Mozilla Releases Thunderbird 5

supersloshy writes "Mozilla has released the latest version of Thunderbird, their popular email client, now in sync with their new rapid-release versioning system. Among the new features are the new add-ons manager from Firefox 4, revised account creation, faster response times, the ability to load plugins in RSS feeds and over 390 platform fixes. For more information, read the release notes"

Comments

But let me guess

[plunderscratch]

Next week - Thunderbird 6! ...okay maybe not

Re:But let me guess

[Anonymous Coward]

It's simply a synchronization of release cycles, why complain?

Re:But let me guess

[plunderscratch]

It's simply a satirisation of release cycles, no complaint!

Re:But let me guess

[blair1q]

i'm good with Thunderbird 5

http://davidszondy.com/future/Thunderbirds/cap026.jpg

as long as the space debris cooperates....

The Mozilla 5's

[WrongSizeGlass]

So Thunderbird and Firefox are now both "5's". Version? Stars? Out of 10?

Re:The Mozilla 5's

[Anonymous Coward]

"5" minutes until the next major version.

Re:The Mozilla 5's

[Anonymous Coward]

out of 100...

Re:The Mozilla 5's

[UltraZelda64]

Hey, why is this labeled funny? ...it's probably true...

There wasn't even a version 4

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone who was saying "Hey, Firefox should just bring out version 13 to be the highest" are now validated because Thunderbird skipped a version, as mobile Firefox went from 1.1 to 4.0

Re:There wasn't even a version 4

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all by the gecko version it uses. So it's stupid to complain.

Who uses Thunderbird?

[Warlord88]

Can someone give me a good reason to use Thunderbird or any other mail client. I haven't felt the need for it ever since gmail arrived. I can access it from any machine, mobile or tablet. Attachments are becoming easier, yadda yadda. I genuinely trying to figure out when I would want to use a mail client. Maybe in an office environment where I would not like to forward emails to gmail?

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want my email local, fast and accesible. Thunderbird gives me easy rules and a chance for easy archiving. I also can handle my website email accounts (webmaster, sales, info, etc) much easier. Google is slow and cumbersome (for me).

Not everything is better online.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

To access a non-gmail account, perhaps?

(Gmail's import-from-other-accounts feature still seems slow and requires a lot of work to set up 'send as')

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[BZ]

gmail's offline capabilities are still pretty poor, for one thing. Support for S/MIME isn't quite there yet (though there are browser extensions that try to do it). Latencies are way higher than a local mail client, at least for me. The "conversation" model it uses is not something everyone likes.

Gmail doesn't have NNTP support. Gmail doesn't try to remind you when you forget an to attach an attachment that you mention in the mail. Gmail sticks you with a crappy editing widget for your mail (granted, Thunderbird's is not much better).

Most importantly, not using gmail means Google doesn't have access to your mail. This is something some people actually care about, even if you don't. And not just for "office" mails.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Steauengeglase]

Backups and Liability. I don't think I'm the only person who has lost random messages in Gmail. Also, call me old, but there is some stuff you just don't want sitting on a Gmail account or I should say, there is some stuff that your clients would think about suing you if they knew your employees were just forwarding it off to their Gmail accounts.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an automatic backup of Gmail, in case Google loses your email for some reason. Also, if Gmail is your only email address, bravo. Personally I have many email addresses, and t-bird lets me check them all in one place.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Sylak]

Only reason i think to ever use an e-mail client is on a corporate or university network where you have an exchange or other local mail/calendar server.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[jbeaupre]

There's probably not a great reason. But there are a few differences that make it worthwhile to some people. The big thing to remember is Gmail and Thunderbird are not mutually exclusive. I use Gmail through Thunderbird and through a web interface.

Reasons Thunderbird might be useful to some people vs web based Gmail:
Interface preference. Neither is superior, but some folks prefer Thunderbird.
Multiple accounts. Thunderbird lets you manage multiple accounts with multiple providers easily.
Plugins. I can only think of one: openPGP. And most people can live without it.
Search. Believe it or not, Thunderbird gives you better control of search than Gmail
Offline. Thunderbird lets you mess with your email while you are offline.

So my advice is to give Thunderbird a try, don't expect to be blown away, but who knows, you might like it.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[hedwards]

Precisely why I use a mail client. I like the web interface, but having a copy on my disk makes it that much less likely that I'll lose any emails due to some sort of hardware failure on either end.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[0123456]

Can someone give me a good reason to use Thunderbird or any other mail client. I haven't felt the need for it ever since gmail arrived.

Because we don't want to give all our email to Google?

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[TechnoFrood]

Gmail doesn't try to remind you when you forget an to attach an attachment that you mention in the mail.

Sorry to be picky, but Gmail does do that now and has for a while I believe (although may have only been an optional Labs feature until recently).

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no GPG extensions available for GMail.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because webmail sucks ass?

