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Mozilla Releases Thunderbird 2.0.0

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the come-and-get-it dept.

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."

54 of 311 comments (clear)

  1. 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 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).

    3. 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.

    4. 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.

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

      Hey, stop posting such lies under my name!

    6. 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
    7. 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.
    8. 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.

    9. 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.

    10. 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?
    11. 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/

    12. 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!
    13. 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.

  2. 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
  3. Yikes! by ez76 · · Score: 2, Funny
    Folder views? New mail notification?

    Watch your back, Eudora for Windows 3.1!

  4. 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.

  5. 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 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
  6. 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.
  7. 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.

    --
    .
  8. 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 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.
  9. 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 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

  10. 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.

  11. 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.

  12. 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!]
  13. 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.
  14. 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

  15. 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.
  16. 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 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
    3. 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".

  17. 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.

  18. 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. :)

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

    Because Thunderbird 2 is an international rescue craft.

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

    Bummer.

  21. 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.
  22. 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...
    --
    Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
  23. 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 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?

  24. 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.

  25. 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.
  26. 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.
  27. 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.

  28. 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.'"
  29. 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. :-(

  30. 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.