of grey, buttons are flat, section are loosely separated
| or sometimes merged, labels don't have icons.
|
| It's like the debate about cars with touch screen or buttons:
| the touch screen makes for a much better look, but its
| usability sucks.
|
| It's not just thunderbird. Phone apps, web apps, they all
| follow trends that have nothing to do with usability. They copy
| each others in loop, bored designers go one more round (see
| ubuntu for an extreme example of this), A/B testing tells
| manager people downloaded your app more because of the pretty
| UI or screenshots on the short term.
|
| But the current design is a usability disaster, and is only
| partially working because the UI are getting dumbed down more
| and more. Apps have less and less accessible buttons and menus.
| It makes you less productive, but it's easier for the average
| user, thanks to the paradox of choice. Because of this, having
| a lean UI is not as terrible, since you don't display much on
| the viewport anyway (e.g: youtube latest changes, or just tik
| tok). But of course, advanced users pay a price for that. Also,
| you can't do it for professional software unless you want to
| render it harder to use. Case in point: Thunderbird.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| We used to have artistic masterpieces for icons compared to
| the near incomprehensible "silhouette" style uninspired
| hieroglyphs we call icons today.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| To me the 1.0 screenshot looks nearly identical to the
| Thunderbird window I have open right now.
|
| I don't have email-related buttons, since I have no email
| account configured. I use Thunderbird for RSS feeds. But the
| rest of the interface is exactly the same, except that the
| window topbar is tabbed in modern Thunderbird.
|
| As for Windows XP being the pinnacle of design, I always
| hated its default theme (visible in the screenshot of the
| setup window, though, oddly, not in the screenshot of the
| running app) and changed it to the Windows 95 theme on all of
| my computers. I still hate the XP look.
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