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Mozilla Releases Thunderbird 2.0.0

An anonymous reader writes "The Mozilla Corporation has released Thunderbird 2.0.0. Among the improvements are Message Tagging, updated UI, Advanced Folder Views, Better New Mail Notification and Full Support for Windows Vista and 64-bit versions of Windows."

311 comments

  1. What about Webmail? by MrNiCeGUi · · Score: 1, Insightful

    How long until Webmail (http://webmail.mozdev.org/index.html) is updated for 2.0?

    1. Re:What about Webmail? by xsyntrex · · Score: 2, Informative

      I upgraded my existing 1.5 version to 2.0 and Webmail worked like a charm. Still getting duplicate messages on some accounts and my "Remove Duplicate Messages" is not compatible. :-(

    2. Re:What about Webmail? by angrykeyboarder · · Score: 1

      Get Mr Tech's Local Install and you'll get "Remove Duplicate Messages" working just fine.

      --
      Scott

      ©20014 angrykeyboarder & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved
    3. Re:What about Webmail? by xsyntrex · · Score: 1

      Funny thing is that I had "Mr. Tech's Local Install" already, just blanked on the "make compatible" feature. I enabled it and it is working once again. Thanks for the reminder.

  2. Good for them, but... by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How many people, aside from the slashdot crowd, actually use POP3/SMTP clients anymore (at home, not work)? Isn't some ridiculous amount like 90% using gmail/hotmail/yahoo mail/aol mail/etc?

    1. Re:Good for them, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I do

    2. Re:Good for them, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, but by implication, you're one of the Slashdot crowd.

    3. Re:Good for them, but... by spamking · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I haven't used a POP3/SMTP client in almost 3 years. Of course I've got like 5 gmail accounts so it'd be a pain to configure a POP3/SMTP client to check that many accounts. Or atleast it was the last time I did it and checked each account all at once.

      I'd rather let Gmail deal with filtering the SPAM first and then deal with the stuff that slips through. That right there is enough for me to not bother with a client.

      Maybe one of these days I'll return to a client . . .

    4. Re:Good for them, but... by vivaoporto · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I use Thunderbird to download my POP3 email and my Webmail at home. I have multiple POP3 accounts from my ISP, and a couple of GMail ones too, and my wife have one from Hotmail, one from Yahoo and one from her job. I shared the thunderbird profile between my Linux partition and her Windows partition so, no matter what partition we booted on, our email is all there. This is a way to save time and get all email with a One Click (tm) without having to surf through several ad-infected pages to read a couple of messages. All props to thunderbird, for providing this useful piece of software for free (as in speech and as in beer).

    5. Re:Good for them, but... by MoonFog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Most I know (that don't frequent slashdot) use the emails they get from their ISP's, which are mostly set up with POP3 or IMAP and they don't really know much or care about Gmail and the likes apart from using them as log-ins to chat applications.

    6. Re:Good for them, but... by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      I use gmail for most things, but keep a outlook express setup for my ISP mail and hotmail.

      Does Thunderbird allow hotmail connections (which aren't quite pop and are technically meant to be phased out eventually)?

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    7. Re:Good for them, but... by bWareiWare.co.uk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You don't need to be technical to recognise usability. Non-technical users are probably the core market of desktop readers.

      Also I would hope the slashdot crowd use IMAP/SMTP, POP3 is terribly limited if you want to read your mail from more then one device.

    8. Re:Good for them, but... by jimstapleton · · Score: 1

      I'd say about 2/3rds of the people I know who aren't /.ers

      many of them /also/ have webmail, but not all of them.

      --
      34486853790
      Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
    9. Re:Good for them, but... by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 1

      How many people, aside from the slashdot crowd, actually use POP3/SMTP clients anymore (at home, not work)? Isn't some ridiculous amount like 90% using gmail/hotmail/yahoo mail/aol mail/etc?

      I'd say only college kids and people who either pay for good indie ISPs (or run their own server) have the luxury of using actual non-http email services. For what it's worth, for most of the major online email providers, there's a service to scrape from the html interface - I used to use YoSucker back in the day when I used Yahoo? mail.

    10. Re:Good for them, but... by Corporate+Troll · · Score: 1

      I do, on my own server (IMAP) and I use GMails POP3 service.

      Oh, and you can bet that you use SMTP servers. All those webmail services use SMTP in background...

      I just hope that Thunderbird 2.0.0 is good, because Firefox 2.0.0 wasn't and still isn't. The 1.5.x range is much better.

    11. Re:Good for them, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hey, stop posting such lies under my name!

    12. Re:Good for them, but... by jimstapleton · · Score: 1

      Not really, I have my clients leave the mail on the server for 3+ days, depending on the server and the mail I get.

      It keeps the server uncloged, and all my devices get my mail. The server is set to use encrypted transfer (including passwords), so it's secure as well.

      --
      34486853790
      Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
    13. Re:Good for them, but... by Your_Mom · · Score: 1

      Webmail is great, until you want to get your mail on a mobile device or a slow connection. Then it's painful.

      IMAP over SSL allows me to keep my INBOX synced between my work computer using portableapps, my HTC Wizard, and my computer at home. And because I run my own server. I still have more storage space Gmail too. :)

      --
      Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
    14. Re:Good for them, but... by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 1

      Non-technical users are probably the core market of desktop readers. Clearly, you don't know too many non-technical users.
    15. Re:Good for them, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use POP3/SMTP at home as my main email account, and I have a couple of google/yahoo email accounts as well...

    16. Re:Good for them, but... by bWareiWare.co.uk · · Score: 1

      This does not allow you to mark mail as read accross devices, or sort it into folders. What is the advantage?

    17. Re:Good for them, but... by superbus1929 · · Score: 1

      APART from the Slashdot crowd? Only a few; a few of my friends have email addresses from my site. Most of the others that had it dumped it, simply because the webmail wasn't glitzy enough and they don't use Thunderbird/Outlook.

      --
      Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
    18. Re:Good for them, but... by Ngarrang · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There is still a place for a mail client like Thunderbird, even if you use Gmail. What if you want to reference an e-mail message, but gmail is having problems at that time...and it is critical that you find it NOW? Also, having a client like Thunderbird allows you to only have to use your internet connection intermittently, like for folks still stuck with dial-up.

      Thunderbird also offers more filtering options than the web providers, for those who depend on filtering to keep their inbox sane.

      My wife uses Thunderbird at home. It has been sufficient for her up to now, so I see no reason to force her to use gmail's web site.

      --
      Bearded Dragon
    19. Re:Good for them, but... by jimstapleton · · Score: 1

      (1) each device will get a copy of the mail, so I'm not sure what "across devices" means
      (2) For decades, pretty much *every* mail client could sort mail into folders, locally
      (3) Most mail clients also have filters to auto-sort mail, which I have set up on each machine
      (4) All my mails are on all my machines, with minimal effort
      (5) My mails are not on the server for long where it's easier for a hacker to get to them
      (6) My mails are not on a server where they are taking up space and pissing off the admin.

      --
      34486853790
      Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
    20. Re:Good for them, but... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      How many people, aside from the slashdot crowd, actually use POP3/SMTP clients anymore (at home, not work)? Isn't some ridiculous amount like 90% using gmail/hotmail/yahoo mail/aol mail/etc? Only everyone that has Comcast, RoadRunner, AOL, AT&T, or Verizon ISPs. They may also use the webmail listings, but every single one of those ISPs has POP/IMAP/SMTP clients, even if they are installed/configured by a script.

      And they are extremely unfriendly to the Mac/*nix crowd. My current home ISP recently converted to TW's RoadRunner. Finding out what the settings were for mail took a month, mainly because I don't think they had them on their site. They wanted you to run an ActiveX script via IE. Hard to do on my Linux and Mac boxes. :)
      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    21. Re:Good for them, but... by Yvanhoe · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Commercial people from my company usually use a webmail for personal mails but outlook or thunderbird for their professional mail. Why ? because they use laptops and cannot depend on web connectivity to write emails.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    22. Re:Good for them, but... by yakumo.unr · · Score: 1

      aside from sharing the profile (good work) that's exactly what I do too..

    23. Re:Good for them, but... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      I just hope that Thunderbird 2.0.0 is good, because Firefox 2.0.0 wasn't and still isn't. The 1.5.x range is much better. So I'm not the only one that noticed that FF 2.x seems significantly slower than FF 1.5.x? It appears that something was broken in the JS engine, perhaps that stupid spell checker? I can literally out type it when posting to /. :)
      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    24. Re:Good for them, but... by somersault · · Score: 1

      It's a bit weird asking the /. crowd what everyone apart from the /. crowd thinks. I doubt many people here have the ability to think as a non techie noob. Maybe someone knows the statistics though.. At work I use an Exchange server anyway =p

      --
      which is totally what she said
    25. Re:Good for them, but... by bWareiWare.co.uk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Didn't mean to start a flame war.

      Everyone has to occasionally sort a mail by hand. With IMAP if I move a mail into a folder on one device it moves on all the other devices, with POP3 I have to move it on each device.

      With IMAP I can see which mail I have already read from any device, this sounds simple, but for most people is very useful.

      I can see that using less storage on the server could be vital. But for most people storing a mail once on the server is going be better then storing a copy on every client. I know my mail server has considerably more space then some of my clients (i.e. phone).

      If I was worried about the privacy of my mail archive I would encrypt it, wherever it was stored.

    26. Re:Good for them, but... by Sandbags · · Score: 1

      Well, I do use gmail. I also use Thunderbird. On my home machine, it's nice to use it as a traditional e-mail client, imparting filters and rules to sort my mail, and a more dynamic client for formatting messages than a web page can provide. On my notebook I use it to store an off line copy of my e-mail so I can access important information and my contacts when I don't have net access.

      It's also handy to have a single client that can access not only my gmail, but also several other accounts at the same time and keep all that mail in one place (even uploading some of it back to Google for storage and remote access). I use Outlook for my IMAP access to my work systems and keep my work and private e-mail separate. I only go the the gmail web page to access mail when I'm temporarily using a machine I don't own (visiting family, etc).

      --
      There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
    27. Re:Good for them, but... by Corporate+Troll · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      I do not know what it is exactly, but it seems just sluggish in comparison to 1.5.x. I have a fast machine (Nice Core 2 Duo, oodles of RAM) at work and I have FF 2.x.x and I still find it sluggish. At home I even didn't bother upgrading... FF 1.5.x is quick, responsive and stable. I hope that that branch will live on, but as far as their website says it will be discontinued soon.

    28. Re:Good for them, but... by jimstapleton · · Score: 1

      I didn't mean that as a flame, those are the reasons I use POP3.

      I don't actually use my phone for mail, so that's never been a problem. I also have a relatively low mail volume on th eonly accounts I would check in multiple places, so I know what I've already read. Most of my conversations are still based on that thing I don't use for mail...

      --
      34486853790
      Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
    29. Re:Good for them, but... by Gryffydd · · Score: 1

      I use a combination of gmail and Thunderbird/IMAP. I have all of my work emails forwarded to a gmail account, then my gmail account forwards them to my IMAP server from a shared hosting provider. I use Thunderbird for the majority of my email work due to the increased ease of handling attachments, printing, and other things that just take too long with gmail. I use gmail to check my email with the gmail mobile app on my phone, to search for messages, or to check my email from a public terminal. Gmail is wonderful, but for everyday business work sometimes it's just inadequate. There are Greasemonkey scripts and such that extend its functionality some, but it's too much of a pain for me, and it's still sluggish compared to Thunderbird.

    30. Re:Good for them, but... by ebh · · Score: 1

      I do. I'm an email pack rat, and I find that a full-featured heavyweight client like Thunderbird makes it easier to manage the several years' worth of mail I've got archived.

      Simple example: Gmail's interface won't let me easily sort my inbox by arbitrary fields. With T-Bird, I can sort on anything with one mouse click.

    31. Re:Good for them, but... by jonr · · Score: 2, Informative

      I use fetchmail to get mail from several pop3 accounts, and dump them on my local server, then I use IMAP there.

    32. Re:Good for them, but... by superbus1929 · · Score: 1

      Most people I know use the standard emails; GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo. I have a couple people that use emails that I gave them from my own site, but mostly everyone else didn't use my email because webmail isn't glitzy enough.

      --
      Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
    33. Re:Good for them, but... by wampus · · Score: 1

      Try this. I also see a link at the top of http://help.rr.com/ marked "server addresses and URLS." Of course, I don't see any mention of help.rr.com anywhere on my local TWC page, so that could have been part of the problem you are having. The folks I have dealt with at RoadRunner and TWC have never been anything but helpful, but that may have a whole lot to do with the local staff.

    34. Re:Good for them, but... by gravyface · · Score: 1

      Answer: alot.

      Like I've said before, until the Web-based e-mail applications out there provide a simple and reliable migration path, your average e-mail user is not going to want to part ways with years of archived mail that have in Outlook Express, that -- as far as they know -- is "in the inbox and can't get out". Hell, why do you think Gmail started providing POP3 access?

      --
      body massage!
    35. Re:Good for them, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. I've helped out newer PC users and they can't figure out what Outlook Express is for or what point there is in running it. They seem to only understand Webmail and haven't used anything else.

      I love Thunderbird and 2.0 will be a great help to me, I use it for work and backing up gmail and RSS etc.

    36. Re:Good for them, but... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      Yes, I'm aware it's there now. The problem existed in the first months after the takeover, when they neglected to place that information on the website, and no one seemed to know anything. All they said was visit the designated web page, which was an ActiveX based applet.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    37. Re:Good for them, but... by operagost · · Score: 1

      I use neither. I use IMAP with my own HMailserver.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    38. Re:Good for them, but... by cyrax256 · · Score: 1

      I still use a couple of IMAP accounts in my home. Thus, Thunderbird's RSS reader is really great.

    39. Re:Good for them, but... by empaler · · Score: 3, Funny
      by spamking (967666) on 2007-04-19 14:14 (#18795975)

      I'd rather let Gmail deal with filtering the SPAM first and then deal with the stuff that slips through.

      Oh... kay?
    40. Re:Good for them, but... by kinglink · · Score: 1

      well I am in the slashdot crowd, but then again I wrote this same thing when this question was asked about webmail.

      I use thunderbird and webmail together, actually using gmail for it. I have 2 accounts, one is for business, one is places that will likely spam me (three in reality but one is not being used right now) and having to switch between the two is a pain and a half so instead of forwarding or doing hocus pocus to read both at the same time I use thunderbird to get both feeds at the same time.) I still believe a lot agree with this because they want to download their mail not leaving it on some hard drive somewhere (personally I don't delete from server which I'll get to in a minute).