Seriously, I couldn't imagine using a web browser for email. It's like using a screwdriver to drive a nail.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gmail doesn't try to remind you when you forget an to attach an attachment that you mention in the mail.

Actually, it's had this feature for over a year now:

http://www.techcular.com/gmail-attachment-reminder/

It was in Labs for a couple of years before that.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, you can also access any other email account from any machine, mobile or tablet. That's a feature of the freakin' internet, and not of gmail.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[numbski]

I will likely run my own mail server until the day I die or the technology becomes obsolete. It's my mail, hands off.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[operator_error]

I do not WANT to give my email to Google. I really don't. But I need a multi-PC/mobile solution (i.e. an IMAP server), and I ran my own (hosted) server for my own domain for years, until the spam completely overwhelmed me. I used Tuffmail for awhile, although their spam controls are not-user friendly and I find their documentation very hard to apply. Tuffmail is reasonably priced, although not long ago I went on a cost-cutting spree and Tuffmail got hit.

To-date I use gmail, because they are managing my spam effectively, and for free. (Except for the privacy thing, so I must 'trust' the GOOG for what they claim). I still don't like Google Mail though; they are an advertising company, and I am the product being delivered to their clients.

I use Thunderbird mostly, via gmail IMAP. I wish fighting IMAP-spam were easier.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[vux984]

Thunderbird is free.
Gmail is "free".

Thunderbird also handles receiving mail from multiple accounts better in my opinion. Yes gmail has all kinds of features to do this, but i like COMPLETELY separate inboxes for some stuff; and stuff like multiple-imap account support is better in thunderbird.

Thunderbird is an application. Gmail is a web application.Its a good web app, but its still feels like a webapp. Its window handling in particular is REALLY annoying compared to a native app.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[BZ]

Ah, interesting. Indeed, it does. Good to see people stealing feature ideas from each other. ;)

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Just Some Guy]

Sorry you got modded down because it's a legitimate question. For me, though, the converse is true: I don't want to use any webmail sites when I have a perfectly good local app. I've used Gmail and it's a nice attempt at emulating a local client, but it doesn't offer me any advantages over Thunderbird on my netbook, or my iPhone's inbox, or Mail.app on my Mac. I use IMAP everywhere so all of my email is accessible and synchronized from all of those devices, and attachments download in the background while I'm doing other stuff. Almost all the time when I check my inbox, those attachments are ready for loading in an instant; I don't have to wait for my sister's vacation pics to start transferring whenever I open a message.

If I had extremely limited storage, or a very slow machine, Gmail would make more sense to me. However, I don't see any need for it right now.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Paracelcus]

GSA (General Services Administration) is switching to Gmail as part of their migration to the "cloud" you wonder who got the bribe to make this stupidity happen. After many relatively trouble free years with Lotus Notes, the airheads hear the new marketing-speak buzzwords "Cloud Computing" and to impress their equally airheaded managers and to look smart they decided to move from a proven enterprise class application to somthing oriented towards small business and end user applications.

If the lack of any serious security wasn't enough, the fact that a US government function now is at the whim of all the civilian (non governmental) connectivity issues that keep popping up from time to time!

Good thing their keeping their Notes servers up for the time being.

Every time I hear some luser mention the "cloud" I want to scream!

     

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Glendale2x]

My guess is that it's easier for Google to do content spam filtering because Google is intentionally scanning/storing/aggregating the mail of *everyone* who uses it so they have that much more to compare to. I don't think Tuffmail does that with their customer's mail; I know I don't.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[tverbeek]

Since I host my own mail accounts, and don't want to have to maintain my own web interface to them, having a mail client comes in rather handy.

Also, assuming adequately skilled programmers, a purpose-built locally-running app is almost always going to work better than something kludged together in a web browser.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[madprof]

Not everyone has permanent Internet connectivity for their laptops.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[tftp]

Since I host my own mail accounts, and don't want to have to maintain my own web interface to them, having a mail client comes in rather handy.

It takes maybe 15 minutes to install Open-Xchange and it works just fine.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[layer3switch]

1. Expended threaded message flow view
2. Viewing messages more than 100 message per page (some folders i have more than 2k)
3. Native execution clients allow better viewing customization (folder/label structure, panel layout, structured view, etc)
4. Automatic viewing message by selection within single viewable screen along with structured message layout view
5. Scheduled message sending (ie. 9AM morning release message prep'd a day before)
6. Client API hook to various other native applications (desktop notification, automatic imported todo notes)
7. Localized backup/restore and brick level restore by account, not the whole thing
8. Bandwidth consumption when dealing with messages with large attachments
9. Isolating messaging application process from browser application process (two heavy ajax on two browser tabs just kills my machine) ...
I don't want to write anymore... too tired...

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[raju1kabir]

I flipped around the site for 5 minutes and came up with no clear idea what Open-Xchange is for.

