Thunderbird 1.0 RC1 Released

KingDaveRa writes "Mozilla.org has quietly released Thunderbird 1.0 RC1. 1.0 RC1 includes lots of bug fixes and improvements for features like saved search folders, the RSS reader, mail migration, and message grouping. The default themes have both been updated with new and improved artwork as well."

Comments

Re:Popularity

[skids]

The geek fanbase for thunderbird is smaller, so it gets less free publicity.

You can't really live without a graphical web browser (well, at least without impairing access to a lot of stuff), but the same isn't true of email. There are a number af very good text-mode mail readers, and most people I know prefer something like PINE, and really dread the day when you can't live without a graphical email reader.

So far we've done a fair job of beating back the perpetually looming encroachment of non-plain-text email. (There's even an ASCII ribbon campaign :-)

Re:Popularity

[AstroDrabb]

Outlook has so many more features then thunderbird. Since I dont use outlook I will give my mom's answer when she looked at thunderbird for her office. Can I use it to schedule the presentation rooms?

Why would you compare MS Outlook, a groupware application, to an email application? A better comparison would be MS Outlook Express to Thunderbird. MS Outlook Express cannot schedule the presentation rooms either. Thunderbird is far better then OE and has far better default security.

For office type groupware, MS Outlook is currently the best product out there. But for a typical _home_ user email program, Thunderbird is very good and much better then MS Outlook Express IMO.

Re:Why Mail and News?

[znark]

I don't understand why people want a browser that has a POP and NEWS client built in? If I want to use POP I use my POP client (not outhouse). If I want to use NNTP I use a NEWS client.

E-mail and news (and offline dial-up BBS messaging of the old days) are all sides of the same coin, communication-wise:

• You have paragraphs of text.
• You have quoting.
• You have signatures.
• You need to have a message editor.
• You usually have a need to archive important messages into folders of your own choosing.
• Most often you would like to keep a record of what you have yourself written.
• You need some search facilities.
• There must be a way to see a list of new messages, and an option to thread them into coherent discussions.

A well-written news message is the same as a well-written e-mail message. The line between the two further blurs when you subscribe to mailing lists. Why use (and learn) two different interfaces and programs for handling what is essentially the same form of communication?

-- znark

Re:Popularity

[Swaffs]

I think much moreso than text-mode mail readers is that many people use only webmail. I know a lot of people who don't realize they can get an email address through their ISP, but have hotmail addresses because that's what they know. Also, many use gmail or their ISP's webmail option since its so portable.