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..."

Comments

Although it is in 0.4

[ErixTr]

Thunderbird is really very stable. I have been using it since 0.2a as my main e-mail software. (Including all the nightly builds.)

I can't think how stable 1.0 will be. Just give it a try. You'll like it.

Exchange Support?

[FrankConners]

Just curious..... does anybody think there is a possibility that Thunderbird will support Exchange Mail/Lotus Notes. Unfortunately we both use Domino and Exchange Servers at Deutsche Bank :(

Re:Exchange Support?

[Gnavpot]

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.

Re:Exchange Support?

[Bob9113]

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.

firebird speed

[sewagemaster]

from the mozilla/ firebird website, it says that firebird's developed and targetted mostly for windows - although it's cross platform obviously - but unfortunately it seems that the application's speed/ responsive under linux is quite slower than on windows... quite noticable...

could this be X's fault?

Re:firebird speed

[jsebrech]

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.

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 ... NOT.

Bayesian SPAM filter

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used Thunderbird 0.3 and now 0.4, but the same thing surprises me: Thunderbird's bayesian spam filter is not nearly as good as POPFile's (which I used before).

For example a particular spam mail, which is always identical, never gets marked as spam, no matter how much I train the spam filter.

I'd guess the "success ratio" of Thunderbird's SPAM filter is about 80%-90% - with POPFile I got about 98%-99% success ratio.

Am I doing something wrong? Has anyone has similar experiences? I'd really like to use Thunderbird's spam filter instead of another program, as the "training" is integrated to the mail reading application (much easier just to click "Junk" icon, than to switch application and search for that same mail and then handle with it)

palm address book sync

[jark]

Thunderbird 0.4 finally adds an optional extension to sync the Thunderbird address book with your PalmOS based handheld. Grab it from here.

Re:Question...

[karevoll]

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) :-)

Might not happen, but there's always a chance...

[showdax]

If you aren't able to get complete support for your needs, you or anyone could write an extension; modules that add functionality to Thunderbird.

I've heard people wanting this and that in Firebird and Thunderbird and others arguing that certain features would just bloat the programs. With extensions, people get the features they want, and people who don't want them can rest easy. Works well for the birds.

The one "feature" that holds me back

[MikShapi]

...me and half the world that is.

The CALENDAR.

I use outlook everywhere because I need the calendar.
If they could provide a simple calendar program, like the Good'Ol palm desktop, they'd open the door for quite a lot of people.
I don't mean a large-scale office multi-user integrated calendar solution like MS Exchange.
Sure, you could get to that later on, build it on top of MySQL or something, I mean something simple I can use at home for myself. Something that people with non-corporate needs can use to organize their life (These people _do_ exist you know. One or two of them.)

Of course you'd be fighting an uphill battle to set some form of open standard for calendar/mail/addressbook syncing. An API for handhelds/smartphones to use (as opposed to "Does it sync with Outlook?"), Microsoft would be clobbering you on the head every step of the way - Windows Mobile 200X will not support you out of the box, Outlook will continue shipping with PDA's, ActiveSync will work flawlessly with Outlook and they'd be paying non-MS mobile vendors (like palm) to support Outlook-syncing in their (even non-MS) OS and not support alternative sync standards.

And yet, if such an API did come to exist, the Open Source community would complement the software support that the PalmOS/Windows Mobile/Symbian/Linux handhelds/smartphones will lack to sync to the desktop, not to mention the desktop software itself.

In my view, FireBird seems like the mother of all places to start pushing such an API.

Bit until that happens, I'll stick with Outlook.

What's the point of using Thunder- and Firebird?

[ANicknameSimilarToMi]

What's the point of using Thunderbird and Firebird if you want a mail application *and* a browser? I always thought these projects were originally created to derive slim standalone applications from Mozilla with a smaller footprint. But memory usage seems no longer be a key issue.

For example, if I open Mail/News and a Navigator window, Mozilla allocates 25,800 KB memory. If I open Thunderbird and Firebird, they use 18,972 KB and 15,888 KB which is together 34,860 KB and much more. (OS: WinXP)

Personally, I don't expect this will change significantly (more than a few MB) till version 1.0 as developers are biased towards their own machines, for which memory is often a non issue (who can blame them). This is very pity, because it hinders many people (with old hardware) to use Firebird and Thunderbird as their standard browser and mail application.

Re:What's the point of using Thunder- and Firebird

[*SECADM]

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.