Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4 Released
Random BedHead Ed writes "The latest release of Mozilla Thunderbird, the standalone Mozilla mail program, has been released and is available for download here. A quick scan of the release notes shows some new improvements and features, including a new look, bug fixes, and for Linux users the ability to click on a URL in an e-mail and have it actually launch in your default web browser (how novel). Download and enjoy..."
Coding and review is currently being done on extending the spell check component to work in broswer windows. So not there yet, but it's on the horizon.
Thunderbird can use IMAP. I do it at home.
Even though IMAP is not Exchange's native language, i have seen some Exchange servers running an additional IMAP service. So you may be lucky.
But doesn't Deutsche Banke have an opinion regarding employees installing unapproved software on the company's computers? I would certainly hope so, even if it means that you can't use a proper mail client.
Thunderbird 0.4 finally adds an optional extension to sync the Thunderbird address book with your PalmOS based handheld. Grab it from here.
1) Might ask for help in a Better Place
2) Apples and Oranges, POPFile isn't a spam filter, it's an email classification system.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
No, the difference here is that with Microsoft products you don't see the development process.
This is version 0.4 remember? Look at that number... do the developers think it's finnished? Even half-finnished?
Install a nice linux desktop with Evolution/KMail + any browser and everything will be at least as integrated as on Windows.
I was lazy and used Outlook Express for email, plus an old Hotmail account hanging around. After working with Firebird betas for awhile I gave Thunderbird a try and have used it ever since, even tapping into my Hotmail with the free and excellent Hotmail Popper. Unfortunately only for Windows, but still and excellent companion to Thunderbird. (Also works with any POP email client) And thankfully once Hotpop downloads the msgs the TBird spam filter goes into effect.
Jonah Hex
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
In "Tools"->"Options"->"Advanced" you will find a checkbox for "Block loading of remote images in mail messages" :-) This option has been present for a long time (at least as long as I've known about Thunderbird) :-)
I use Thunderbird at the office against an Exchange server. It doesn't interface with Exchange calendaring (at least AFAIK), but the mail works great. Set it up as a IMAP client. You can get the settings from your Outlook install.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Does anyone know if or when Thunderbird will support either an Emacs mode or configurable bindings without editing the source code? I seem to recall somewhere in some Mozilla manifesto that Emacs bindings were supposed to take precedence. Thunderbird has a fine set of keybindings, but it's nothing like Emacs.
Yeah, here it is:
When these two bindings conflict (as in ctrl-A or ctrl-H), the emacs binding wins.
Not that I'm saying they should necessarily make this the default, but the above implies they recognize how large the Emacs userbase is; it would be nice to at least be able to configure it myself without having to recompile.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
hotwayd lets you access a hotmail account through any mail client on linux. What it is is a local POP3 server that translates the POP requests into Microsoft's Hotmail protocol.
This was being worked on as an extension to Thunderbird. It uses the Mozilla Calendar as the basis for adding a calendar in to Thunderbird.
...unfortunately November 19 was the last time the site was updated and it is not even workable on 0.4.
Firebird simply doesn't have as much linux developers. That's the thing with open source, you can't assign work to your developers. It's one thing saying "firebird needs to be optimised for linux/X", and a whole other thing to actually do it.
... NOT.
What I can tell you though, is that despite firebird being slower on linux than on windows, it's not noticeably slower (for me anyway). And in addition, it is a fast browser, even on linux. On windows it even whoops IE's ass in various benchmarks. A lot of people have misconceptions about firebird's rendering speed because they're used to IE's render-as-soon-as-data-arrives model of updating the screen, which starts sooner, but ends later. If you want that in firebird, type about:config and set nglayout.initialpaint.delay to 0. One more thing: I have a pII/233 that I run firebird on. It runs at a usable clip, even on such a low-end system.
And obviously, whenever a graphical application is slow, it is X's fault
>Even though IMAP is not Exchange's native language
.4 are much welcomed and tb has been my prefered email client for a few months now.
Mail severs don't really have native languages. Exchange supports protocols just like any other mail server. POP3, IMAP, and MAPI.
I use tbird with Exchange and have no problems with IMAP nor with IMAP over SSL (which Exchange supports too). I just generated a non-authorized SSL cert and off I went.
A couple problems/issues:
Tbird does not support NTLM authentication, so if you're using IMAP or POP your password will be sent as plain-text unless you use SSL.
Microsoft really half-asses IMAP. If I open my contact folder and open a contact, I get a blank email. Same with notes. It doesn't seem like it would be much trouble to just deliver the ascii format of those contacts and notes in the body of the email.
That said, the changes in
I would still like to see something other than "Catching up with Microsoft" in the future. How about integrating with gpg and having an easy to use GUI to encrypt messages. Currently, you have to get gpg, install enigmail, and pray. A built-in encryption module could really help push encryption onto the masses.
Or even an installer for win32. (there's an unofficial installer btw)
Sounds like a scheduling/latency issue. Try renicing X to run at -5, or upgrade to a test version of kernel 2.6, where a lot of the latency/sluggish feel of X in general will be mitigated, if not disappear completely.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Mozilla Calendar really needs to be folded directly into the Thunderbird system. People want a calendar in their email client, and that's that. The sooner this is done, the sooner Thunderbird can start kicking Outlook's butt.
The place where Mozilla Calendar is a bit weak right now is its server support. Sure, you can publish and subscribe using WebDAV, but that's not the same thing as having a true server-side calendar. And you still can't send and receive meeting invitations, or check other users' free/busy times.
Fortunately, there is a group at Penn State working on fixing this. They're writing a new calendar API that can be used to hook into arbitrary servers. That means that modules will be able to be written for any back end, such as Citadel, Sun calendar server, Kolab, or whatever else appears out there in the future.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
I use Thunderbird to check my Hotmail account through a tool called Hotmail Popper. This tool may run into difficulties when the Hotmail site changes its look in a few weeks but right now it works great and I don't have to deal with opening a browser for some mail and a local client for others.
The Thunderbird page states "Red Hat Linux 7.0 and higher", which is of course bullsh*t:
./run-mozilla.sh thunderbird-bin /lib/libpthread.so.0: version `GLIBC_2.3.2' not found (required by ./libnspr4.so)
~/thunderbird >
thunderbird-bin:
I wish they'd either build it against 2.3.1 or change the posted system requirements... One can find versions built for older GLIBCs if one want's to trawl the fora and newsgroups...
Nice app, otherwise.
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
Once GRE comes out, this problem will hopefully be solved because any application based on Gecko/XUL/XPCOM will be sharing a single instance of GRE installed on the machine.
sure I'll have a sig.
That said, one of my (few) complaints with the monolithic Mozilla suite is that the Preferences dialog buries useful stuff like that where you might not expect it. Thankfully, that's one of the things that's been revamped in Firebird/Thunderbird.
The thread view is sorted by thread and then time, at least in 0.4, and I think it always has been.... ;)
Also, since the spam filter is Bayesian, it's going to not work properly if you get lots of messages that aren't spam but have spammy titles. I don't know if that's your case or not.
Regarding the other things, I have no idea.
It's a little of both, actually. The SeaMonkey back-end code is still used (there is no sense in re-writing stable, proven code for POP, IMAP, preference handling, etc) but it shares the new lighter-weight Firebird GUI code. You'll note that if you compile Thunderbird, the MailNews directory is built (where all the back-end code lives). The one extra directory, mail, is the new GUI and any code specific to the functionality of Thunderbird.
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago. Wheaties: Breakfast of Champions.