This is official description applies to version 10.0
Thunderbird is a free email application that's easy to set up and customize - and it's loaded with great features.
You can now search the Web without having to leave Thunderbird. Type whatever comes to mind in Thunderbird's search box and choose from several different search resources such as Google, Bing, Twitter, Wikipedia, and several more to find the answer you need.
The following review written by one of the Software Informer contributors applies to version 3.1
Thunderbird is a free email application that's easy to set up and customize. The latest version of Thunderbird is more responsive and faster to start up and use. It comes with a new and better search functionality, with a new message toolbar, a new Add-ons Manager, new Troubleshooting Information page. Speed, performance, stability and security were improved. You can now reorder and drag tabs to different windows. The attachment sizes are now displayed along with attachments. The Migration Assistant helps you to set up Thunderbird the way you want. You can also install add-ons from the Migration Assistant like Advanced Folder Columns and Compact Header for your messages display window. The action buttons are tied directly to the message and leave more room in the toolbar for the richer search text box, as well as add-ons.The compact message reader view has been moved into its own extension. You will want for sure to install The Extra Folder Columns extension to keep tabs on the exact count of messages and disk space each folder is using. It's very easy to setup an e-mail account now and all the information you need to provide is your name, email address, and password. The email account set-up will wizardry check the database and find the email settings for you. The address book is a great tool with its new one-click feature, a quick and easy way to add people to your address book. You can add people by simply clicking the star icon in the message you receive. Other details, like photos, birthdays and other contact information can be added as simple as that. Another great feature is the attachment reminder, which looks for the word 'attachment' in the body of your message and reminds you to add an attachment before hitting the "send" button. So you will have no chance to forget to attach something.
The Quick Filter Toolbar lets you find an email you need faster. Start typing in the words in the search box, and the results will be displayed instantly. Smart Folders help you manage multiple email accounts by combining special folders, like your Inbox, Sent, or Archive folders. For example, instead of going to the Inbox for each of your mail accounts, you can compact your emails in one folder. And the most important feature of Thunderbird is that it secures and protects your e-mail. Thunderbird's popular junk mail tools have been updated to stay free of spam. Each email you receive passes through Thunderbird's leading-edge junk mail filters. Each time you mark a message as spam, Thunderbird remembers and improves its filtering, so you can save your time. Thunderbird can also use your mail provider's spam filters to keep junk mail out of your inbox. Also Thunderbird offers support for user privacy. Thunderbird protects you from email scams, which try to trick users to hand over personal and confidential information by indicating a potential fishing attempt. As a second line of defence, Thunderbird warns you when you click on a link which appears to be taking you to a different web site than the one indicated by the URL in the message. It's great that Thunderbird's update system checks out to see if you are running the latest version, and notifies you when a security update is available. It's a good thing that the security updates are small (usually 200KB - 700KB), giving you exactly what you need. Because of this it's easy and very quick to download and to install the security updates.
It's easy to setup you account, to write an e-mail or to attach something. You have no chance to forget to attach something because of Attachment Reminder feature.
It's easy to manage folders and to manage Address Book.
It has a good search engine.
Hard to import the address book from Yahoo account.
Reviewed by: Irina Bruma
Reviewer rating:
Reviewed: 9 months ago
What's new in version 10.0
- New ability to search the Web
- Improvements to email search
- Several fixes when drafting email
- and several other platform fixes
What's new in version 3.1
The latest version of Thunderbird comes with more new features: it's more responsive and faster to start up and use, is based on the new Mozilla Gecko 5 engine, has a New Add-ons Manager, has revised account creation wizard, has a new Troubleshooting Information page, tabs can now be reordered and dragged to different windows, attachment sizes are now displayed along with attachments, there are several theme fixes for Windows Vista and Windows 7. Speed, performance, stability and security were improved.
I have used Thunderbird for a very long time, right from the very first versions, and under all
distributions of Linux, as well as MS, always pleased with the results. My only disappointment is with the fact that I cannot download from hotmail all user-specified
folders as well as the inbox. Ideas? Agustín
other features: Integrated with the most important free mail providers (gmial, Yahoo!, hotmail) Lightning calendar (installed as a plug-in) suports webDAV calendars (like google calendar @
gmail) infinitelly extensible via plug-ins available in the developper page