      But I use webmail for when I'm not at home, from anywhere in the world I can access all my email, and with gmail that means almost all my correspondences. Personally I use that a lot more as I use it to check from work (have an RSS feed for my primary on my home page too).

      So essentially both of them are useful and most people probably realize this if they understand what pop3 is and their service offers it for free (kudos to gmail for doing that).

      That being said the real question should be how many people aside from the slashdot crowd know what the fuck Thunderbird is? Most of them blindly use outlook but they will use something for pop3. And if their server uses IMAP even better.

    41. Re:Good for them, but... by Lunar_Lamp · · Score: 2, Informative

      Thunderbird doesn't allow hotmail access per se, but there were plugins for previous versions that allowed you to access hotmail (and other webmails) through thunderbird: http://webmail.mozdev.org/

    42. Re:Good for them, but... by motumboe · · Score: 1

      A mail client is the only easy way to manage multiple mail account (I've got about 20 mail account)

      --
      CTRL + F Funny ---> I had you!!! :-)
    43. Re:Good for them, but... by empaler · · Score: 1

      I just got my phone sub upgraded with a 1.5 mbps data connection - then I use Bluetooth to connect my mobile device and go online. Sweeeeeeet. :-D

    44. Re:Good for them, but... by JianTian13 · · Score: 1

      My Dad does, and he's a classic "But I didn't change anything!" user.

      My wife does. She's split pretty evenly between Hotmail, and Outlook Express; it just kinda depends on whether she's working on her laptop, or on our HTPC (Feisty Fawn released! Woohooo!). She's definitely not Slashdot crowd -- she does scrapbooks and soap-making when she's not cooking, cleaning, or raising our son.

      I do -- to connect to the dovecot instance running on my FreeBSD box... but since I'm clearly part of the crowd, I guess that doesn't mean anything :)

    45. Re:Good for them, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful
      1. Having 5 gmail accounts is exactly why you might want to use POP3--it's much easier than logging in then logging out then logging into another gmail account 5 times. All your mail in one place.

      2. Configuring a gmail account just got much easier in Thunderbird. Just go to Tools>Account Settings then click 'Add Account', select the account type as gmail, enter your name and gmail address and, uh, you're done. Lather, rinse and repeat for your 4 other gmail accounts.

      3. gmail's spam folder is not accessed when you use POP3. You only get what "slips through."

      Maybe one of these days I'll return to a client . . . Maybe today would be a good day!
    46. Re:Good for them, but... by jonadab · · Score: 1

      > Isn't some ridiculous amount like 90% using gmail/hotmail/yahoo mail/aol mail/etc?

      Reliable figures are difficult to obtain with any detail, but I can tell you for certain that the market share for email clients is very well and thoroughly split, and this has always been the case. The top spots are _probably_ held by hotmail, yahoo, and Outlook, but it's hard to be certain, and I sure wouldn't want to try to guess at the order, and there are lots of others with a sizeable share.

      This is partly because most people don't realize they have a choice. They usually expect that they have to use whatever comes bundled with their internet service. (Most Road Runner customers, for instance, use Road Runner webmail, unaware that they have any other option.) So it's mostly ISPs making the decision for people, and system administrators, and to a lesser extent OEMs and the computer-savvy friends and relatives people get to set things up for them.

      I suspect most dialup customers (which for the time being is still most home users in the US) use one POP3 client or another, because that's what dialup ISPs usually encourage. AOL and Earthlink are the only really _big_ dialup ISPs that I'm aware of, but they have a small minority market share, with most users using one or another smaller (often regional) ISP. Each of which makes its own decisions what email software to bundle in their connection kit.

      Broadband is less fragmented, split in any given region between two or three of the major providers. I think there are, in the US, not more than a dozen of these altogether, maybe not that many. But of course they still each make their own choice what email client to push. Time Warner, as mentioned, has their own, and it's web-based. POP3 works fine, of course, but most users just use what the connection kit's glossy flier talks about. I'm sure it's the same with the others: they choose one thing and put instructions for that all over the new-user kit, and the overwhelming majority of their customers use that one. Some of them use a customized version of some POP3 client or another, that's been tweaked with their own logo and, in some cases, an installation script that automatically fills in most or all of the configuration details. Others just include a stock copy of something and instructions for setting it up. And some just push the webmail. (Almost all ISPs *have* webmail, because if 1% of your users want to be able to get their mail on vacation it's worth setting it up. In this area Road Runner is the only one to my knowledge that pushes the webmail, but I'm sure that varies from place to place. As noted previously, dialup ISPs are less likely to push web mail than broadband ISPs.)

      There are a lot of different email clients out there with something on the order of 0.25% market share each, give or take an order of magnitude or so. There are dozens of them. Thunderbird is probably a tier up from that, in the 1% - 5% range, alongside the likes of Eudora and Mail.app and Gmail. Yahoo and Hotmail and Outlook are all probably a tier further up from those, but even then I doubt if they sport more than 20% market share each or so, at least among home users.

      Outlook's market share is higher in office space, but that's probably mostly at the expense of Yahoo and Hotmail. Thunderbird's share is probably also higher in office space than among home users, although, as I said, hard figures are difficult to come by.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    47. Re:Good for them, but... by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 1

      I usually find the opposite. Most home users use their ISP's pop3/imap/smtp and the tech crowd use gmail, hotmail, or yahoo.

      --
      -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
    48. Re:Good for them, but... by afidel · · Score: 1

      I don't know, gmail for Blackberry is pretty damn good. Not sure if it uses POP3 or scrapes the web interface but I wouldn't call it slow at all, even on GPRS. I personally use gmail for my main mailbox with POP3 for long term storage (I have mailfiles going back to the original Netscape Messanger). I have access from home, work, mobile and any internet terminal or friends computer. The spam filter is 99.5% effective with zero false positives. Unless you use email as a filing cabinet like is typical in a business environment I can't see ever running out of room in gmail, my entire mailfile collection since 1996 is about equal to my gmail storage and that includes years of being on relatively high volume mailing lists.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    49. Re:Good for them, but... by BendingSpoons · · Score: 1

      I'm a low-level computer user with a gmail account, and I much prefer to use Thunderbird at home. I can't stand reading my mail through a web browser and seeing advertisements that relate to the text of my mail. Especially when the advertisements are for such shitty websites.

      --
      For all we know the moon may be as conscious as a poet or a realtor, and extremely weary of its monotonous round. - HLM
    50. Re:Good for them, but... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

      I also have a relatively low mail volume on the only accounts I would check in multiple places, so I know what I've already read.

      This is, I think, the key to any useful message sorting system. I've come to believe there's a very small threshold where email ceases to be serve any purpose, since people's attention span is so small.

      How many Slashdotters find an email useful if it raises more than one point? I am increasingly finding that people just will not read past the first sentence of any message.

      I've taken to bullying people: I now send multiple messages (with different subject headers), one for each point. If the recipients complain, I tell them why, and rub their noses in it.

      But if that's what it takes to get meaningful communication, so be it. Hmmm. Although I've been resisting this for years, I guess I should accept that email is dead (yeah, yeah, Netcraft confirms it, *sigh*) and just stick to IM...

      Bummer.

    51. Re:Good for them, but... by raddan · · Score: 1

      IMAP is still incredibly useful. While webmail is definitely growing in sophistication, it is still nowhere near as sophisticated as a standalone email client. Consider, for instance, the act of composing email when you don't have an internet connection. Sure, you can write your GMail in Notepad, but come on...

      Considering the fact that there are probably more IMAP users now than when the protocol was invented (yes, this fits the "90% of statistics are made up on the spot" meme), I think that standalone e-mail client can still justify their existence. Thunderbird is one of the better ones, even though it still lacks some of the speed and robustness of Eudora c. 1997. That said, I can't run Eudora on weird platforms like OpenBSD/Sparc.

    52. Re:Good for them, but... by spamking · · Score: 1

      Good points . . . thanks.

    53. Re:Good for them, but... by flibuste · · Score: 1

      "How many people, aside from the slashdot crowd, actually use POP3/SMTP clients anymore (at home, not work)? Isn't some ridiculous amount like 90% using gmail/hotmail/yahoo mail/aol mail/etc?

      For one, I do. I don't want MY data be held by someone else. But that's personal.
      However, most companies don't use for services because they are inherently unsafe for business. That's a lot more people than just the "slashdot crowd".
      I'd say it's around 10% of mail users, at best.
    54. Re:Good for them, but... by JoeZeppy · · Score: 1

      POP3? no, but IMAP, yes.

    55. Re:Good for them, but... by aled · · Score: 1

      3. gmail's spam folder is not accessed when you use POP3. You only get what "slips through."


      Given that his user is "spamking" he may need only those messages...
      --

      "I think this line is mostly filler"
    56. Re:Good for them, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The word is THAN! Better THAN! More space THAN! English, motherfucker ... do you speak it?!

    57. Re:Good for them, but... by Lord+Flipper · · Score: 1

      I use Eudora, also, with gmail filtering other spam-challenged webmail accounts (thanks Google), before being tapped through POP3. Other domains being tapped the same way, minus the google 'filter', with (POP3). Very convenient. Polling ten accounts in ten seconds, more or less, depending on numbers of messages per account, postage-stamp sized 'filters report' to give a mini-glimpse of what's 'in.'. Try that with Firefox/Thunderbird/whatever and a bunch of maybe yes/maybe no remote servers. Time and screen real estate wasting... Wake me when it's over. :)

    58. Re:Good for them, but... by adolf · · Score: 1

      What a lousy reason to use a stand-alone MUA, let alone POP3. If that's all you're after, just use gmail's forwarding, filtering, and multiple account settings.

      I've got 4 addresses in my main Gmail account (which is the only one I ever log into). 3 of them are forwarded from other Gmail accounts, and another is for the address I use on Slashdot.

      It works well. Replies are automatically sent from the appropriate address, and the From line on original messages is a drop-down list of the four different addresses.

      YMMV.

    59. Re:Good for them, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      me too

    60. Re:Good for them, but... by spamking · · Score: 2, Funny

      Heh . . . I guess almost everyone could use a little male enhancement product every now and then.

    61. Re:Good for them, but... by ssstraub · · Score: 1

      Apparently you never send emails from your alternate gmail accounts to anyone using Outlook... Unless you think that From headers such as "adolf@gmail.com; on behalf of; Adolf [sexyfreak1@gmail.com]" is an acceptable address to someone receiving your alternate address emails.

      If your primary gmail account is sent with each and every alternate account you try sending through, then doesn't this make the alternate addresses pretty much useless?

    62. Re:Good for them, but... by angrykeyboarder · · Score: 1

      That being said the real question should be how many people aside from the slashdot crowd know what the fuck Thunderbird is? Most of them blindly use outlook but they will use something for pop3. And if their server uses IMAP even better.


      I think you mean Outlook Express (even geeks get this wrong - hence Mirosoft chaning it to "Window Mail" in Windows Vista).

      After that I don't get what you otherwise mean. If they use Outlook [Express] they are already using POP3 (or IMAP).
      --
      Scott

      ©20014 angrykeyboarder & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved
  3. So far so good by BuR4N · · Score: 5, Informative

    Have been using it (2.0) for a day now and so far its a really nice experiance.

    The greatest thing with Thunderbird is its "simplicity" (do not confuse with "simple, bare minimum") it just very easy to get into and when you'r ready there is allot of usefull features that the advanced user appricate.

    Having used 1.5 for a long period of time its also one of the more stable programs I'v use every day, havnt so far seen a crash or something that dosnt work as intended.

    --
    http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
    1. Re:So far so good by conradov · · Score: 1

      Since its first beta TB 2.0 has been pretty bug-less from a user point of view. This is a very strong piece of software. The calendaring has gotten better too. That used to be the main complaint for the "Not an Outlook replacement" crowd. Mozilla is going to score high with this one.

      --
      MeTheGeek
    2. Re:So far so good by BuR4N · · Score: 1

      Yea, its really a great peice of software.

      Makes me wonder when we'r going to see a mail/group server from Mozilla. Having a complete replacement for the MS exchange/Outlook stack is kind of the best starting point you can get to implement other OS:es on the desktop in large scale.

      --
      http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
    3. Re:So far so good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is nice, but there are still quite a few things that I don't like:

      * It is slow, sometimes painfully slow. Opening a new message window sometimes takes a few seconds.

      * No integration with the OS X Address Book

      * Non-native widgets feel clunky compared to a real OS X app like Mail

    4. Re:So far so good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I too used 1.5 (1.5.0.10) for quite some time, and hated it. Some of the complaints I had are:

      1. If you set TB as your handler for news: URLs and click on such a URL, it will ignore any NNTP server you already have configured, but will ask you to configure an NNTP account instead (pops up the wizard).

      2. No Next/Previous/Next Unread/Previous Unread etc. buttons in mail view window. Go->Next->Message is not really very friendly (and yes, I do like to use my mouse).

      3. Weird handling of messages in IMAP folders. Click somewhere, action applies to a message elsewhere. Especially true with marking messages as "Junk".

      4. Bayesian filtering simply doesn't work. I have fed several dozen emails from the same address with substantially the same text through the spam learner, but it still doesn't mark these as spam. Even MS Outlook learned much faster than that. Gmail was a fast learner too.

      5. No per-folder turning the preview pane on/off. In fact, several things which ought to be per-folder aren't configurable that way (message threading, sort order etc.).

      Some which I managed to fix using extensions:

      1. No support for ROT-13 (which is a must for a newsreader).

      2. No "Bounce Message" (a la Mutt's 'b' key) feature.

      3. No "Minimise to system tray" option.

      I personally consider TB to be FF's distant and poor relation. Now that Gmail has started letting people pull emails from other POP servers, I can actually get rid of TB from my computer.

    5. Re:So far so good by FuzzyDaddy · · Score: 1
      I've been using it for a while, too (on a mac). The spam filtering is pretty bad. It's not the fault of Bayesian filtering, though - I use SpamBayes at work (yes, yes, on Outlook) as a plug in, and it works great.

      What Thunderbird really needs is a SpamBayes plug in - easy to install, and trainable through the Thunderbird interface. Then you'd have something.

      Most of the other stuff you mention, I can't really comment on - I'm a fairly unsophisticated mail user.