However, the name strongly suggests that it has something to do with Outlook or Exchange, which are the head and ass end of the worst mail combo I'm aware of.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which end is which. I suppose it depends on which one they've had to administer.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[swillden]

Multiple accounts. Thunderbird lets you manage multiple accounts with multiple providers easily.

I think GMail actually does a better job of this. Set your other accounts up to forward, set gmail up to allow you to send as though sending from the other accounts and then you have a single inbox that integrates all of your accounts seamlessly. It does the right thing for replies, too. If you want to more easily see which account a given message is from, make a filter that automatically adds a label. If you decide that you don't want one of the accounts to go to the inbox, have the filter archive it (you'll still see the unread message count in the label list on the left). If you do that with all but one then you'll essentially have the same experience as with Thunderbird.

Search. Believe it or not, Thunderbird gives you better control of search than Gmail

I believe that this is the case if you don't know how to use GMail search :)

I agree on the other points.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[swillden]

Yes gmail has all kinds of features to do this, but i like COMPLETELY separate inboxes for some stuff

You can do that with gmail.

stuff like multiple-imap account support is better in thunderbird

How so?

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[swillden]

stuff like multiple-imap account support is better in thunderbird

How so?

NM, dumb question.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[vux984]

You can do that with gmail.

You can do a poor and quite limited approximation of that with gmail.

Depending on which account you have selected in in thunderbird, it chooses the correct reply to address by default, attaches the correct signature, maintains the sent items, drafts, etc, separately, etc. And there's no arbitrary limit to how many you can have.

There's other things too... like no limit on the amount of mail you receive. I know a few people who are toting around mailboxes (lots of attachments) that would exceed gmails admittedly generous limits.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[jbeaupre]

Yeah, I was walking a fine line with those two. Figured I could still say them with a straight face. Gmail lets you combine several accounts and does it well, but Thunderbird lets you manage those accounts in one spot. At least a little bit better.

Same bit of hair splitting with search. Google does search better, but Thunderbird has some fine grain control that is handy sometimes.

potato ... potato

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[javaguy]

I have a dozen IMAP email accounts for my various websites and contract roles. I need to check them regularly but keep the accounts and email separate. Thunderbird or any other email account lets me do this easily.

Forwarding email or using POP and taking email out of those accounts isn't an option.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[tftp]

I flipped around the site for 5 minutes and came up with no clear idea what Open-Xchange is for.

I'm not responsible for the choice of that name, fortunately. Also, if you use open source software you should be already conditioned to expect no sensible description of what the software does :-)

However the software itself is exactly what you need if you require a Web interface to your mail. It's written in Java, works very well and looks good. If you run Ubuntu LTS, for example, the installation is trivial and well described. Lots of plugins are available for those who want them.

You can of course run lighter products, like SquirrelMail. They work too, and I used them. But Open-Xchange is far more polished, and it offers a few additional features, like InfoItems - it's your personal notepad for quick storage of files, text, bookmarks, etc. Calendar is also available, but I'm not using it.

This software has nothing to do with Outlook or Exchange, which should be obvious since both are in its name :-) The only tie to Exchange is in the function - Open-Xchange can be used as a complete replacement for MS Exchange on the Web, if you are a small business. The IMAP side works on its own (it's not even a part of Open-Xchange; postfix + cyrus is your friend, probably.)

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people like to be productive on their computers even when the internet isn't available.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[swalve]

How do you backup those completely separate mailboxes in gmail?

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[buchner.johannes]

You can use drag&drop.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they don't need permanent connectivity to their email, no matter how much they believe they do.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone at my work including myself who uses Linux to access their work email.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[cyclomedia]

I use it on two computers, for IMAP access to my own mail server, which also has a webmail interface, oh and I can get to my email from my Android phone client too. Or at least I used to until about three weeks ago when my server died and I decided to bin it. Now my email lives inside my laptop and it feels like the 18th century or something. Must by a new fanless system for server 2.0!

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[DaVince21]

That's what I would have thought a few years ago, but GMail is surprisingly good at it.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[AmiMoJo]

I was quite sensitive to my mail client before I made the switch to gMail. What really spurred it was when I was away from home with just my laptop so was forced to use it rather than Thunderbird. Oh, and I use it via my Android phone too now. In theory you can set Thunderbird up with IMAP access and it will sync everything nicely, but I found it never really worked that well and was very slow.

There are lots of things I don't like about gmail. Lack of a preview window, the edit box, even the black on white colour scheme. I used to have some custom user CSS for Thunderbird that gave me white text on black, although because of braindead HTML emails that assumed black on white to be the default I had to exclude them. I know there are themes for gmail but they all seem to break HTML mails.

You can improve things with a few simple tricks though. I wrote a little greasemoney script to make plain text in the edit box use a monospaced font and limit the width of the box to something sensible. There are quite a few good extras in Labs too, including one which reminds you about forgotten attachments.

