Integrate Google Chat with Mozilla Thunderbird.

[Conehead1978]

The new Mozilla Thunderbird for Windows has a tab for Google Talk, but it appears unsupported. How about providing a tab for Google Chat instead?

[Fireruff]

Is there anyone who uses Google Chat at all?

[citb]

> Is there anyone who uses Google Chat at all?

YES!!!

[alexispurslane]

I would really rather not further Google's infiltration into everything. It gives them a foothold, and it's likely to leak data, and it just makes things worse for those of us trying to avoid them completely.

[Seamaiden]

Integration for Google Chat would be an advantage. The application was initially developed for teams and businesses but is now widely used by general consumers. Integration with Google Meet, which replaced Google Duo for video calling, would also be nice. Finally, integration with WhatsApp, the "number one most popular chatting app in the world," according to Google) might also be helpful.

[jojje]

Why Google chat specifically?
Why not Slack, or Microsoft teams?

Personally I'd like to have a non-Electron version of Slack if I could, but I think those sort of addons would be best suited as ... addons.

If you're going to rebuild Thunderbird, please don't begin immediately adding cruft to the core. Scratching every person's itch is after all what addons are meant to solve.

[Seamaiden]

Jojje brings up a valid point. Slack and Microsoft Teams integration would be great too...using extensions (add-ons) for that integration. Redesigning Thunderbird to add support for other applications could end up bloating Thunderbird.

I want to revise my previous comment. Add-ons could handle support for various chat applications. These are listed alphabetically: Google Chat and Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, Skype and Skype for Business, Slack, and any others .

[s1fly]

+100 to that @jojje and @Seamaiden. Perhaps this needs a rethinking of the Chat feature in Thunderbird. Ideally, it should support chat in any form, from Google Chat, Teams, Slack to Google Messages, Whatsapp and Signal. I appreciate some of these might not be possible due to end-to-end encryption or APIs not supporting apps, but it could a great deal more value to TB.

[arkhi]

I’m joining @s1fly, @jojje and @Seamaiden on this.

I would gladly see Thunderbird as a strong and stable minimal application for e‑mail, and addons for people’s needs.

This way, dependencies to other services can come and go without impacting the development of the main features and without cluttering the space of people who don’t need those dependencies.

Of course, addons can be developed by the Core team.

[s1fly]

Nice one @arkhi couldn't agree more and you're right, begin as a minimal but stable app and grow. By the looks of the UI, it seems that people will be able to configure how they want Thunderbird to work, so this feeds in well.