Anybody know how to disable the "Activity Manager"?

[John C.]

All these years I've been using Thunderbird and I never noticed this
Activity Manager "feature" which tracks, AND LOGS, all of my actions
while I'm using the program:

Tools/Activity Manager

If this information is being collected, then it's just a short step for
the information to be sent as background telemetry and at some point,
I'm guessing this is likely to happen. I really, really don't like that
idea.

I want to turn off this "feature", which I've never used and now that I
know it's there can find no use for. Does anybody know now to do this?

TIA

--
John Corliss

[Wayne Mery]

You can't.
And it's temporal - not saved to disk.
There is no risk here.

[John C.]

Wayne Mery wrote:
> John C. wrote:
>> All these years I've been using Thunderbird and I never noticed this
>> Activity Manager "feature" which tracks, AND LOGS, all of my actions
>> while I'm using the program:
>>
>> Tools/Activity Manager
>>
>> If this information is being collected, then it's just a short step
>> for the information to be sent as background telemetry and at some
>> point, I'm guessing this is likely to happen. I really, really don't
>> like that idea.
>>
>> I want to turn off this "feature", which I've never used and now that

>> I know it's there can find no use for. Does anybody know how to do this?

>>
>> TIA
>
> You can't.
> And it's temporal - not saved to disk.
> There is no risk here.

That there's no risk is your opinion only and you're entitled to it, of
course. However, I disagree with your opinion.

You're correct in that the list disappears when you close the program,
but as long as that information exists in RAM it's sensitive data which,
AFAIK, serves no purpose and can be used against me if acquired somehow
by a party who intends to cause me problems. In fact, it has similar
qualities to a keylogger.

Perhaps it time for me to start exploring Thunderbird's code, despite
the repugnancy of that notion.

Thanks for pointing out the temporary nature of the information though.

--
John Corliss

[WaltS48]

So this morning the dastardly hackers would know I moved 9 messages from
Inbox to Bugzilla on my Gmail account, 1 message downloaded to my
Comcast account and 1 message moved from the Inbox to Diane on my
Comcast account.

How is that sensitive information?

You do change the account names in the account settings and remove the
email address. I did for all my accounts. Probably a problem if you have
more than one account with an email provider.

Oh, TB just checked my Comcast account and the Activity Manager shows
"No messages to download" with Comcast below that line.

--
OS: Ubuntu Linux 18.04LTS - Gnome Desktop
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/get-involved/

[Grant Taylor]

On 1/20/20 12:01 PM, John C. wrote:
> All these years I've been using Thunderbird and I never noticed this
> Activity Manager "feature" which tracks, AND LOGS, all of my actions
> while I'm using the program:

I've looked at Activity Manager on and off for years.

You can click the clear button in the window.

> If this information is being collected, then it's just a short step for
> the information to be sent as background telemetry and at some point,
> I'm guessing this is likely to happen. I really, really don't like that
> idea.

I've always viewed it as a way for Thunderbird to tell you what it's
doing. This is quit helpful when you've got multiple thousand folders
on an IMAP server that you are having Thunderbird check and sync.

I don't view this as a "collection" of information as much as I do it
like Thunderbird saying "I'm doing this…I'm done.", "I'm doing this
other thing…I'm done.".

> I want to turn off this "feature", which I've never used and now that I
> know it's there can find no use for. Does anybody know now to do this?

You /might/ be able to make the window go away. But I'm betting much of
the scaffold in the code for it wills till be in place.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die