It would be nice if both gmail and Thunderbird had proper auto-text support so I didn't have to type "Hi ," and "Regards, amimojo" every time. You can sort of fake the latter with a signature in gmail and add-ons in TB.

There are enough advantages in being able to access email anywhere without sync issues and in the excellent spam filter to make the switch worth while IMHO. I have yet to find a perfect desktop client for Windows anyway - The Bat wasn't bad. I miss YAM (AmigaOS).

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[CSMoran]

It's difficult to automate. Take a look at what The Bat! can do, you'll never want to use web-based browsing (unless mobile) or Thunderbird.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Just Some Guy]

I run my own mailserver and my email address is splattered all over the place. I got a spam yesterday. Gmail does an excellent job of spam filtering, but you can do a pretty great job with your own server.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cause I hate hate hate advertising.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[ncc74656]

Can someone give me a good reason to use Thunderbird or any other mail client.

You need something to access your mail server, and Thunderbird blows the doors off of Outlook. I've set up SquirrelMail on my personal mail server for those times when I only have access to a browser (which isn't often, considering that the mail app on my iPhone speaks IMAPS), but a proper email client (whether desktop or mobile) is just easier to use IMHO. At work, I have Thunderbird talking to our Exchange server with Lightning and DavMail, so I could most likely uninstall Outlook altogether if I wanted.

I have a Gmail account, but it's pretty much a spam dumpster. I could migrate my mail over to it if I were so inclined, but $firstname@$lastname.us is a more memorable email address than blahblah@gmail.com.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[bill_mcgonigle]

It's my mail, hands off.

Agreed. At least we know only we've had access to our e-mails until a jackbooted thug beats our encryption keys out of us.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[swillden]

Google does search better, but Thunderbird has some fine grain control that is handy sometimes.

For example? It's been a couple of years since I stopped using Thunderbird, but I don't recall anything I can't do with GMail.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[swillden]

You can do that with gmail.

You can do a poor and quite limited approximation of that with gmail.

Depending on which account you have selected in in thunderbird, it chooses the correct reply to address by default,

So does gmail. In fact, it does this even if you don't bother to separate your incoming mail into different labels or priority inboxes.

attaches the correct signature

So does gmail. In fact, it does this even if you don't bother to separate your incoming mail into different labels or priority inboxes.

maintains the sent items, drafts, etc, separately, etc.

Okay, that gmail doesn't do. I've never missed it, but I suppose you might. I don't have that many drafts at any given time and when I'm looking for sent items I just use the search.

One comment on drafts: I really like the way gmail handles them. I can start typing an e-mail at home on my home computer, and just walk away from it mid-sentence. Then when I open my netbook on the bus on the way to work I see a red "Draft" on the relevant conversation in my inbox... if I click on it I'm right back where I left off. Then I can type a few more sentences, suddenly snap the netbook shut because I'm about to miss my stop and then when I open my browser on my work machine, there's my draft, again right where I left off.

Thunderbird and IMAP4 could do that, but only if you save your draft before switching machines.

And there's no arbitrary limit to how many you can have.

I don't believe there's any limit on the number of different e-mail addresses you can have on your gmail account. I have a couple dozen (mostly throwaways that I only use for one mailing list each).

There's other things too... like no limit on the amount of mail you receive. I know a few people who are toting around mailboxes (lots of attachments) that would exceed gmails admittedly generous limits.

Yes, if you have more than 7.6 GB of e-mail, you'll have trouble. Personally, I have all of my e-mail going back to about 1995 in gmail and it only consumes a little over 3 GB. Clearly, gmail will not work for people with 10 GB mailboxes. Not this year, anyway.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[swillden]

How do you backup those completely separate mailboxes in gmail?

Via IMAP4.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[jbeaupre]

Search for an email from someone from a particular domain, sent between 2 dates with an attachment between two sizes, but not including certain key words in the subject line.

You can pretty much specify any kind of boolean search on any field of email.

Not better than Gmail ... just fine grain.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to use the conversation view. At least now you don't.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[Walter Carver]

not using gmail means Google doesn't have access to your mail

How can this be? Even using a mail client, you e-mail is still stored into their servers.

Re:Who uses Thunderbird?

[BZ]

Because I'm also not using an @gmail.com address, of course. I can do that with a non-webmail client. But there's no way to do that with webmail, obviously.

Postbox 2.5 came out today too

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www3.postbox-inc.com/?/blog/tags/tag/postbox+2.5

The release notes didn't mention one thing

[Anonymous Coward]

...how horrifically ugly it is.

And yet on Windows 7 at least, it looks like an abomination. I hope you like LOTS of Aero Glass!

http://i.imgur.com/tptrF.png

Re:The release notes didn't mention one thing

[trum4n]

Everybody needs to stop this tabs shit. Chrome sucked for a reason. Also, exchange? please? my damn school uses it.