      --
      It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
    6. Re:So far so good by empaler · · Score: 1

      The calendaring has gotten better too. That used to be the main complaint for the "Not an Outlook replacement" crowd. Ooh, integrated? Not just Sunbird? Because that's actually useful...
    7. Re:So far so good by empaler · · Score: 1

      So... You haven't tried this new major release to see whether your complaints are still relevant?

    8. Re:So far so good by JianTian13 · · Score: 1

      I don't know that Mozilla, having worked entirely on client-side software thus far, is going to make the jump to server-side stuff.

      That said, we have the beginnings of a good, free(beer) exchange/outlook calendaring replacement, using the Lightning plugin to TB2 to connect to Google Calendars. Works for me anyway.

    9. Re:So far so good by conradov · · Score: 1

      It is an addon derived from Sunbird called Lightning

      Here is great how-to for syncing between Thunderbird an Gmail.

      --
      MeTheGeek
    10. Re:So far so good by afidel · · Score: 1

      For ROT13 just add it with an addon. I personally use leetkey, which while a bit immature it some respects does add support for ROT13 =)

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  4. Yikes! by ez76 · · Score: 2, Funny
    Folder views? New mail notification?

    Watch your back, Eudora for Windows 3.1!

    1. Re:Yikes! by MirthScout · · Score: 1

      Even funnier after that comment is the fact that the new Eudora is based on Thunderbird...

      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=231405&op=Repl y&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=187959 53

    2. Re:Yikes! by MirthScout · · Score: 1

      Grrr... wrong link in paste buffer... take 2...

      Even funnier after that comment is the Eudora is basing new releases on Thunderbird...

      http://www.qualcomm.com/press/releases/2006/061011 _project_collaboration_mozilla.html

  5. Minor annoyance but... by snecklifter · · Score: 1

    How about just "Mozilla release Thunderbird 2"? The Mozilla website says its 2.0.0.0 The article says 2.0.0 Does this mean we bait our breath for the ground-breaking news that "Mozilla release Thunderbird 2.0.0.1" I can't wait.

    1. Re:Minor annoyance but... by asobala · · Score: 2, Funny

      Because Thunderbird 2 is an international rescue craft.

  6. 64bit support? by sakdoctor · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What exactly do they mean by full 64-bit support. I didn't find an x64 bit binary anywhere.

  7. Painful marketing by Ed+Avis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Any chance the Mozilla people could trouble to put up some real information about the new version instead of a flashy page of meaningless marketspeak?

    --
    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    1. Re:Painful marketing by ZachPruckowski · · Score: 3, Funny

      I know! I came in with 2 questions:

      1) How's the Mail.app importing?
      2) Does it work with Spotlight

      These are crucial questions that affect whether I even consider switching, and the info pages say nothing.

    2. Re:Painful marketing by stu42j · · Score: 1
    3. Re:Painful marketing by stu42j · · Score: 1

      I take that back, the features page is better: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/features. html

    4. Re:Painful marketing by anticypher · · Score: 1

      1) How's the Mail.app importing?
      2) Does it work with Spotlight


      1) there doesn't seem to be any mail.app import function, maybe it will be included in an extension, but this feature really has been ignored for too long

      2) my first tests indicate it still isn't indexed by Spotlight, which is a big shame because I'm now totally hooked on spotlight. Do any /.ers know how to hack spotlight to index other areas of the user's file system?

      the AC

      --
      Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
    5. Re:Painful marketing by Pranjal · · Score: 1

      The two links below would give you a better idea about the features

      Release Notes
      Notable bug fixes

    6. Re:Painful marketing by Tom · · Score: 1

      Even more important: Does it support addressbook?

      It'd be about the only OSX app that doesn't. And it's been on the bugtracker for almost forever.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    7. Re:Painful marketing by anticypher · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm going to reply to you again, because I've had a few hours to play with the new version, and I'm not at all impressed.

      So spotlight is broken, but that's been a feature request with much finger pointing for quite a while now. The built in search function is still pretty useless. No way to search all headers, or the entire mailbox including both headers and bodies, or to search multiple or all mail boxes in the same search. With 9 separate inboxes, it takes a while to find some poorly remembered email. Granted, I can always open a terminal, navigate to the directory, and perform some unix majic with grep and find, but that's a major blow to usability for their interface. It's not like people haven't been asking for a better search function since early days, but the developers have decided that people just shouldn't be searching their email. Eudora does it correctly, so my standards are not going to come down, maybe all the good TB developers will go over to Penelope.

      There appear to still be bugs with the IPv6 implementation, both on the OSX and Linux versions. At least, there is still a config setting to disable IPv6 lookups.

      Without too much regression testing, the old LDAP incompatibilities are still there. TB is pretty much useless in corporate settings using AD or other LDAP directory services.

      The old indexing bugs haven't been addressed at all. After leaving TB running for a while, various inboxes highlight in blue to show new mail, but there isn't any. Sometimes a mailbox shows unread messages, but searching around doesn't turn up any. New messages sorted by procmail on the server aren't indexed properly if not seen first in an inbox.

      The anti-phishing feature has always highlighted quite a few auto-generated emails and some client monthly mailings as suspect. I wish they would integrate some kind of baysian or learning or white-list features on that.

      The completely separate address books, with no concept of either hierarchy or being attached to individual accounts (think friends&family, business contacts) is pretty 1993 in its thinking.

      One of my biggest problems, is the inability to choose which outgoing SMTP service at the time of sending a message. Once again, Eudora got this right. Since I work in many locations, the ability to quickly change the outgoing SMTP setting without having to go to every account setting and changing it manually would be expected of a real email application.

      The UI hasn't really improved at all over the 1.5 version. Sure, they've now hidden several spam controls in new places, and made a few other cosmetic improvements, but TB is still mostly unusable by ordinary users. There is still no way to make some commonly used functions into buttons on the main interface. That is the most asked for feature when I show people TB, how do they do their most common command with just a single button click.

      Version 1.5 was really the first usable release, it should have been called 1.0. This is a minor bug fix release, count it as version 1.1, but there is NO major overhaul of either the functionality or usability.

      the AC

      --
      Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
    8. Re:Painful marketing by fm6 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, don't you hate web sites run by marketroids? But if you look very carefully, you'll find a link to the release notes, which tell you most of what you need to know.

    9. Re:Painful marketing by ppz003 · · Score: 1

      ...
      The built in search function is still pretty useless. I'll agree with this. I would be better to be able to search through headers, and also have some way of using the received time instead of the sent time to order the messages.

      ...
      The old indexing bugs haven't been addressed at all. After leaving TB running for a while, various inboxes highlight in blue to show new mail, but there isn't any. Sometimes a mailbox shows unread messages, but searching around doesn't turn up any. New messages sorted by procmail on the server aren't indexed properly if not seen first in an inbox. The only time I have had new mails where there were not any is when I load TB on a different computer and there are already read "new to this instance of TB" messages. I never have had TB tell me there is new mail after startup when this is none. However, I have a spam folder that procmail moves my junk mail to. If I don't look at the folder at all, I will not see the unread count increase throughout the day, but once I check the folder, I'll get the unread count updated regularly.

      The anti-phishing feature has always highlighted quite a few auto-generated emails and some client monthly mailings as suspect. I wish they would integrate some kind of baysian or learning or white-list features on that. Fair enough request.

      ...
      One of my biggest problems, is the inability to choose which outgoing SMTP service at the time of sending a message. Once again, Eudora got this right. Since I work in many locations, the ability to quickly change the outgoing SMTP setting without having to go to every account setting and changing it manually would be expected of a real email application. You can tie one outgoing server to each incoming mail account, and freely switch which identity (and therefore outgoing server) from a drop down menu above the addressing. Now, if you want multiple outgoing servers for a single incoming account, then you have a problem.

      The UI hasn't really improved at all over the 1.5 version. Sure, they've now hidden several spam controls in new places, and made a few other cosmetic improvements, but TB is still mostly unusable by ordinary users. There is still no way to make some commonly used functions into buttons on the main interface. That is the most asked for feature when I show people TB, how do they do their most common command with just a single button click.

      Version 1.5 was really the first usable release, it should have been called 1.0. This is a minor bug fix release, count it as version 1.1, but there is NO major overhaul of either the functionality or usability.

      the AC I don't know what you consider normal usage, but I'd say you're part of the normal /. crowd, which does not count as ordinary users. TB suits my needs just fine and has since 1.0 and even before. Just because it doesn't do everything you want it to doesn't make it unusable for everyone else.
    10. Re:Painful marketing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The built in search function is still pretty useless. No way to search all headers, or the entire mailbox including both headers and bodies, or to search multiple or all mail boxes in the same search. With 9 separate inboxes, it takes a while to find some poorly remembered email.
      I don't know about the headers search (never needed it somehow), but the way to search across multiple folders is to use the Saved Search feature. Click on File->New->Saved Search.., and then use the "Choose" button on the popup to choose a list of folders to scan. Works pretty well.

      the other AC
    11. Re:Painful marketing by Burz · · Score: 1

      You can tie one outgoing server to each incoming mail account, and freely switch which identity (and therefore outgoing server) from a drop down menu above the addressing. Now, if you want multiple outgoing servers for a single incoming account, then you have a problem.

      In my experience, choosing the identity in the composition window still results in email always being sent through the same SMTP server.

      Perhaps it is a bug and not intentional, but its damn inconvenient.
    12. Re:Painful marketing by ppz003 · · Score: 1

      You can tie one outgoing server to each incoming mail account, and freely switch which identity (and therefore outgoing server) from a drop down menu above the addressing. Now, if you want multiple outgoing servers for a single incoming account, then you have a problem.

      In my experience, choosing the identity in the composition window still results in email always being sent through the same SMTP server.

      Perhaps it is a bug and not intentional, but its damn inconvenient. You have to set which outgoing server matches which identity in the incoming account setup page, instead of using the default server. Or you can set them all to the default server and use the smtp server extension as mentioned a little bit below.
    13. Re:Painful marketing by ozzee · · Score: 1

      have some way of using the received time instead of the sent time to order the messages

      Is "Order Recieved" an option for sorting by time received ?

  8. All I want *built in* is... by wetelectric · · Score: 2, Insightful

    1. A shared calender
    2. An integrated Calendar
    3. Exchange support a la evolution (even if it just supports a few features :) )

    I have introduced Thunderbird to my work place to a limited extent. But these features would allow me to push its introduction further.

    --
    Most people have no idea what they are doing, and are silently panicking on the inside.
    1. Re:All I want *built in* is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tried Lightning?

      I'm not entirely down with Exchange, it always appeared more of a problem than a solution to me.

      What specific integration features are you hoping for?

    2. Re:All I want *built in* is... by Zonk+(troll) · · Score: 1

      1. A shared calender
      2. An integrated Calendar Support is there, sort of. You can install the Lightning extension. For sharing calendars between users, put an iCal file on Apache and subscribe all the clients to it. Enable WebDAV to allow editing. It's still rather primitive, though. Still, it works decently. I set this up at work for a little bit before switching to Scalix (with the web client).

      3. Exchange support a la evolution (even if it just supports a few features :) ) I'd like to see full Scalix or Kolab (so I can dump Scalix) support. All of the scheduling stuff is needed.
      --
      "The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
      End The FED. -
    3. Re:All I want *built in* is... by MazzThePianoman · · Score: 1

      Well give their web browsers all a personalized Google page (www.google.com/ig) and then set them up with Google Calendar which can be shared and accessed to any number of Google Accounts.

      --
      "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
    4. Re:All I want *built in* is... by gad_zuki! · · Score: 1

      The features you are asking for are for an outlook clone. TB is at best a mail.app and outlook express clone. The devs dont seem to be interested in making it as feature rich at outlook and I wouldnt hold my breath.

      A willing group that wants this should fork it and integrate evolution's webdav connector, integrate a calendar, and update the newsreader to this century and if done well will marginlize TB the way FF did to the Mozilla suite. I'd donate time and money to this project.

    5. Re:All I want *built in* is... by Z33kPhr3k · · Score: 1

      Agreed!

      Lightning is a hack. Without free/busy shared calender support, it is useless for scheduling meetings on Exchange.

      IMAP to Exchange sucks. With 800 emails a days, Thunderbird kills the CPU on a Mac. IMAP also drags down the Exchange server.

      At a minimum Thunderbird should to implement WebDAV support to Exchange like Entourage.

      DOA.

    6. Re:All I want *built in* is... by Phil+John · · Score: 1

      The real problem is Scalix doesn't currently support an open method for syncing calendar data (it's currently stored in a proprietary IMAP object container).

      They are saying that we should see full CalDAV support in an upgrade to version 11, which is meant to arrive this quarter. Once that is here you've got IMAP for the mail, and CalDAV for the scheduling/syncing of the calendar.

      Add that to the Funambol Scalix connector being released shortly and it's shaping up to be a damn good Exchange challenger (I hate the term exchange killer). Why are you trying to dump it?

      --
      I am NaN
  9. vcal support? by epiphani · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The single lacking feature stopping me from using it? Heck, even if it ties in with that other calendaring application from mozilla, at least recognizing outlook calendar requests and calling the other app.

    --
    .
    1. Re:vcal support? by Lobais · · Score: 1

      Maybe it would just be really unfortunately if anybody else than Microsoft supported msoffice calenders?

      But really, I like thunderbird simple and then to be able to add a calendar as en extension.

    2. Re:vcal support? by 1110110001 · · Score: 1

      But Apple Mail and iCal _do_ support sending and receiving events and event responses.

  10. Cake by eealex · · Score: 1

    Any cake from Microsoft this time??

  11. One wonders by metushelach · · Score: 1

    Are there any corporations out there actually using Thunderbird?

    I know that in my organization, we actually adopted Firefox as the official browser (with IE removed, after much pains, from the "base installation" of our laptops).

    But Outlook still dominates without any real competition as the mail program. I have seen the odd case of Lotus Notes still surviving here and there but as a whole - Its an Exchange/Outlook world.

    So - Any /.er out there that knows of a corporation actually using Eudora/Thunderbird/Other non-outlook product as their official mail client?

    1. Re:One wonders by MoonFog · · Score: 1, Redundant

      Most corporations use the groupware in Exchange/Outlook, Thunderbird can't really compete there as it does not have a proper exchange equivalent to talk to.

      I've seen countless people use Thunderbird as a regular email client, that they use with their personal email.

