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For many year now, I have used Thunderbird as my primary e-mail program. I don't remember exactly why, but at some point I had gotten used to it and I liked the simplicity of copying my account from an old machine to a new one and there everything was again.

Recently I was reminded why I chose open-source software that was built with privacy in mind.

I was looking for a new job, so I reached out to some recruiters on LinkedIn. After a couple of messages and phone-calls I got an e-mail from one particular recruiter with a bunch of links to job offers. The link texts were the urls of various company sites and job portals so I didn't pay too much attention.

As I clicked on the first link, an alert popped up, warning me that the link text did not match the link target. When I looked at the html, I discovered that the link targets were actually to a click-tracking site that would redirect me to the website I was actually looking for. I was negatively surprised.

When I inquired about it, he told me that it was just the way his e-mail software for managing potential clients was set up. I told him I disapproved and reminded him that other clients of his might have a similar negative experience when they'd find out that he was tracking their clicks.

I was impressed by Thunderbird that day. Since I use it almost every day for years now, I take the privacy features for granted and pay little attention to them. That day, I did, and now I'm grateful for Mozilla and the countless contributors that gave their time to develop a great piece of software.