Re:The release notes didn't mention one thing

[Skuto]

If you have font issues, please note Microsoft just released a hotfix that improves font rendering:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2545698

You might also want to look at:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=667989

Re:The release notes didn't mention one thing

[shutdown -p now]

A better question is, why Mozilla devs don't let users disable that "pixel perfect" rendering bullshit - DirectWrite certainly allows you to do so.

Back when Visual Studio 2010 was in beta, there were numerous user complaints about the same issue (disclaimer: I'm the guy who created that Connect ticket, but the ticket itself is an aggregation of numerous blog and forum posts, and obviously I didn't upvote it 161 times by myself).

And guess what? It was mostly fixed in final version. Still not pixel-for-pixel the same as GDI rendering - you can't get that from DWrite - but in terms of contrast it's very close.

Why IE9 didn't do the same is a mystery, but why Firefox chose to follow suit is simply beyond my comprehension. It's like there's some sort of conspiracy against those of us who prefer our on-screen text crisp and clean, not all blurred Apple-style...

A standalone email client!

[Anonymous Coward]

How quaint.

Re:A standalone email client!

[Vlijmen Fileer]

"Hello, compuuuu-terrrr!"

Platform Fixes

[Thelasko]

Does this mean plugins will work on both x86 and x86-64 versions?

Also has same weakness as FireFox X.X

[sehlat]

Namely, plug-in compatibility still sucks. Plugins that do really really useful things, such as email redirect, have quit working.

A system of happy volunteers sounds like a great idea until you find out that the volunteers stop maintaining things for whatever reason.

Version jump?

[Vlijmen Fileer]

I have 3.1.10 and thought I was quite up to date :s. Did I miss a whole version?

Re:Version jump?

[MrEricSir]

Nope! Thunderbird pulled a Winamp and skipped version 4 altogether.

Re:Version jump?

[hedwards]

Because it uses the same Gecko version as Firefox, they opted to skip a version in the numbering system. It wouldn't have been as obnoxious had they not also skipped Firefox 4.1 in favor of Firefox 5.0.

Re:Version jump?

[Vlijmen Fileer]

I feel skipping version numbers is only one step removed from the absolute worst versioning system of using random, not necessarily increasing numbers for each new update. Were these guys drunk or so?

Re:Version jump?

[Vlijmen Fileer]

Hmmm, interesting. Would that indicate that skipping version numbers is somehow connected to producing non-standard, totally crappy user interfaces? :p

Plugins for RSS feeds?

[WD]

Um, no. Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea?

Re:Plugins for RSS feeds?

[hedwards]

I'm not sure why an email client should have an RSS reader incorporated into it. Seems more appropriate for a web browser, but that's just me.

Re:Plugins for RSS feeds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mail on Mac OS X has an RSS feed reader, and I find it useful to hit one place to get my news. It makes as much sense as having newsgroups and mail in the same client. Suppose it depends on what you're using RSS feeds for? Mine are mainly business related, so it fits in well alongside my morning read of my mail.

Re:Plugins for RSS feeds?

[Haedrian]

To be honest I used to think that, but when you have a very old RSS field with 1000+ entries stored as bookmarks, its rather irritating.

Now with thunderbird its rather like receiving an email. In fact, RSS basically replaces the "sending newsletter by email", so its also more natural.

Too Many Updates

[Normal Dan]

It seems like every time I look at my computer something else is asking to be updated. Flash, Java, Adobe, Firefox, Windows itself, etc. Can we just knock it off already and update once every 6 months or so? That would be nice.

Also, get off my lawn.

Re:Too Many Updates

[MightyMartian]

Indeed. We want to make sure the malware/virus attack vector is as large as possible.

Re:Too Many Updates

[vlm]

It seems like every time I look at my computer something else is asking to be updated. Flash, Java, Adobe, Firefox, Windows itself, etc. Can we just knock it off already and update once every 6 months or so? That would be nice..

You'd like Debian Stable.

Re:Too Many Updates

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used Chrome for more than a year, and I'm glad to say that I have no idea WTF version I'm even running :). Likewise for Flash.

Do yourself a favor and uninstall Java. Minecraft and Android dev are probably its last two major non-enterprise uses.

Re:Too Many Updates

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree.

These guys need better QA, better coders, and more focus on making what they have work, rather than adding stupid features no one needs or wants (now with even MORE bugs!)

I'm just going to start uninstalling stuff that is so poorly written it needs to be updated daily.

Re:Too Many Updates

[cyclomedia]

This. I have a friend, she's not a big computer user, but every few days - or weeks - she fires up the laptop to check a few websites, do some emailing and perhaps do some writing. Thing is, it sometimes takes her HOURS to actually get started because in that time all of the software has pushed out new updates, and her bandwidth isn't that high.

Re:Too Many Updates

[DaVince21]

At least if you run a half-decent Linux distro, these updates all happen in a single centralized location. I really hate all the boot-crippling "update services" each and every single software vendor seems to install.

Chrome is being smart, too, with them having an internal version of Flash that is updated automatically with the browser.