    2. Re:One wonders by untouchableForce · · Score: 1

      My old employer (Fortune 500 company, about 40,000 employees) is entirely Lotus Notes. It was my first experience with it, and I must say it has some clever things. The user interface always felt a bit off to me though. They also had duplicate servers running but the default installation put everyone to server #1 so that server tended to be very slow. This worked out OK for me because I switched to server #2 manually.

      --
      Moderation is not supposed to be used as an indicator of agreement.
    3. Re:One wonders by iamjoltman · · Score: 1

      Had to plop in here and say 'We do!' Every machine has Firefox and Thunderbird on it. Of course, we don't run Exchange, we run our mail on Postfix, so it's not a problem at all for us.

    4. Re:One wonders by Aczlan · · Score: 1

      Bristol Myers Squib uses Thunderbird and Firefox as the corporate standard.

      --
      "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote
    5. Re:One wonders by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 3, Informative

      Most corporations use the groupware in Exchange/Outlook, Thunderbird can't really compete there as it does not have a proper exchange equivalent to talk to.
      Actually, that's not true. Look here:

      http://www.citadel.org

      Citadel is a good candidate for an open source "Exchange killer" and it works nicely with Thunderbird. If you have the Lightning calendar extension, it works with that too, and you can also connect your address book. Those are the big three, of course, but it goes deeper than that...
      --
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    6. Re:One wonders by virago81 · · Score: 1

      Oracle Corp gives the users a choice. I think most people in the org use Thunderbird basically because it's the best client available to them.

      I'm not sure why, but Oracle actually hacked up an Outlook plugin to their non-Exchange servers, but it's so buggy that people hate it (I know I did). The Oracle internal web-mail looks like a summer intern project gone bad. Thunderbird wins by default.

      --
      Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley
    7. Re:One wonders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IBM uses Notes I believe!
      My last employer (Candle Corp - now bought by IBM) was also a Notes shop.
      My current employer (a vast organisation of 4 people) recently switched to gmail/google calender which has been a revelation to me. Easily my favourite mail program.

    8. Re:One wonders by Wargalas · · Score: 1

      Do you do calendar sharing? We have postfix as well and a small FTP server to share the .vfb files for calendar sharing. If I can get calendar sharing support like that in Thunderbird, we'd move in 2 hours. :)

    9. Re:One wonders by jp10558 · · Score: 1

      Where I work, we use Thunderbird only via IMAP, and have Oracle Calendar for calendaering. This is necessary as we have as many Linux users as Windows users.

      --
      Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
  12. Re:OS X CPU Hog by ez76 · · Score: 1

    It's not really a waste unless your CPU usage was above 95% to begin with. Why so stingy?

  13. Performance by andre_nho · · Score: 1

    What I want to know is: what about performance? Has it increased or decreased since last version?

    1. Re:Performance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What I want to know is: why do you care? and is the 0.001uS you'll save every time you click an email really that critical to your use of the program?

    2. Re:Performance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It appears to be significantly faster. On my machine it loads roughly twice as fast.

    3. Re:Performance by gauauu · · Score: 1

      What I want to know is: why do you care? and is the 0.001uS you'll save every time you click an email really that critical to your use of the program? Because other versions of Thunderbird have this annoying issue where it will hang for a second or two after you receive new mail. It drives me crazy.

        If they can get rid of that, and improve their filtering system (let me launch a script or executable on mail that matches a certain filter), I'd become a total Thunderbird fanboy.
    4. Re:Performance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never noticed that particular issue myself but.... good answer.

  14. Cross Platform UI/Widgets Are Jarring On OS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Thunderbird 2 has a much more modern refined UI compared to earlier versions, but it still feels and looks very clunky compared to native OS X apps.

    I've noticed the same thing about apps like OpenOffice. Looks and feels absolutely hideous under OS X but feels just fine when running on Windows or Linux. It has to be that the OS X desktop/app toolkit and widgets really are THAT much more refined/polished/whatever than other OSes.

    I don't want to come off as an Apple fanboy because I use all three major desktops, but running non-native apps on OS X really brings to light just how much more elegant and modern OS X is compared to others.

    I don't know why Windows or Linux can't seem to get anywhere near the elegance and polish that Apple seems to be solely able to.

    1. Re:Cross Platform UI/Widgets Are Jarring On OS X by nyctopterus · · Score: 0

      I totally disagree, I've been using the Thunderbird 2.0 RC for a while now, and I'm very impressed with it's integration with OS X UI. It looks beautiful (and I wouldn't say that about many OSS apps on OS X). Really solid too. One of the best releases of an OSS app I've seen.

    2. Re:Cross Platform UI/Widgets Are Jarring On OS X by cortana · · Score: 1

      Trust me, the X11-based port feels hideous as well, although version 2 is a huge improvement over version 1.

    3. Re:Cross Platform UI/Widgets Are Jarring On OS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If one spent some time going over OS X's application toolkit and widgets in minute detail and compared every little facet like:

      Highlighting
      Spacing
      Use of colour
      Timing
      Redraw/updating
      Font rendering

      to Windows and Linux it would quickly become clear just why people have such a powerful reaction to OS X when they first use it. Even if they can't put their finger on it.

      Windows has never had that attention to detail.

      Linux desktops are so bad they aren't worth talking about. Most Linux users and developers think of the incredible amount of work that goes into the OS X desktop is just 'trivial eyecandy' or just 'pretty skins'

    4. Re:Cross Platform UI/Widgets Are Jarring On OS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The huge gulf in elegance and polish between OS X and Windows and Linux reminds me of when I first tried using apps like Pagemaker years ago to do page layout. My initial efforts were hideous and after meeting a girl who did page layout professionally I learned the basics from her and I was able to get pages that were reasonable but still obviously inferior to the stuff she did. I remember giving her pages that I worked on and she would quickly tweak the various layout elements and it was instantly more pleasing to read and look at.

    5. Re:Cross Platform UI/Widgets Are Jarring On OS X by hollywoodb · · Score: 2, Funny

      It has to be that the OS X desktop/app toolkit and widgets really are THAT much more refined/polished/whatever than other OSes. Perhaps...

      I don't want to come off as an Apple fanboy... Treading on thin ice...

      running non-native apps on OS X really brings to light just how much more elegant and modern OS X is compared to others. I don't know why Windows or Linux can't seem to get anywhere near the elegance and polish that Apple seems to be solely able to. ...and drowning.
      --
      I may have to share this planet with animals, but I'm doing my damn best to eat every last one of them.
    6. Re:Cross Platform UI/Widgets Are Jarring On OS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, aren't you clever!

    7. Re:Cross Platform UI/Widgets Are Jarring On OS X by laffer1 · · Score: 1

      Its not that OSX is that much better than say Vista. Its that open source people tend to duplicate Windows UI elements. Firefox and OpenOffice look like windows apps. Windows apps do look weird in OS X. KDE tries to look like Windows. Several other desktops, window managers, and toolkits do as well.

      I do think OS X is a little more polished but its not night and day.

      I don't actually like vista.

    8. Re:Cross Platform UI/Widgets Are Jarring On OS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll continue this cowardly discussion of blunt honesty...

      You're exactly right. Programmers make operating systems (especially Linux) and they just don't care about the details, and it shows, because the interfaces they make suck. Apple gets the details right, and more importantly they understand that the details make the product.

      Linux will never be great until it realizes how important the details are, and not just in the sense of 'cool eyecandy' like 3D desktops like Beryl/compiz. And the few who do get the importance of detail need to get over themselves long enough to make it useful for other people.

      Linux just has no visual coherence, and I don't think it ever will-- it's not possible with the disjointed open source model. That's just not good for interfaces... sigh...

      Apple gets it. It's why they have fanboiz. Take a hint before criticizing them, because you just look stupid for putting down something so well designed. They're doing it better than anyone else right now and that's something to applaud.

  15. IMAP by duguk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I use IMAP and Thunderbird - and so do all my customers. POP3 is just way too insecure, Outlook is sucky and Thunderbird is the perfect solution.

    Maybe think before you write such generalising statements.

    Monkeyboi

    1. Re:IMAP by jimstapleton · · Score: 3, Informative

      actually, he was commenting on webmail as the competing factor, not Outlook.

      Personally, on Windows, I use Outlook Express (set to not auto-preview emails), because thunderbird wasn't deleting mails from the server as it was supposed to (everything over 5 days old), and seemed to corrupt my mail local mail store every week or two (TBird 1.5). In BSD I use KMail.

      --
      34486853790
      Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
    2. Re:IMAP by kobaz · · Score: 1

      I use IMAP and Thunderbird - and so do all my customers. POP3 is just way too insecure, Outlook is sucky and Thunderbird is the perfect solution.

      I don't know about you, but my pop3 server has SSL/TLS support (Courier). But mostly I use SSL IMAP anyway.

      --

      The goal of computer science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.
    3. Re:IMAP by Gr8Apes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I use IMAP and Thunderbird - and so do all my customers. POP3 is just way too insecure, Outlook is sucky and Thunderbird is the perfect solution. Outlook sucks rocks yes, but Thunderbird 1.5 wasn't a shining beacon either. There's several UI decisions that just suck rocks in Thunderbird (search kinda blows, although worlds better than Outlook). Mac's Mail is better in some ways, but it's not the panacea I'm looking for either. I still feel like I'm in circa 1992 with Eudora. Mail clients have essentially stagnated since then with very little improvement from a user perspective. Maybe TB 2.0 will fix that. I'll be looking forward to trying it out.

      POP3 is perfectly secure in SSL mode. IMAP is supposed to add some features, but is not inherently more secure than POP3.

      Maybe think before you write such generalising statements. As should you.
      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    4. Re:IMAP by Critical+Facilities · · Score: 1

      POP3 is just way too insecure


      You could always use this.
    5. Re:IMAP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you also use SSL and/or TLS for IMAP security?

    6. Re:IMAP by fm6 · · Score: 1

      POP3 is just way too insecure And flaky. And a painful to use if you need to access the same mailbox from multiple computers. And let's not even talk about attachments....

      Six years ago I was having flamefests with other slashdotters who thought my anti-POP prejudice was dumb. Now history has caught up with me. Nice to be proven right once in a while.
    7. Re:IMAP by onemorechip · · Score: 1

      I do access a POP3 server from multiple computers, but don't see any problem with it. Can you give an example of the pain you are referring to? Likewise for your attachments comment -- isn't attachment handling a function of the mail client?

      --
      But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
    8. Re:IMAP by onemorechip · · Score: 1
      Well, that doesn't quite answer my question. I wanted to know specifically what problems you had with multiple clients on POP. I'm not partial to IMAP or POP; I happen to use POP because that is what my ISP supports. Yet I don't have any trouble accessing it from multiple machines. I'm not a fan of keeping messages on the server, so my model goes like this: One of my clients is configured to always delete mail from the server, and any of the others (a PDA, or a laptop used when away from home) will always leave mail on the server, so that the home client will pick it up next time I use it. All my e-mail then ultimately ends up on the home client where I want it. I can always delete unwanted e-mail while using the away client, so I don't have to see it again at home.

      Your link did have a good point about attachments. I was not aware IMAP could do that. When I first used IMAP it really sucked because I had no choice whether to leave mail on the server or delete it, making the above model impossible, but that was in 1996 and it was either a primitive version of IMAP, or it was configured badly by the IT people where I worked. I've since become aware of better IMAP implementations, but everywhere I go POP seems to be the available choice.

      --
      But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
    9. Re:IMAP by ssstraub · · Score: 1

      One of my clients is configured to always delete mail from the server, and any of the others (a PDA, or a laptop used when away from home) will always leave mail on the server, so that the home client will pick it up next time I use it.


      So what do you do when you forget to close your client at home and then try to access your mail from your PDA or laptop?

      All it takes is for this to happen once and you'll realize why IMAP is so much better.
    10. Re:IMAP by fm6 · · Score: 1

      It's been almost 10 years since I stopped using POP, so I'd really have to dredge my memory to come up with good examples. Don't feel like it. Figure it out for yourself.

    11. Re:IMAP by onemorechip · · Score: 1

      I never said IMAP wasn't better. I'm only here asking questions, not making assertions. But what you describe has never happened to me. Tell me, what would be the result?

      --
      But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
    12. Re:IMAP by onemorechip · · Score: 1

      I ask you what you didn't like about POP, and you tell me to figure it out myself. What am I, psychic?

      --
      But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
    13. Re:IMAP by fm6 · · Score: 1

      I told you what I didn't like about POP. You want precise details. To give you that, I'd have to do some serious research (set up a POP account, configure a client to use it, try it out on a couple of computers to simulate real-world use) to recreate all the problems that drove me away from POP almost a decade ago. Casual discussion you get for free, but if you want serious technical research and writing, you'll have to pay my hourly rate. For this kind of work, I usually get $40/hr.

      You're probably not up for that, so I'd suggest you get your hands dirty and compare the protocols yourself. That's assuming you're really interested in the practical differences between the two protocols. If, on the other hand, you just want to get in the last word, all you need to do is respond to this post with a cute remark, and we're all done.

  16. WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you're running a small business with multiple email accounts and/or make heavy use of attachments then a desktop client is the only way to go. You can even use thunderbird with your Gmail account.

  17. Fedora and Mozilla by qrwe · · Score: 1

    Does anyone know about the Fedora Project? Will they import Thunderbird 2.0 or will they go on with 1.5 as the did with Firefox, while waiting for the 3.0 release?

    --
    There are 2 types of people in the world - those who understand decimal and those who don't.
    1. Re:Fedora and Mozilla by PoprocksCk · · Score: 1

      IANAFD - I am not a Fedora developer, but...

      I don't think it was a question of "waiting for the 3.0 release." FC6 is not getting major new versions to any programs now, they're just doing stability and security fixes. Firefox and Thunderbird 2.0.0.x are both built in RawHide, and the latest versions will likely ship with FC7.

  18. But the big hole is... by tygerstripes · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Calendaring. TB is not used in the (office) workplace - even progressive workplaces that are happy to go with FF - because Outlook calendar support doesn't exist. I've no idea how good Sunbird (is that right?) is, but FF managed to get a foothold because the switch was painless. Without the ability to integrate with Outlook calendars, TB's not going to get that foothold.

    I'm not suggesting this is Mozilla's fault, I'm just stating what I understand to be the real stumbling block for TB - and TB2 hasn't fixed it. It's a real shame.

    Incidentally, TB really didn't need an overhaul, as far as I could tell. Prolly one of the most stable apps I've used in a long time, and quite powerful enough. Still, I'll have a look...

