Thunderbird announced it has taken over maintenance of the Snap version of the email client, putting it in direct control of the version slated to be the default on Ubuntu.

Snaps are Canonical’s containerized application format for Linux and directly competes with Flatpak. Both formats solve the issue of having up-to-date applications on stable, long-term-support (LTS). With traditional LTS distros, package versions are frozen for the lifespan of that release, only receiving security and bug fixes, but not new features. Snaps and Flatpaks solve this issue by including all the necessary dependencies within the package, giving users the ability to have the latest and greatest software, regardless of how old the underlying distro is.

Ubuntu already packages Firefox as a Snap package and plans to do the same with Thunderbird in Ubuntu 24.04. The Thunderbird developers are directly supporting the Thunderbird Snap to help improve the experience.

We love our Linux users across all Linux distributions. That is why we’ve stepped up to help maintain the Thunderbird Snap available in the Snap Store.

Last year we took ownership of the Thunderbird Flatpak, and it has been our officially recommended package for Linux users. However, we are expanding our horizons to make sure the Thunderbird Snap experience is officially supported too. We at Thunderbird are team “free software”, independent of the packaging technology. This will mostly affect our Ubuntu users but there are plenty of other Snap users out there as well.

As the Thunderbird devs point out, Ubuntu users will see immediate benefits.

If you are an Ubuntu user, then you may already be using the Thunderbird Snap. The next release of Ubuntu is 24.04 (available April 25) and will be the first Ubuntu release that seeds the Thunderbird Snap on the ISO. So if you do a fresh full install of Ubuntu, you will be using the Thunderbird Snap that you know is directly supported by the Thunderbird team.

If you are not an Ubuntu user but Snaps are still a part of your life, then you will still benefit from the same rolling updates provided by the Snap experience.