Support lifecycle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone got a link to the current support lifecycle of Thunderbird?

Do we lose support for the previous version when the new version is released like we do with Firefox?

OK, and what is new?

[mseeger]

After having read the release notes, the improvement to the ordinary user still remains unclear. Sounds more like a patch than a new version...

The greatest change seems to be the gecko engine. But anyone who sends me HTML mail gets a reprimand anyway. Does anyone really uses HTML in emails? I mean seriously? I get and read about 100 mails per day and write 30-50. Percentage of HTML mail is, once you throw out the marketing spam, well below 1%.

What i really miss from Thunderbird is a better search interface. I want search terms like "from contains dummy.com and body contains upgrade and to is not me". For more complex searches, i currently create virtual folders (based on one search result) and then search within that folder. But even this method has its limits.

I have most of my emails (now 18 years) archived. Saved my ass on at least half a dozen occasions. But this means 12.000 mails archived per year (much less in 1993, but always growing). So searching becomes the main problem now.

CU, Martin

Re:OK, and what is new?

[vlm]

Does anyone really uses HTML in emails?

Embedded pictures. Which of course is why spammers exclusively use HTML email.

Re:OK, and what is new?

[mseeger]

Well, if you attach Images to a non HTML mail, they get shown by default too.... So even spammers could do without HTML mails, can't they?

Re:OK, and what is new?

[McLoud]

Working with people on organizations over here, everyone uses a simple html template with their sig (simple html plus embedded company logo)

Re:OK, and what is new?

[callmebill]

I use HTML in email from time to time. I have scripts that generate small business reports (sales, basically) and use HTML to tabulate them, and then send that report in HTML form. The audience is business people, so they don't want a "table" made with monospace-fonts, and it would be overkill to attach a CSV or something like that. Ideally I would have a general purpose webserver where I could have my report hosted (or generated on demand), and just tell people "Look here when you're interested", rather than spamming them. But I'm not expecting a miracle! So anyway, as a /.er I am of the "plain text email only please" mindset, but I'm in the minority in my organisation and must adapt.

Re:OK, and what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

What i really miss from Thunderbird is a better search interface. I want search terms like "from contains dummy.com and body contains upgrade and to is not me". For more complex searches, i currently create virtual folders (based on one search result) and then search within that folder. But even this method has its limits.

That is still in Thunderbird. Ctrl+Shift+F or Edit -> Find -> Search Messages

Re:OK, and what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want search terms like "from contains dummy.com and body contains upgrade and to is not me". For more complex searches, i currently create virtual folders (based on one search result) and then search within that folder. But even this method has its limits.

CTRL + SHIFT + F

Re:OK, and what is new?

[mseeger]

Not really, that search lets me create relatively simple querys. But you are right in so far, that my example is covered.

It can "and" or "or" all sub-searches but not mix both.

A typical problem is: I know the sending company but it has changed name and domain (in some cases several times). So i want to include several from-searches by "or". Then i want to nail down the content of the email by applying several keywords and "and"ing them.

I don't want a GUI but a query language. The GUI doesn't hurt me, so it can be left in the code ;-).

Also i would like to nail down the attachment type in the search, e.g. i know it was a PDF.

Another thing that would help would be regular expressions as search terms.

You see, i am always complaining :-).

CU, Martin

Re:OK, and what is new?

[mseeger]

My example is covered, yes, for a more detailed reply see http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2281452&threshold=-1&commentsort=3&mode=thread&pid=36615116#36615412

Re:OK, and what is new?

[mseeger]

Valid example, but rarely used. I expected to see it more often when Netscape first announced HTML mail. They even showed off examples like the ones you mentioned...

Re:OK, and what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

I index my OEM Mail (imap) usimg Solr, and searching with the Solr velocity, including carrot2-Basedow clustering. Nö Need for Thunderbird.

Re:OK, and what is new?

[ljw1004]

As a developer and program-manager, I use HTML for most of my email...

* When I'm sending code snippets, it's nice to have them colorized
* When I'm sending a list of feature options along with their pros/cons, it's nice to tabulate this
* When I'm sending normal prose, it's nice to use italic/bold
* When I'm sending a list of bugs, it's nice to make that a table
* When I'm sending action items, it's nice to highlight the "Must Act Now" recipient's name in yellow
* When I'm reporting bugs, it's nice to have screenshots in the email so I can write around them (rather than just referring to attachments by name)

Oh, and I'd prefer to write a numbered list in HTML rather than text, since that way it will wrap+flow properly on receipients' screens.

Re:OK, and what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason spammers use HTML images in emails is because if the image is loaded the spammer will automatically know that:
1. The client read the email
2. The client is now automatically worth more money because it was proven valid.

Re:OK, and what is new?

[firewrought]

But anyone who sends me HTML mail gets a reprimand anyway. Does anyone really uses HTML in emails? I mean seriously?