    --
    Meta will eat itself
    1. Re:But the big hole is... by sherriw · · Score: 1

      I use the Lightening calendar extension for Thunderbird. It's ok. Nowhere near as full featured as Outlook's calendar, but it gets the job done.

      I really wish it would scroll the calendar with the mouse wheel though.

      But I totally agree, a solid calendar is what will really bring Thunderbird into the mainstream. You! Mozilla developers! Focus on Lightening please! :)

    2. Re:But the big hole is... by disasm · · Score: 2, Insightful

      most of us don't want it. We like our mail client doing just mail... However; I have heard rumors about Penelope (the new Eudora based on the same codebase as Thunderbird) having calendaring support similar to outlook for people that would like to have it.

      Sam

    3. Re:But the big hole is... by jvervloet · · Score: 1

      But who is the one that decided a calendar should be part of a mail client? If mail clients have calendars, I do not see why e.g. web browsers do not have calendars.

    4. Re:But the big hole is... by bahwi · · Score: 1

      Agreed. I was able to(with the help of some of the others in the IT department and a spectacular failure of trying to use and get Outlook working with a third party company for over 3 months) get everyone on google calendar, but we're small. (Of course, there is google for domains now)

    5. Re:But the big hole is... by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      FYI, there are actually two Mozilla calendar projects: Lightning, which integrates into Thunderbird, and Sunbird, which is stand-alone (and also doesn't support extensions yet for some reason).

      My big gripe about both of them is that they don't sync with PDAs (Palm or WinCE) yet.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    6. Re:But the big hole is... by dpilot · · Score: 1

      Because you send someone an appointment or meeting invitation with an email.

      To use most anything other than email as the transmission mechanism would presume that you share access to some sort of server with the calendar function.

      Hmmmm...
      Come to think if it, imagine some sort of IMAP-aware calendar server... The transmission mechanism is still email, but that email sits on your imap server. The calendar server can also see it, and keep meetings for everyone at a site or company, to facilitate group scheduling. At the same time, your home server could have both imap and calendar servers, to keep family schedules. One email client with calendar features could talk to both, and display both. Home would have no way to talk to work, but at least you could see both at the same time, presuming the client could connect to both at the same time.

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    7. Re:But the big hole is... by BeerCur · · Score: 1

      Just to throw my 2 cents in as far as "the big hole."

      I know I am a rather simpleton, but my life is not that complicated that I need my email client to connect to a calender program.

      However I still do not use Thunderbird, for what some may perceive as a trivial reason, but the "only" reason why I haven't taken the plunge. When replying to messages Thunderbird winds up throwing in greater than signs ">" for every line. After 4 or 5 messages back in forth it looks like
      ">>>>>>>>>>Buy
      >>>>>>>>>>>Component
      >>>>>>>>>>>at $3.00
      >>>>>>>>>>>Stock"
      I know the emails gods have created the standard that says you should reply under a message and you must clearly differentiate between messages and reply's with ">", in front of each line, but no one does that in my business. We all reply on top of the previous message and there are no ">" to be found. The messages are seperated with
      -----Original Message-----
      From: BeerCur
      Sent: Monday, April 16, 2007 1:21 PM
      To: Microsemi butt munch
      Subject: Re: PO X4324 / 10pcs JANS2N6849

      It is clear and industry standard. At least you can duplicate the header with extension in TB, but is there a way to eliminate the ">" in Thunderbird... nope, nada, nay... at least I haven't been able to find it. OE, it is in the options.

      --
      It's not what your Sig can do for you, but what you can do for your for your Sig.
    8. Re:But the big hole is... by skt · · Score: 1

      It will be used in some offices.. our office will likely deploy thunderbird 2 by the end of the year. We've been on Netscape7 / Mozilla Mail since July 2003, thunderbird will replace it easily. Our calendaring is separate, we use Oracle Calendar (AKA Steltor CorporateTime, Netscape Calendar). I suspect a lot of other universities will consider Thunderbird since Oracle Calendar is popular there.

    9. Re:But the big hole is... by I_M_Noman · · Score: 1

      Because you send someone an appointment or meeting invitation with an email.
      But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. The first time I saw a calendaring product that required you to send the meeting request over e-mail, I was surprised that anybody would want to add that much strain to the mail servers.

      To use most anything other than email as the transmission mechanism would presume that you share access to some sort of server with the calendar function.
      That's the way we did it 15 years ago at the Big 6 firm I worked at then. We used OnTime, which had a dedicated server.
    10. Re:But the big hole is... by dpilot · · Score: 1

      I'm on Lotus Notes right now. But let's say I installed a calendaring server on my home system. Then I'd have a "work calendar" and a "home calendar", and the twain would have no way of meeting, whatsoever.

      Now let's pretend that email is the mechanism for getting stuff into the calendar, and I have imap mail at home, imap mail at work, etc. The interaction point becomes the calendar attached to the email client. Assuming I have appropriate VPN connectivity, I can look and see all of my events on one spot with no extra work.

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    11. Re:But the big hole is... by I_M_Noman · · Score: 1

      But let's say I installed a calendaring server on my home system. Then I'd have a "work calendar" and a "home calendar", and the twain would have no way of meeting, whatsoever.
      Which would be fine with me as I don't want my personal stuff showing up on my work calendar, and vice versa. (If I installed a calendar server at home, I'd expect to use it for my home calendar.) YMMV.
    12. Re:But the big hole is... by dpilot · · Score: 1

      That's my point, with what I propose, the twain only meet in the email/calendar client, not at any servers. I get the convenience, but the information remains separated, at respective "owners."

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  19. Re:OS X CPU Hog by BladeMelbourne · · Score: 3, Informative

    TB2 has 0.00 processor usage according to activity monitor on a PPC Mini 1.42 GHz.

    I would Digg you down as inaccurate, but wrong site.

  20. Calendar plugin just announced on slashdot by digitalderbs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This article came out a couple of days ago. It's a calendar plugin for Thunderbird 2 that syncs with google calendar. In my opinion, it's not an "Exchange killer," as the title states, but it could be very useful.

    1. Re:Calendar plugin just announced on slashdot by wetelectric · · Score: 1

      Yeah, it looks nice. But this could not be used in a work environment. Email stored remotely like this would be an impossible sell.

      I would have thought they would have integrated lightning (an integrated calendar extension, currently on 0.3). Again, I would love to have this built in...ah well Thunderbird 2.5? :)

      --
      Most people have no idea what they are doing, and are silently panicking on the inside.
    2. Re:Calendar plugin just announced on slashdot by shokk · · Score: 1

      Maybe this is what you're looking for
      http://lifehacker.com/software/google-calendar/gee k-to-live--sync-google-calendar-and-gmail-contacts -to-your-desktop-251279.php
      which users Lightning, but is not the same and uses something called GCalDaemon to even allow you working with it in an offline mode.

      --
      "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
    3. Re:Calendar plugin just announced on slashdot by TheDormouse · · Score: 1

      Actually, for the great number of folks who don't want a calendar in their email client, it seems to make more sense in the current configuration: email client + separate calendar extension (Lightning). Lightning integrates into Thunderbird just fine. Even for a 0.3 release, Lightning seems to work pretty well. I imagine it's only going to get better. The Provider extension for Google Calendar works well too.

      It would be nice if Lightning was offered in the Thunderbird installer--possibly like a "web installer", downloading the extra component during the install.

  21. Re:OS X CPU Hog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Of course it is a waste.

    Thunderbird CPU usage on initial startup - approx 0 percent.

    Thunderbird CPU usage spike up, of course, on the reception of an email for the first - as it should.

    Thunderbird CPU usage now remains at approx 5 percent for absolutely no reason no for as long as the program runs.

    Quit Thunderbird and restart, CPU usage goes right back to 0 percent...

    Would you gladly accept a 5 percent downgrade in your CPU's performance?

  22. Re:OS X CPU Hog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just tried it. It has 0.0 percent on startup. I sent myself a test email. The program now bounces around 3.3 and 4.5 percent. Definitely something gets started when an email arrives that isn't turned off when the program goes back to idle.

  23. Compile your own 64-bit! Here's how : by digitalderbs · · Score: 3, Funny
    You have to compile your own. I compile mine on Ubuntu Edgy 64-bit. This will get you started :
    1. Download source
    2. Run configure with the following command (this solves a compile time known bug in gcc 4)

      ac_cv_visibility_pragma=no ./configure --enable-application=mail
    3. make and sudo make install
    1. Re:Compile your own 64-bit! Here's how : by Svet-Am · · Score: 2, Insightful

      meaning that Windows x64 users are left totally in the dark. If they're going to claim Windows support and x64 support in the same sentence, then they ought to be providing a 64-bit enabled binary.

      --
      [move .sig! for great justice, take off every .sig!]
    2. Re:Compile your own 64-bit! Here's how : by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not completely trivial to support both Windows and Linux x64 versions. Windows x64 uses LLP, while Linux (and other unixes for) x64 use ILP.

    3. Re:Compile your own 64-bit! Here's how : by corychristison · · Score: 1
      ... I think you are missing something:

      1. Download source
      2. Run configure with the following command (this solves a compile time known bug in gcc 4)

        ac_cv_visibility_pragma=no ./configure --enable-application=mail
      3. make and sudo make install
      4. ...?
      5. Profit!
      MUCH better. :-)
    4. Re:Compile your own 64-bit! Here's how : by Svet-Am · · Score: 1

      that's not the problem of end users. end users don't care about the details, they just want the product.

      --
      [move .sig! for great justice, take off every .sig!]
  24. Can it filter image spam? by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 1

    I've had no luck getting Thunderbird 1.5 to filter mail with .gif attachments. Is this something that's easier to do in 2.0?

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
    1. Re:Can it filter image spam? by Vagrant · · Score: 1

      Here's the message filter that I use:

      Body Contains image/gif

  25. This is what I posted... by robertlagrant · · Score: 3, Funny
    I posted this one to here a few hours ago, thought you might prefer this version of the story :)

    Mozilla's Thunderbird email software has reached version 2.0.0.0. Includes tagging messages, quick navigation through threads, improved (and saved) searches, and (most usefully for some) support for checking .mac and gmail. Reports that Thunderbird 2 may contain a mole were quickly quashed.
  26. This is going to ruin my Karma, but..... by Alex · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Last week I switched from Linux to Mac OSX, purely so I could run Entourage and interface properly with Exchange.

    Thunderbird is an awesome IMAP/POP3 client super stable, really great to use - in an organization that uses Exchange a lot not being able to interface with Exchange properly was a real pain in the arse.

    I had a real nightmare trying to use Evolution, it was very unstable, I reinstalled my workstation and did all sorts of stuff but I couldn't get it to be as stable as Thunderbird.

    So I've started using a mac for email so I've got a Unix box I can use Exchange on.

    Just don't get me started on sharepoint.....

    cheers,

    Alex

    1. Re:This is going to ruin my Karma, but..... by seandiggity · · Score: 1

      Evolution supposedly has great Exchange support, but I can't vouch for it. I use the Exchange plugin for Kontact (KDE) and it works well with only a few minor annoyances (i.e. you have to manually publish calendar items to the Exchange server).

      --
      Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
    2. Re:This is going to ruin my Karma, but..... by Alex · · Score: 1

      The wierd thing is that a bunch of Unix users here use Evolution, and for another bunch (often on the same version of Linux) Evolution doesn't work at all.

      Alex

    3. Re:This is going to ruin my Karma, but..... by wiredog · · Score: 1

      I moved from Linux to Mac last month after my 6 year old linux box caught fire. Fortunately the hard drives survived and I was able to copy the data from them to the new Mac. Yes, I had backups, but hadn't done that week's backup yet. So I had to get some data off the drives anyway.

    4. Re:This is going to ruin my Karma, but..... by Python · · Score: 1

      We use evolution on our Linux boxes at a major Government site (to interface with Exchange) and with no issues. It may be that your UNIX users that are having problems are running an older version of Evolution, or perhaps its a config issue. The login procedure for Exchange is actually thru the OWA frontend, and you have to put your Domain before your username (DOMAIN\username). We've had plenty of senior linux engineers that did not know that, and thought it wasn't working. Simple mistake to make. The other config problem we saw was users that did not know they had to point to the OWA frontend, and thought they should be pointing to the backend exchange server (like in Outlook). Once they configured Evolution to point to the front end servers (the OWA boxes), it worked like a charm.

      --

      Python

  27. Re:OS X CPU Hog by ez76 · · Score: 1

    I see your point about it being annoying, but have you put the machine under 100% load and observed that Thunderbird still consumes the same 5% of CPU?

    Until you know that, what performance can you truly say really being "lost" if the machine is otherwise 95% idle?

    Are you arguing that it's wasting electric power or wasting performance?

    Perhaps it is a bug, or perhaps some task is being scheduled opportunistically when there is nothing else to do.

  28. Thunderbird vs. Mail.app by javacowboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Thunderbird is by far the best mail client for Windows, and from my limited experience the best email client for Linux (though I haven't used Linux much recently). Mail.app (the Mac mail program) runs circles around Thunderbird and any other mail client I've ever used.

    Thunderbird has been moving in the general direction of parity with Mail.app, but it isn't there yet. Mail.app still wins handily for its superior preferences menu layout which includes account info and mail filters all in one place. It's also integrated with the OS X address book and spell-checking dictionary. Once Leopard comes out, Mail.app will be integrated with the system-wide calendar process (another new Leopard feature).

    And before anybody calls me a Mac fanboy, I still have a strong preference for Firefox over Safari. Safari is so light on features, especially those I take for granted with Firefox, that it's simply not usable (although Firefox should steal a feature or two from Safari to be even better).

    --
    This space left intentionally blank.
    1. Re:Thunderbird vs. Mail.app by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same for me. Last time I had to use exchange for work, I was running it inside a VMware WinNT4 session inside of RedHat linux 7 and that ran good enough... Firefox extensions, must-have... My friend tried the older Thunderbird on OSX and he said there were some major bugs in it. For whatever reason he said he didn't like Mail.app. Anyways... I'm wondering how the new TB stacks up to Mail.app...

    2. Re:Thunderbird vs. Mail.app by chrisgeleven · · Score: 1

      I agree. I would really like to use Thunderbird, but there are just certain things missing (Address Book and Spotlight integration for one thing) that are too important to live without.

