kaiengert

Please see this helpful clarification post: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms...

there is a response here: https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:tpp

Thunderbird supports OpenPGP and S/MIME for email encryption.

For how to set it up, see here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-help-setup-...

Your statement needs some clarification.

Yes, Thunderbird supports OpenPGP, with a fully integrated solution.

However, Thunderbird doesn't use gpg by default, because of license incompatibility Thunderbird cannot bundle GnuPG software.

That's why Thunderbird uses the RNP library as its default OpenPGP backend.

You may optionally configure externally installed GnuPG for secret key operations, as described at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:OpenPGP:Smartcards

Yes, you can use smartcards with S/MIME.

You, you can use smartcards with OpenPGP, if you configure Thunderbird for optional GnuPG support. This way Thunderbird can use your secret key that is managed by GnuPG, for secret key operations, including keys on smartcards.

How to do that is documented here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:OpenPGP:Smartcards

Maybe it was mentioned as one of the technologies we consider, because it took us a while to make the final decision.

No, Thunderbird 78 doesn't use OpenPGP.js - it uses RNP and Botan for OpenPGP.

Note that NSS contains a classic certificate verification engine, which was originally written in C.

The above statement refers to an external contribution that was added to NSS. It added a second validation engine to NSS, libpkix.

It's true that the libpkix portion is very complicated code, but the above statement doesn't apply to NSS in general.