I used to be like you (reprimanding people for not living in my black-and-white monospaced world) until I realized that colors, hyperlinks, inline images, and weighted fonts of varying sizes are helpful in communicating clearly and getting one's message across.

At one time these features were new (not readable by all recipients) and dangerous (not sandboxed appropriately), but that was years ago... it's time to leave the people using mutt and Outlook Express 5.5 behind.

Re:OK, and what is new?

[mseeger]

I realized that colors, hyperlinks, inline images, and weighted fonts of varying sizes are helpful in communicating clearly and getting one's message across.

True, but those are usually longer texts which are attachments but not mails. But i have to confess that i can use underline and boldface without using HTML is something i use....

it's time to leave the people using mutt and Outlook Express 5.5 behind.

What's with the users of pine and elm? I know some of them ;-).

Re:OK, and what is new?

[paulkoan]

Does anyone really uses HTML in emails? I mean seriously?

Certainly. Hopefully every email I send and receive is rich text aside from mailing lists and notifications.

Welcome to the new millennium where we don't *have* to use plain text for everything.

Re:OK, and what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the change is not just about gecko but also how it affects the whole UI with the new XUL runner.
Like it did help a lot with FF4.

That said your other points are mostly valid. Thunderbird needed this update badly but it also needs work in other areas just as badly.

Re:OK, and what is new?

[david.given]

I've been noticing that a lot of business related email from, e.g. energy suppliers, airlines etc use multipart/alternative with an empty plain text section, so resulting in them looking as if they're completely blank if I tell Thunderbird to prefer the plain text version. In fact, I've just had to switch to preferring simplified HTML just so I can read the damned things.

Re:OK, and what is new?

[shutdown -p now]

Does anyone really uses HTML in emails? I mean seriously?

Yes, definitely, though the amount depends on the envrironment. At work, probably over 80% of my emails have meaningful HTML formatting in them - most often it's syntax-highlighted code (copy/pasted from Visual Studio) and screenshots. Occasionally it's also tables and nested lists.

I bet they are holding their breath...

[Kamiza Ikioi]

...and hoping Asa doesn't go spouting off about how Thunderbird is horrible for managed email systems.

Re:I bet they are holding their breath...

[Fred Or Alive]

Nope, he merely said it looked so ugly he was switching to another mail client.

Reasons to use a desktop email client:

[Chemisor]

• Offline mode. You can read your mail offline, write your mail offline, and queue it all up for sending all at once. This is particularly useful for those of us who still have no broadband in our area and have to rely on dialup or satellite instead of an always-on connection.
• Speaking of offline mode: you also edit your emails in a decent editor which doesn't suck like all Web 2.0 usually does. It also auto-saves your progress, so if you lose network connectivity, you don't lose your message.
• Push email. Thunderbird uses IMAP IDLE protocol to notify you of email as soon as it comes in. This way you don't have to keep checking it.
• Plugins. Encryption in particular is not easy to do with gmail. There used to be a firefox plugin for it, but it is not maintained any more. With thunderbird you get enigmail which can automatically handle encryption for you.

Re:Reasons to use a desktop email client:

[Culture20]

I love enigmail, but my friends hate me for it ("What's this digital signature crap at the end of all your emails?").

"releasing" doesn't really sound right

[Luckyo]

I think at this point, it's more of a "projectile vomited" rather then "released". Or at least it describes both the desirability of the stuff being excreted and the speed.

When it comes to email, reliability and functionality is FAR more important then any new features. Losing important/mission critical plug-ins to version crap can impact your real life in a vastly negative way.

Oh well, there's always outlook. Can't believe I'd actually consider moving back to MS software on email. But if Mozilla is hell-bent to ensure that I don't want to use plug-ins because they will be killed every month for several days if I'm lucky, and never released on time if not (finnish dictionary add-on, I'm looking at you), then I might as well go back to outlook.

At least it has proper spell checking in languages I need for my daily functioning.

Re:"releasing" doesn't really sound right

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to say this but I aggree with you. I love thunderbird but if they are going to screw it up what the point of using it.

Re:"releasing" doesn't really sound right

[starwed]

I'm not saying you don't have reasons for considering switching back, but your post is incoherent to the point that I haven't the slightest idea what they are.

Re:"releasing" doesn't really sound right

[cavebison]

When it comes to email, reliability and functionality is FAR more important then any new features.

This is why I've been on Thunderbird 2.0.0.24 all this time. Updates turned off, I completely ignore new releases. It works great, happy with the plugins I have. I don't need tabs in my email. Oh and I still use XP and office 2003. I probably get more work done sticking with the same versions than upgrading. :)

Re:"releasing" doesn't really sound right

[ConceptJunkie]

I tried Outlook in 2003 or so and found it to be so bad I can't imagine anyone could work on the product and not kill themselves from shame. I imported my e-mail archives into it only to find it craps out at about 1.5GB in a mailbox file and randomly starts losing stuff. When I mentioned the problem to a few folks their responses were, essentially, "Of course, that's a well-known bug." It would take 30-60 seconds to open a large folder. I could go on...