      Mail.app works just fine for me. The only real pet peeve I have is the inability to have images load automatically for contacts in your address book (no idea if this is coming or not) and no phishing detection (which is coming in Leopard I believe).

    3. Re:Thunderbird vs. Mail.app by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mail app definitely has that elegance that most native OS X apps have and I miss the integration you mentioned. However, Mail became essentially unusable due to the absurdly bad way it handled mail server login errors - which is to immediately fail and barf up a password dialog - even for accounts that have been previously working with a valid login and password.

    4. Re:Thunderbird vs. Mail.app by traabil · · Score: 1

      Thunderbird is by far the best mail client for Windows

      As a regular user of Firefox and Thunderbird, I don't want to come across as an MS fanboy, but I would contest that statement. Used in the right way, I'd say Outlook is still the best (regretfully).
    5. Re:Thunderbird vs. Mail.app by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      As a regular user of Firefox and Thunderbird, I don't want to come across as an MS fanboy, but I would contest that statement. Used in the right way, I'd say Outlook is still the best (regretfully).

      My Outlook experience was that after using it for several months, it simply stopped retrieving my mail entirely. It wouldn't even check when you told it to. I jumped through a bunch of hoops to migrate back to thunderbird (I'd gone to outlook because we were supposed to get an exchange server and use calendaring, but that was like a year ago now) and now I'm much happier. Thunderbird seems to be pretty crappy in the reliability department, and no I have no plugins or anything, but 1.5 has loads of problems. When an email comes in to my inbox, if I don't already have any mail received today, it doesn't show up until I switch away and then back to the folder (messages are shown segregated by day.) And sometimes it stops retrieving mail on demand as well, but I can just quit and restart it and it works again. If I leave it running overnight it seldom works in the morning.

      I hope 2.x is better.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re:Thunderbird vs. Mail.app by mortonda · · Score: 1

      I use IMAP to check several accounts, and the last time I tried Outlook, it choked on IMAP.

      Course, I haven't used windows for quite a while now.

    7. Re:Thunderbird vs. Mail.app by I_M_Noman · · Score: 1

      Firefox should steal a feature or two from Safari
      It's called Camino.
  29. Still no Sent / Received Date options by Hohlraum · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They are still blindly using the Date: field for received and sent mail. The so called fix is to sort by the 'Order Received' column. That column is inaccurate when you start moving messages around between folders. I really wish the TB developers would wake up. I know of no other mail client that doesn't parse out the Received date from the headers and make it available. In fact it is the default date for most other mail clients as well. I've lost count of the number of people who have brought this up to me when I tell them to check out TB. TB (imo) is a superior email client to outlook express except for this one issue that they keep ignoring.

    This is based on a beta from a few weeks ago, feel free to correct me if they woke up between then and the release and fixed this issue.

    1. Re:Still no Sent / Received Date options by brix · · Score: 2, Informative
      In the list of new features, I noticed the following:

      Improved Support For Extensions: Extensions can now add custom columns to the message list pane in addition to storing custom message data in the mail database.
      Perhaps this means that the problem is fixable by an extension now?
    2. Re:Still no Sent / Received Date options by gnud · · Score: 1

      Use IMAP? :P

    3. Re:Still no Sent / Received Date options by Hohlraum · · Score: 1

      read my post. the issue is that you can't view the received date in a column. only the date set by the senders email client/smtp server.

    4. Re:Still no Sent / Received Date options by gad_zuki! · · Score: 1

      This is a pain, and I think stems from the ideological notion behind the software. But I dont think using the date stamp to display messages is part of any "standard" I know of. So in the real world, when I get spam or mail from people with misconfigured smtp servers (or possibly client machines) and the date field is 1998 or something, then I need to root through my email with the mouse scroll wheel to find this one piece of unread mail because it wont appear at the top. Its just stupid. I understand that the TB maintainers see themselves as Netscape Mail part II, but Netscape has got a lot of things wrong. Maintaining that tradition isnt the wisest move.

    5. Re:Still no Sent / Received Date options by Have+Brain+Will+Rent · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ummmmm, press on the "Status" column header to sort all the "New" entries, delete the offending mail, press on the "Date" column header to return to sorting by date?

      --
      The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
    6. Re:Still no Sent / Received Date options by theodicey · · Score: 1
      The back end and a fix of sorts is on the trunk version of Thunderbird (future 3.0). If it bugs you so much, you should step up and fix the front end.

      (no links from slashdot to bugzilla, so copy & paste)

      https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16625 4

    7. Re:Still no Sent / Received Date options by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      This is exactly why I haven't adopted it. Rest of it's great, but that's a deal-breaker. I don't want to see when the sender thinks they sent it, I want to see when it arrived on my server, because I know the clock on that is right, and not set to 2020. Looks like I'll be sticking with outhouse express for now then.

      And as for the "fix it yourself if you're so bothered" comments, I can't; I lack the time, knowledge and probably the skill. It's a standard option that any modern mail client should either provide as default, or provide as an option, if it ever wants to be taken seriously.

    8. Re:Still no Sent / Received Date options by Spooon69 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, the sorting by "Order Received" isn't even a true fix. Using IMAP if you move an email message from one folder to another, the moved email is considered "newer" since the order received is higher in the new folder. As for the Date issue, Thunderbird does it correctly, the other clients do it incorrectly (e.g. Eudora, Zimbra, Outlook 2003). You do NOT want to see the time the email was received, but the time the email was sent. Why? The email could have traveled for a while before reaching your server. The TB default is right, but I agree that it should offer the option of showing the dates "incorrectly".

  30. Tagging by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tagging was in Thunderbird v1.5 (and possible v1 as well) except it was called labels. Why does renaming something suddenly make it a major feature?!

    1. Re:Tagging by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But are the tags stored in the message headers so other clients can access them too? Are the tags stored locally or on and IMAP server when your mail is on the IMAP server?

  31. Is there a way to make it behave like Eudora? by syukton · · Score: 1

    Eudora has an MDI interface for working with mailboxes and messages. I can have multiple messages and/or mailboxes opened simultaneously within a single window in Eudora, whereas last I checked, Thunderbird behaved like Outlook with regard to mailboxes and messages; you can only view one at a time, no tiling or cascading of MDI windows.

    Is there a plugin or something that makes Thunderbird behave like Eudora in this regard? If there is, I would totally switch mail clients. I'm only hooked on Eudora because I prefer its UI...

    --
    Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
    1. Re:Is there a way to make it behave like Eudora? by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Is there a plugin or something that makes Thunderbird behave like Eudora in this regard? If there is, I would totally switch mail clients. I'm only hooked on Eudora because I prefer its UI...

      The next Eudora will be a thunderbird respin. Just stick with Eudora, and it will turn into what you want.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  32. newsreader changed? welcome to 1995 by Xenomorph.NET · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Thunderbird's newsreader seems the same as it was ever since it was the Netscape newsreader.

    hardly anything has changed.

    it still displays "Lines" instead of "Size". it also can't join posts like Outlook Express is able to.

    why has the newsreader been left unchanged for so long? it looks and works the same (crappy) as it always had. hardly anything has changed since the mid 1990s.

    1. Re:newsreader changed? welcome to 1995 by Alzheimers · · Score: 1

      Have they ever fixed the attachment joining issue that's been solved in most other news readers since 2000?

    2. Re:newsreader changed? welcome to 1995 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think NNTP has fallen out of use. Some ISPs block it, others limit the amount you can download. To Internet users since the last few years they have not heard of NNTP (or Gopher etc.) and think of WWW-only as the internet. BitTorrent is opening up the minds of some to file sharing though.

    3. Re:newsreader changed? welcome to 1995 by fm6 · · Score: 1

      why has the newsreader been left unchanged for so long? Because the whole newsgroup concept is obsolete. There are much better ways host online discussions. You're using one of them right now.
  33. Real Ninjas Use Thunderbird by sherriw · · Score: 3, Funny

    I've read lots of posts about how most people use webmail or whatever their ISP gives them. Well.... that may be true but we all know that the really cool ninjas own their own domain so they can create unlimited email addresses, spam-traps, forwards, mail lists and all kinds of other ninja-like cool stuff. Every time I see a techie person who's using his/her cogeco or hotmail address, I just laugh.

    Yes, I am a cool email ninja. :)

    1. Re:Real Ninjas Use Thunderbird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, your email address is imarealcoolninja@sherriw.eww?

      -spamtrap@mcgrew.info

  34. Re:OS X CPU Hog by cortana · · Score: 1

    You can find out with a debugger...

  35. And you still can't import/export vCard files... by Karpe · · Score: 2, Informative

    Bummer.

  36. Passwords by Bizzeh · · Score: 1

    i think i will use it if... the passwords, and out going mail servers, are handled in a normal way.

    ie, dont have 1 global outgoing server, and passwords are easily managable per account, and can be set up when setting the account up.

    1. Re:Passwords by pembo13 · · Score: 1

      Has it ever _not_ been like that? You're taking about the Mozilla email client, right?

      --
      "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
    2. Re:Passwords by hawaiian717 · · Score: 1

      IIRC in some of the pre-1.0 versions (I switched from Apple Mail to Thunderbird at version 0.2) there was a note about having multiple SMTP servers configured being unstable. I've been using it fine for quite a while and haven't run into issues. Works with 2.0 just fine.

      The biggest issue is that SMTP server configuration is in a separate section from the Account settings. Under each account you designate which SMTP server you want to use, and have to go to a different screen to actually configure the SMTP servers. Good if you have lots of separate accounts that share a single SMTP server, bad otherwise.

      --
      End of Line.
  37. Tagging by Dan+East · · Score: 2, Informative

    Message tagging has existed for a long, long time in Thunderbird. You could already hit numeric keys to tag emails, which would change the color of the text in the list. This version formalizes tagging, by adding a toolbar button and assigning actual (user-configurable) names to various colors. I'll continue to use the numeric keys, because as usual keyboard shortcuts are so much faster than mouse-based UI. Still, it's nice to see Thunderbird's features continue to mature.

    Dan East

    --
    Better known as 318230.
  38. SUN MICROSYSTEMS by Informix · · Score: 1

    Yep, Sun Microsystems use Firefox and Thunderbird as their "official" supported apps on Windows laptops, home office (anything non-SunRay). Took me about a week to fully give up my calendar from Outlook, but Lightning does just fine.

    1. Re:SUN MICROSYSTEMS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd think on Solaris boxes, too - seeing as these are two of the strongest choices on that platform. (And please don't tell me that Sun doesn't eat their own dogfood. They should, Solaris can actually make a fairly respectable workstation nowadays.)

    2. Re:SUN MICROSYSTEMS by Informix · · Score: 1

      There are many folks at Sun that would beat me across the head and shoulders for not mentioning Mac and SOLARIS. We tend to have every OS known to man around the office except HPUX and AIX. Point is, we are encouraged to use Mozilla, Open/Star Office, etc. Sun is the "Network is the computer" company, what you connect to the network with seems up the user at this point. /Solaris (happy now?) //Dell rhymes with Hell

  39. Embedded graphic problem by Eastender · · Score: 1

    I used Thunderbird extensively, and then one day, a table that had been pasted onto my message from Excel just "disappeared", i.e., no one who read my mail using outlook could see it at all... just blank space!

    Not having the time to figure out what went wrong, here I am, at the mercy of my MS Outlook overlord...

    Help!

    --
    Capitalism is the Opium of the Masses; Customer is King is the slogan.
    1. Re:Embedded graphic problem by svallarian · · Score: 1

      It's due to OLE objects not working right in thunderbird. I'm not sure if Outlook captures them and re-encodes them as an attachment or what, but I feel your pain!!!

      --
      I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
  40. Broken by Xerotope · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is what happens when I try and upgrade from 1.5:

    "Error opening file for writing: \r\n\r\nmozMapi32.dll\r\n\r\nClick Retry to try again, or \r\nCancel to stop the instalation"

    Thanks guys...awesome new release.

    1. Re:Broken by Control6 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I had the same error message. Do you have a Logitech Quickcam? I found that the Quickcam software which runs in the background on start-up was keeping a lock on the mozMapi32.dll file in the Thunderbird program folder. I had to use process explorer to kill off QuickCam10.exe before I could complete the installation.

    2. Re:Broken by talonyx · · Score: 1

      Change your default mail client to Windows Mail, log out and in, delete c:\program files\thunderbird manually, and try again.

    3. Re:Broken by Xerotope · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes, I had a Quickcam.

      Once I closed Skype (which is the only app I had running which uses the cam), it installed fine.

      So, anyone know why Logitech is using the Mozilla API library?

    4. Re:Broken by finkployd · · Score: 1

      I just got that error and thought: "I remember seeing a thunderbird 2.0 story on /. earlier, I wonder if anyone else ran into this and posted a solution there?" and dammit, you delivered :)

      Disabled quickcam software and that fixed it.

      Thank you

      Finkployd

    5. Re:Broken by dekkerdreyer · · Score: 1

      The QuickCam software breaks Cygwin also.

      --
      Dekker Dreyer
    6. Re:Broken by dveditz · · Score: 1

      I don't know why Quickcam needs to use the MAPI interface, but if Thunderbird is the default mail app then any app on the system loading the MAPI service will get the Thunderbird library.

    7. Re:Broken by angrykeyboarder · · Score: 1

      I can't recall the last time I installed Windows software that didn't instruct me to close all running programs before proceeding....

      --
      Scott

      ©20014 angrykeyboarder & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved
  41. Re:But the big hole is... Calendaring and contacts by neutrino38 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I use Thunderbird both at work and at home.

    This release contains probably a lot of improvment under th hood but what really misses is:

    • Support for Outlook calender on PC
    • Support for an Opensource calender server with the ability to change the calendar from within the GUI
    • A way to synchronize calendars between Thunderbird on different workstation
    • Syncronisation of calendar with Mobile devices
    • Synchronisation of contact with Mobile devices
    • SMS / MMS management from within TB

    For Mac OS X users like me, I would add:

    • Native support of Mac OS X address book
    • Enable spotlight to search within the mails
    • Native support of Mac Calendar (don't reinvent the wheel ;..)
    • Support of iSync for synchronsation with mobile devices (don't reinvent the wheel ;..)

    This would be a proper 2.0 release.

    I would also suggest also to write or improve extentions connecting TB with proeminents CRM software (Salesforce, Surgar CRM, ...).

    PS: I tried Sunbird but was not convinced.

  42. Can I sync it with my phone? by jBabel · · Score: 1

    No? Nothing to see here, move along.

  43. Mails? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Um, the plural of mail is mail

  44. Outbound Filters? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How come the program still can't filter outbound emails?

    If I go to the trouble to filter inbound stuff for a reason, doesn't
    it make sense I might want to keep original mail or replies for
    the filtered stuff in the same (or sub) folders?

  45. If you downloaded Release Candidate 1... by What'sInAName · · Score: 1


    I *just* downloaded rc1 like, two days ago. I just downloaded the final version and diff'ed it with the rc1 candidate and it's the same file, so if you downloaded rc1 already, save yourself a little bit of time and don't bother until the next update.

    1. Re:If you downloaded Release Candidate 1... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On a Mac, I did the same thing (to check for extension compatibility) and found that RC1 and final weren't the same; even though the creation dates were equal (also in the 'about Thunderbird' dialog), there was extra stuff in one of the chrome files and the actual .app files differed by something near 1MB. Maybe that was just removing 'rc1' from everything. While RC1 didn't prompt to install final, I did anyways.

  46. Wish list for stability and usability by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 2

    Having used 1.5 for a long period of time its also one of the more stable programs I'v use every day, havnt so far seen a crash or something that dosnt work as intended.

    Do you know whether they've fixed the mess that is "compacting folders" for TB2?

    I got very bored of having to manually hack index files because something an end-user should never have to know about wasn't happening and TB 1.5 broke in various ways. I then discovered that you can make it auto-prompt to remind you to compact folders at least, but it does that far too often, including on start-up, which then gets silly messages as your filter rules run.

    Other things on my wish list include:

    • Automatically place my replies to messages in the same folder as the message I'm replying to.
    • For bonus points, provide an option in the filter rules that automatically places incoming messages in the same folder as any message I already have that they're replying to (as indicated by message headers).
    • Speaking of filter rules, it's been very annoying that you can't share rules between different incoming mail accounts in previous versions. Has this been added?
    • And on a related note, is there a view option in the news reader that shows only threads where one of my accounts has posted, so I can follow up on those threads first?
    • Also in news, it would be nice if the pseudo-killfile options worked properly, so adding a rule to ignore any threads started by spammer@annoying.com would clean up the 50 or so I've already downloaded headers for.
    • And of course, many of us at work want calendaring compatible with Outlook/Exchange, but unfortunately I see from other posts that there isn't a matching release of any suitable add-in.

    Can anyone who's been trying it confirm whether any of the above have been added? If so, I'll probably upgrade. If not, I'll wait a while in case of silly bugs. Thanks!

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    1. Re:Wish list for stability and usability by spage · · Score: 1
      • Automatically place my replies to messages in the same folder as the message I'm replying to.

      From the much more detailed summary from the Rumbling Edge, 301084: Option to file replies in folder of original message is fixed.

      --
      =S
  47. Thunderbird still can not ... by roubles · · Score: 1

    ... filter messages based on text in their bodies. This is a basic feature in pine, mutt and even outlook. Here is the bug:

    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=67421

  48. Re:And you still can't import/export vCard files.. by denis-The-menace · · Score: 1

    That's because it has no good contact management.
    Therefore the information has nowhere to go!

    So, I'm stuck in OLK land.

    --
    Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
  49. 64-bit? by mpath · · Score: 1

    ...Full Support for Windows Vista and 64-bit versions of Windows
    I'm calling shenanigans on that one - if there was support for 64-bit, it wouldn't install in "Program Files (x86)" (vs. "Program Files") and I don't see a separate 64-bit install exe on the FTP site.
    --
    I'm not sure what the secret to success is, but the secret to failure lies in trying to please everyone -Bill Cosby
  50. My first Expearence by Stevecrox · · Score: 0

    Ok never used thunderbird before but I've imported it, is it just me that thought "Outlook Express" after first opening it, from what I can tell it does everything Outlook Express does and misses the two things most important to me

    Synchronisation with WM5 device

    Calender

    Its not bloated and ugly like Open Office (actually its quite pretty OO people take notes) but those things are pretty much integral to my use of Outlook which this would replace. People I ask you is there a way to get these things done I'm upgrading to Office 2007 (sorry but the UI difference in powerpoint and word make it worthwhile for me) but I really don't want to waste the cash getting office professional (just so I can get Outlook) when this actually seems quite a good product. Anyone?

    1. Re:My first Expearence by GnuDiff · · Score: 1

      Calendar for Thunderbird is available as plugin - I think it's called Lightning. Not sure how functional is that though.

    2. Re:My first Expearence by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Synchronisation with WM5 device

      The answer is FinchSync.

      Calender

      You can get a colander at the kitchen store, and a calendar here.

      HTH, HAND.

      p.s. Google is your friend.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:My first Expearence by Stevecrox · · Score: 1

      Yeah the key thing is knowing the name of what your looking for, have you tried typing in WM5 device, thunderbird and synching into google? Sure it returns your suggestion but I've a long history of having bad expearences with google results on the first page, this is worse since I get three different projects on the first page. Thanks to both people who responded though will be interested in seeing if it can replace Outlook, and how the hell did my post get modded over-rated?

    4. Re:My first Expearence by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Yeah the key thing is knowing the name of what your looking for, have you tried typing in WM5 device, thunderbird and synching into google? Sure it returns your suggestion but I've a long history of having bad expearences with google results on the first page

      That's why when I found finchsync I found it with something more like "windows mobile thunderbird sync". No idea what terms I really used, but that turned up some references to finchsync on the first page. You sometimes have to noodle around through some of the hits to find what you want, and sometimes upon reading results that aren't what you want, you come up with ideas for keywords that will help you find what you are looking for.

      A very strong grasp on the language in which you are searching is a gigantic boon. I am a speedreader and I eat up books like popcorn. I can read pretty much any novel (short of, say, Shogun) in a day or less and have pretty good retention. On top of this, I enjoy reading. So in my head I have this gigantic database of language that has sort of been assembled by inference over the years. So I admit I have something of an advantage in this department. Most people frankly do not have much command even over their native language. They don't read enough!

      But the point is, the more diversity of search keywords you can imagine, the easier it is to narrow down the results to what you actually are looking for.

      how the hell did my post get modded over-rated?

      It was done by some coward who did not want their negative moderation to hit metamoderation. For some reason only known to the brilliant geniuses who designed the slashdot moderation system, the "overrated" mod does not go to metamoderation. The result is that it can be used to punish people for having opinions different from your own, or not knowing things that you think everyone should know, or in fact any reason you like, without fear of repercussion. The slashdot moderation system is broken as designed.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  51. Icedove? by jetxee · · Score: 1

    So I wonder when Icedove will be released now?

    1. Re:Icedove? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you mean LightningVulture?

  52. First impressions by roedelius · · Score: 2

    from a long-time, mostly-happy 1.5 user: they messed with the GUI too much, and only 1 of 5 vital extensions I use is compatible. so I'm left with less functionality, and no new functionality that makes the upgrade worthwhile.

  53. Following the tangent... by empaler · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I haven't actually thought much about the sluggishness, as a small detail was what turned me off of FFx2...
    When there's only one tab open and I hit CTRL+W I want to close that window. FFx1.5 does that as it ought, FFx2 does not... Small thing, I know.

    1. Re:Following the tangent... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      I believe you can fix that by with the Tab Mix Plus plugin. There's a slew of options that become available regarding tabs when the TabMixPlus Session manager is enabled (don't go with FF 2.0's session manager, I have yet to figure out how to make it work, Use Tab Mix Plus's instead).

      I'm going to try removing a couple of extensions and see if that improves anything, including turning off the spell checker. I have a secondary system with a bare FF 2.0 installation on it, so I'll add extensions one by one until I find those that cause the sluggishness. I think I'll have dual installations, one with all my dev tools, and one for browsing. With 1.5 the full set caused some slowdowns, but those are due to known extension issues.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  54. Found 3 bugs in the first 3 minutes by Andy_R · · Score: 1, Troll

    I'm disappointed. No new features I actually want, at least 1 of the bugs I'm really annoyed about not fixed, and at least 1 new bug added.

    Firstly, doing a 'check for updates' in the old version (1.5 for OS X, I think) told me there wasn't a new one. Then when I manually downloaded, installed and got past the inevitable 'we broke all the extensions' message, it's ignoring my preference to show text not icons in the toolbars. So I go into preferences, and it's saying I'm showing text only. I workround by switching to text plus icons then back to text only. It's decided to ignore my custom toolbar settings from the old version, so I manually rebuild them the way I like them. The text doesn't line up, 'get mail' floats half a line too high, and 'tag' is out of line too. The gaps between the text isn't consistent horizontally, there's more space around 'junk' than other tools.

    Then the real pain, viewing full headers is still totally broken. The header text doesn't wrap, it ignores text size changes, and it can't be cut and pasted either. This means that I can't see the crucial part of the header that says the original 'to' address, after it's been forwarded to the catch-all on my domain, as it's on a line that's longer than my monitor is wide. So I still can't unsubscribe from a couple of (now spam dominated) Yahoo groups that I signed up to with throwaway names, as I have can't read the header to find out the throwaway name I used!

    The jury is still out on the other annoying bug, where the automated 'compact folders' and automated 'get mail' try to run at the same time as each other and throw up a message blaming me for not waiting for one to finish before the other.

    --
    A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
    1. Re:Found 3 bugs in the first 3 minutes by Yer+Mom · · Score: 1

      Then the real pain, viewing full headers is still totally broken. The header text doesn't wrap, it ignores text size changes, and it can't be cut and pasted either. This means that I can't see the crucial part of the header that says the original 'to' address, after it's been forwarded to the catch-all on my domain, as it's on a line that's longer than my monitor is wide. So I still can't unsubscribe from a couple of (now spam dominated) Yahoo groups that I signed up to with throwaway names, as I have can't read the header to find out the throwaway name I used!

      Saving the message to a file (format: mail file) then opening it in TextEdit should work. I haven't downloaded v2 yet, but it gives full headers for v1.5...

      --
      Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
    2. Re:Found 3 bugs in the first 3 minutes by hawaiian717 · · Score: 1

      Firstly, doing a 'check for updates' in the old version (1.5 for OS X, I think) told me there wasn't a new one.

      The announcement on MozillaZone notes that Thunderbird 2 hasn't been pushed to software update yet, so if you don't want to wait, you have to download manually like you did.

      Then the real pain, viewing full headers is still totally broken.

      When I want to view full headers, I usually just hit Apple-U (or Control-U for Windows and Linux) to view the message source, and all the headers are right there. Alternatively, you might want to look at the Mnenhy extension, which, among other things, lets you customize which header fields get displayed with the message.

      So I still can't unsubscribe from a couple of (now spam dominated) Yahoo groups that I signed up to with throwaway names, as I have can't read the header to find out the throwaway name I used!

      If they're tied to a Yahoo ID, you should be able to unsubscribe via the web. Try http://groups.yahoo.com/mygroups.
      --
      End of Line.
    3. Re:Found 3 bugs in the first 3 minutes by fm6 · · Score: 1

      Easier to just do "View/Message Source". But that's still a workaround for a very stupid bug.

      Mozilla/Netscape developers in general seem to have a lot of trouble anticipating situations where text or graphics might not fit in a finite space. Every version seems to have at least one dialog box where part of it is invisible on some platforms. Dumb.

  55. Nice, But Still Not All That I Want by nuintari · · Score: 1

    So far, I am digging the new look, very easy on the eyes.

    So, here is what I do, why I do it, and what I wanted that doesn't seem to exist.

    I check my mail from thunderbird, webmail, and mutt. So, using the incoming message filters to sort mail is not a good option. I use procmail for that. But, I would like to make use of the message filters to assign tags to certain letters. But, as far as I can tell, they are only automatically run for the inbox, other folders must have the filters run manually. Cause yeah, I want to do that. Am I wrong? Can this be done?

    The improved tagging is very nice, now, let me automatically tag all my messages in all my folders and it will be damned near perfect.

    --

    --Nuintari

    slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.

  56. It's not tagging... by kamitchell · · Score: 1

    More like "labelling". So it's easier to make labels now. When I think tagging, I think free tagging like there is here or on del.icio.us. Multiple tags per message. Assistance finding relevant tags that already exist. Advanced searching via tags.

    I downloaded TB, and it's, well, okay. Nothing to write home about. Activity spinner still never turns off on my MacBookPro.

  57. Did they fix the "immortal email" problem? by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 1
    I had to ditch TB (the last version) because, as much as I liked all the other features, I just couldn't stand how it would bog down on start-up, (sometimes for as long as two or three minutes), once I'd accumulated more than a thousand emails. I couldn't figure out what it was doing or how to set it any differently. Part of the problem was that it seemed determined to keep copies of emails even after I'd deleted them, attachments and all. This seems like a problem everybody would eventually encounter.

    Has this been fixed with the new release?

    I ended up switching to Pegasus Mail, which seems to handle the problem of old-mail management much more smoothly. --And it actually deletes the things I tell it to delete. Hallelujah!

    I'm now in a position of, "If it ain't broke. . ." which means I'll be sticking with the flying white horse until something changes. I hope David Harris is doing well in whatever new pastures called to him!


    -FL

    1. Re:Did they fix the "immortal email" problem? by remmelt · · Score: 1

      Did you try "compact folders?" It's in the "File" menu.

    2. Re:Did they fix the "immortal email" problem? by danomac · · Score: 1

      I had a different problem on startup with v1.5. No matter what I did, I couldn't get Thunderbird to check more than one account on startup. After a couple of weeks of not getting new mail, I manually started the send/receive process and got a ton. I checked the account properties and "Check for new mail on startup" was selected for all of my accounts. New features are okay, but I wonder if this was fixed. (Or is it just something wrong with the configuration?)

  58. arrows pointing the wrong way? by crocodill · · Score: 1

    Is it just me, or does the little arrow in current 'order by' column point the wrong way?

    Shouldn't it work the same as 'greater than' and 'less than' ?

    This annoyed me in the old version and it's still the same in 2.0.

  59. New "Junk" Icon by dwm · · Score: 1

    One question...

    Why does the new "Junk" icon look like a flame? Most of us don't burn our trash anymore.

    1. Re:New "Junk" Icon by danomac · · Score: 1

      When I get spam messages I wish I could set them on fire... someone granted my wish!

    2. Re:New "Junk" Icon by ReverendLoki · · Score: 1

      I was wondering the same thing. Did they run into some silly copyright issue? Did they decide this is more aesthetically pleasing? Surely they didn't think this was more intuitive... I've looked around a bit, but not found an answer yet.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  60. But they fixed the folder case change rename bug.. by Animaether · · Score: 1

    ..right?

    okay, maybe not - not noted in the bug anyway ( turn off referrer: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92165 ).

    In summary: You cannot rename a folder name "foo" to "Foo" (e.g. a case change). You have to rename "foo" to "foo_", and then rename "foo_" to "Foo".

  61. Re:OS X CPU Hog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Moron, did you even bother to understand the bug in Thunderbird?

  62. Thanks! by Andy_R · · Score: 1

    Thanks so much, apple-U shows the headers properly! I'd assumed 'message source' meant viewing html/mime formatting, but the headers are there too, with line-wraps. This is a great work-round for me and anyone else trapped by this problem.

    The yahoo panel only works if you know which throwaway yahoo ID you used...

    --
    A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
  63. Importing messages from older Ubuntu Thunderbird? by mouthbeef · · Score: 1

    I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to get T-bird 2 to bring in my settings from Thunderbird 1.5. I'm running Ubuntu Edgy Eft (for the moment, Feisty Fawn next week). When I first launched TB2, it asked me if I wanted to import settings, but didn't give any options for where to import from. I'm guessing this is incredibly easy and obvious, but the knowledge base isn't much help on this score. Any advice appreciated!

  64. Question by matt+me · · Score: 1

    Why is it assumed it to be the role of mail clients to include calendar functionality? In ye olde worlde where computers belonged in an office 'email a colleague, schedule a meeting' made great sense. But that was fifteen years ago. Today our computers are home desktops, and it is for these that Mozilla's Thunderbird is designed. Office workers sat by their computers were always there to receive reminders about meetings. Today we're more rarely at our machines, yet we're ever more connected. If I want a friend, we can speak *instantaneously* using a phone or instant messaging. If I want a group of friends, I can use a social network to talk to all of them. I don't add 7pm Mark's to *my* calendar, but to all my friends. All the invitees can see who else is coming. Friday night, I won't be home for my computer to tell me where the party's headed. I'm on the move, and need that information with me, on my phone or on a PET [Personal Electronic Thing].

    No-one laments Gmail's lack of a calendar.

    1. Re:Question by Maltheus · · Score: 1

      Why is it assumed it to be the role of mail clients to include calendar functionality?

      Whereas I am not a fan of application bloat, I only ever update my calendar based on incoming e-mails. And I've missed meetings that no one else missed because they're using Outlook. I think that calendar support is more important than say embedded cryptographic support. It's a minor feature that you won't notice if you don't use. And it's used all the time in the working world.

  65. Mediocre RSS support improved? by Logic+and+Reason · · Score: 1

    I used Thunderbird 1.x for a long time, and was pretty satisfied with it as an email client. But once I switched to GMail, the only thing I used Thunderbird for was RSS feeds, and it sucked royally at that. For example, trying to keep RSS feeds arranged in folders would have fun effects like not being able to delete the feeds, or the feeds failing to check for new items!

    Eventually it drove me so insane that I switched to Google Reader, which I am still using despite several flaws. Does anyone know if Thunderbird 2 has improved its RSS support?

    1. Re:Mediocre RSS support improved? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, in fact it's worse. Despite the fact that it's an RSS feed, it loads the web pages (WITH IMAGES! LAME!). I check the option for "load summary only" and it still shows the full web page (WITH IMAGES). Also they seem to have completely removed the "block remote images" option in Options -> Privacy. Guess they want people to look at the mozilla page ads?

    2. Re:Mediocre RSS support improved? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you tried http://forumzilla.mozdev.org/ It works a lot better for me than the built-in RSS feed.

  66. Crashing while downloading messages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just upgraded to Thunderbird 2.0 from 1.5 version and have been constantly seeing crashes as soon as I try to retrieve gmail pop mail. Anyone else seeing the same problem?

  67. Will it update or do you have to download? by deesine · · Score: 1

    I believe this is my last peeve with FF & Thunderbird. Just give me a dialogue box, "yes, install the newest version."

    Gosh I'm pampered, or something like that.

    --
    damaged by dogma
    1. Re:Will it update or do you have to download? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It will in a while. Mozilla likes to release things but not put them into automatic update for a while.

      Something about not hammer servers, I think.

  68. Great for synaesthetes by Nahooda · · Score: 1

    I'm a synaesthete, I visualize music as shapes and colors and words, digits and letters have a color. I downloaded Thunderbird 2.0 today and learnt about the colorful tagging which is totallay awesome for synaesthetes!

    An example: A friend of mine is called "Philip", a navy blue word to me, so I created a navy blue tag "Philip" and "tagged" all of his emails. I guess you get the idea.

    As I am tagging all my emails according to the first names of the sender, my incoming folder becomes more and more colorful. Really great stuff! Now it looks like I have always perceived it.

    -Nahooda

    --
    Sigs suck!
  69. Why tar.gz and not tar.bz2 ? by julie-h · · Score: 1

    I don't get it. Why doesn't Mozilla use tar.bz2 for the final releases like they do for the nightly builds? tar.bz2 files are much smaller, and it is not harder to type 'j' instead of 'z'. I don't get it.

  70. Is anyone actually working on TB? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What, version 2.0 and it STILL doesn't show how big attachments are (sending nor receiving). STILL doesn't properly show mail download progress. Oh but hey, I can get a weather plugin for it. sheesh.

  71. Re:Importing messages from older Ubuntu Thunderbir by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I did some digging around. if you use the default ubuntu installation of thunderbird, it places all your profile info in a directory called ~/.mozilla-thunderbird

    However, Thunderbird, when installed directly, looks for .thunderbird

    so the fix is easy: just copy (or move) the .mozilla-thunderbird directory to .thunderbird, and then start Thunderbird 2.0 for the first time. I did this on Edgy Eft and it works fine.

  72. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  73. Version 2.0.0.3 just showed up by Bretski · · Score: 1

    Wonder what was broken?

    1. Re:Version 2.0.0.3 just showed up by Bretski · · Score: 1

      Hmm now it's back to "2.0.0.0". But only 1.5 was available for the last 30 minutes or so. They must be doing some version-shuffling.

  74. Mulberry Mail by Vultan · · Score: 1

    Ever since Mulberry Mail went free (as in beer), I switched from Thunderbird and haven't looked back. It's dramatically faster and includes a whole lot of features that I use that I had always been frustrated that Thunderbird didn't have. Apart from those who are attracted to Thunderbird because of its license, why aren't more people using Mulberry? Does Thunderbird 2.0 change this perspective?

  75. Deleting threads. by Rufty · · Score: 1

    Can it delete multiple collapsed threads yet, or does it *still* just snip off the first email and leave the rest to bug you later???

    --
    Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
  76. RPM Package availability for Thunderbird by hillct · · Score: 1

    As soon as I noticed the release I went to try it out. I threw together a Thunderbird RPM based on the binary distribution for ease of management. I put up some instructions based on the work of another writer a few years back, figuring it might be elpful to others, but there is truth to the earlier point about how many early adopters of just-released email clients there really are. It seems to me that the early adopters are technically knowledgeable enough to put together whatever packaging they'd like, and newer users of Fedora or any other RPM based linux distribution would be unlikely to install non-repo based RPMs regardless. In any case, they're out there, and to give gredit where credit is due, Thomas Chung did great work with initial versions of the spec file.

    --CTH

    --

    --Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
  77. Re:Importing messages from older Ubuntu Thunderbir by Mc_Anthony · · Score: 1

    just copy (or move) the .mozilla-thunderbird directory to .thunderbird I concur with this response. I usually wait for the Ubuntu debs to come out and install those instead - this would have prevented your problem. Using the package manager can make administration easier but sometimes means you have to wait a little longer for new releases.

  78. List view screwey by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My list view looks weird, but the messages are intact. The list looks like the messages are on top of each other and sometimes turn all blue like I am selecting several from the list. I an not using any other add-ons. Am I the only one? Please help. Windows XP, IMAP

  79. Re: choosing smtp at sending by f64 · · Score: 2, Informative

    i have SmtpSelect 0.1.1 installed with thunderbird 1.5.0.10. works like a charm. gives you the option to click-select smtp server for individual emails.

  80. List view screwey by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Upon download, my list view now shows messages scrambled and on top of each other. The messages themselves are intact, but the list view is unreadable. Windows XP, IMAP.... and yes, I did restart. :P

  81. Notifications by LeapingQuince · · Score: 1

    Can anybody tell me why the Mac version of Thunderbird does not have the option of window notifications? You can bounce the icon in the dock, but you have to jump through some hoops (YAMB, scripting and growl) to get a gmail notifier-style pop-up notification if you like to keep your dock hidden.

    I love the labels, which is why I started using Thunderbird 2.0 when it was in beta, but the notifications seemed a bit far behind. Perhaps it is time to give Mail.app another looksee?

  82. Re: IPv6 Issues by jasonwea · · Score: 1

    There appear to still be bugs with the IPv6 implementation, both on the OSX and Linux versions. At least, there is still a config setting to disable IPv6 lookups.
    I'm running Mac OS X 10.4.9 here and Thunderbird is connecting fine using IPv6 to my mail server (which happens to be located on another continent).

    I don't see how you should have any issues if you mail server doesn't have any AAAA records. Even if it does, as long as your interfaces only have link local IPs (fe80::), an attempted IPv6 connection should fail immediately (no route to host) and drop back to IPv4.
  83. THIS IS THE DEAL BREAKER by some1somewhere · · Score: 1

    This is the ONE SINGLE deal breaker for me and pretty much everyone I know.

    So many spammers set their clocks to the future (so they can get your stupid mail client to sort their mail to the top), so many stupid people set incorrect dates, that when you get a new incoming mail, you have to go through your ENTIRE LIST of emails hunting it down, since it might be wedged somewhere between 2007 and 2000 (or whatever the sender's computer's date is set to).

    Sigh... I've seen people complain about this since the BEGINNING and they STILL have not fixed it? Even bloomin Outlook Express does it right!

    --
    **FREE** Track and view your phone's via CellID and/or WIFI and/or GPS :- http://tinyurl.com/la6fhd
  84. So where are the improvements? by Trogre · · Score: 1

    Tags have been there since Mozilla 1.x days, and stars are just relabelled flags, so where are the improvements that warrant a major release bump?

    The only major change I can see is a regression where they've removed the incredibly useful "Show tags that are:" dropdown box removing the most useful element of tagging. I'm going back to 1.5.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  85. My biggest gripe by Maltheus · · Score: 1

    When composing a message, if you hit the up or down arrow, it goes to the beginning or end of the line you're moving to. I'm sure that's (yet another) a GTK "feature" that makes me hate GTK worse than Windows, but it didn't use to be that way. It's infuriating. I think the address book interface needs a lot of work as well. I guess I need to spend the time need to get KMail running. I've used Thunderbird for years, but it continues to feel like beta software to me.

  86. Re:Importing messages from older Ubuntu Thunderbir by mouthbeef · · Score: 1

    This worked like a charm -- thanks!

  87. Thunderbird 2 is Go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    F.A.B.

    (Does it come with the multiple carg?o pods (like the mole and Thunderbird 4)?

  88. No Message Rules Import? by RebrandSoftware · · Score: 1

    Poor Thunderbird. I want to use it, I really do.

    But why can it import all my Outlook Express settings *EXCEPT* my mail rules?

    I have so many mail rules (move this to that folder, this to another folder) that recreating them is a major task.

    It's because of that alone that I had to uninstall Thunderbird 2 after just 10 minutes of use.

    Does anyone know a way around this?

  89. Re:Importing messages from older Ubuntu Thunderbir by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This would be the Thunderbird 2 that 'just works', would it
    ( http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/19/thunderbird_2 _is_out.html )? hahaha.

  90. Data Privacy / Reliability on POP/Webmail Accounts by billstewart · · Score: 1
    • If your ISP wants to eavesdrop on all your unencrypted mail, they can, even if they're not your email provider.
    • If you use a POP or IMAP email provider, rather than direct delivery to your Unix box, they've got just as much ability to eavesdrop as a webmail provider does.
    • I've got a wide range of different email providers, mostly web-based, for different applications with different privacy needs.
      • My main really-for-me personal email goes to an ISP where I run procmail and have a shell account and then use a PC-based mail client.
      • My DSL provider also has a shell and email account, which forwards to my main email, and almost never gets anything except admin and billing mail from the ISP.
      • Registration email for web sites usually goes to dodgeit.com for stuff that's really disposable.
      • I've got one webmail system that mostly gets people who might spam me, but might not spam me, and will be sending email in the future. Conference registrations are one example. It's a free account, so if there's too much spam I can chuck it.
      • Gmail gets one or two technical mailing lists. That's mainly because I wanted to play with gmail, and partly because I wanted to be able to comment on some of the lists from an email account that's not my work account or my long-term home account. And now I need a gmail account to use the Mountain View free wireless, so it's helpful there.
      • I read some Yahoogroups, so I've got a Yahoo email account.
      • Unfortunately, Google and Yahoo are trying to absorb Youtube and Flickr, and I was perfectly happy having logins there that were some variant on "anonymouscoward4". Gmail's login ID already absorbed my Orkut ID, which wasn't all that annoying because I'd stopped using Orkut by then.
      • I got a couple of AOL IM id's so I could play with an instant messaging appliance. The appliance turned out to be not very exciting, but it was worth a $20 experiment.
      • I've got other emails scattered here and there, like the places I run some mailing lists from, and dusty PCs scattered around various labs and friends' garage PCs and maybe a game system or two.
      • My cat used to have a Hotmail account, but when they decided you could only get one if you were over 13, she couldn't access it any more because she'd told them her real age instead of lying about it.
      • Online newspapers that want demographics usually get my zipcode as 90210, and my age as whatever year they give as an example, and a random gender. Unfortunately this sometimes means they show me banner ads for things in Beverly Hills instead of here, but what's an anonymous coward got to complain about?

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  91. you are one evil man ... by freaker_TuC · · Score: 1

    You are posting Microsoft code without permission of them ? ..

    --
    --- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
  92. Re:Importing messages from older Ubuntu Thunderbir by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am afraid I do not know how to do it in Linux. But if you install MboxImport extension you can export with structure and subfolders to a location. Then install Thunderbird 2.0 and import the structure and it will get imported with folders and all.

    Best place to ask is Mozillazine, there's been lots of questions answered on this already. (at least one from me)