I have to use Outlook at work and I'm randomly getting alerts for calendar events that were cancelled. Some times I get alerts for calendar items from days, even months in the past. A couple days ago, I got an alert from an event that never existed several days after the fact (I know because the event was at midnight). It got to the point at one time where I was missing actual meetings because I was getting alerts for items that didn't show up in my calendar view and was assuming they were just spurious.

I'll take Thunderbird over Outlook any day. T'bird might not be slick and it might not have had many significant new features since version 1... e.g., why in the world does it still not support import and export?... but it does the job and doesn't tick me off... or suddenly freeze up for several minutes like Outlook has on occasion.

It's funny, at work I was upgraded in the last year to both Windows 7 and Office 2007. I've found Windows 7 to be decent; it's no Vista although I still prefer XP and would prefer Linux even more. But Windows 7 manages to not be worse in XP in most ways. Office, however, is as weird and buggy and unreliable as ever. I think nothing speaks to the truth that Microsoft is a monopoly than the existence of Office. In a world of crappy software, it manages to do things worse than almost any other piece of software I've ever seen.... well, non-enterprise software anyway. In my experience over the years, enterprise software is generally of a level of horribleness that even Microsoft doesn't reach. It seems once you hit the big leagues, everything good that's happened to software in the last 25 years no longer exists.

The GUI is 3D-accelerated

[Nimey]

and now it's got partial transparency. Those are the biggest things I notice.

Fonts messed up - as in FIrefox

[jira]

So they have caught up with Firefox having the fonts messed up. One has to manually set gfx.direct2d to false in config editor to have readable fonts (at least on Windows).

The whole Mozilla suite seems to go downhill.

Re:Fonts messed up - as in FIrefox

[shutdown -p now]

All developers considering using Direct2D (or rather DirectWrite) should first read this doc page, and tattoo DWRITE_RENDERING_MODE_CLEARTYPE_GDI_CLASSIC on their forehead.

Remember, every time you render a glyph in DWRITE_RENDERING_MODE_DEFAULT, I kill a kitten. And eat it. With no mustard.

Faster UI

[pavon]

Most of the user interface for Thunderbird and Firefox is implemented in XUL which is rendered using Gecko. Any improvements to the engine, and in particular with JavaScript, will boost the performance of the application as a whole.

Re:Faster UI

[mseeger]

I never noticed a performance problem with the GUI, but you may be right there for people with less powerfull machines....

Re:Faster UI

[pavon]

Yeah, I haven't used it since version 1, when I was evaluating a replacement for Eudora on my parent's computer. Back then it was dirt slow on a P4, and I ended up recommending Pegasus for that reason, even though I thought Thunderbird was more user friendly. It's probably gotten a lot better since then.

I was just pointing out why a Gecko upgrade is more significant than just improved HTML emails.

Re:Faster UI

[Anonymous Coward]

> It's probably gotten a lot better since then

Or perhaps it has IMPROVED.

We do have a wide range of verbs, you know. You don't have to use "gotten".

Re:Faster UI

[bill_mcgonigle]

We do have a wide range of verbs, you know. You don't have to use "gotten".

Are you such a jackass in person? I can't imagine you have many friends is this is the timbre of your lunchroom conversations.

Dropped support for PPC OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

..once again
following Skype and Firefox 4, now Mozilla officially drops PPC to go Intel only. Same with Opera.

Sad. Now I have no choice but to use unpatched software.

Re:Dropped support for PPC OSX

[Tridus]

That tends to happen when you're using a long dead platform.

Didn't we just get 3.1 two weeks ago?

[Tridus]

Seriously. This update schedule is even more innane for email clients then it is for the web browser (where at least there might be something new in one of these releases). Now they're just releasing stuff for the sake of sticking to some retarded schedule, no matter how little sense it makes.

There's only one thing I ask for above all else in an email client: stability. I want it to work, and I want it to hassle me as little as possible. Mozilla seems like their new goal is to annoy people into submission.

Re:Didn't we just get 3.1 two weeks ago?

[Shark]

Mozilla seems like their new goal is to annoy people into submission.

In the open software world, that's annoying people into finding better alternatives. When the numbers start dwindling, they'll pay attention to the problem. Let's hope for them it won't be too late.

3.x EOL?

[Culture20]

Is Tbird 3.x end of life like FF4? I can still see some 3.1.11 versions for some languages, but English is 5.0 only, and it doesn't seem that anything has 3.1.12 or 3.2. I let my distro update me; can anyone confirm if 3.1.11 auto updates to 5.0 (that will royally confuse my mom who computes by number).

Re:3.x EOL?

[Tetch]

Is Tbird 3.x end of life like FF4? I can still see some 3.1.11 versions for some languages, but English is 5.0 only, and it doesn't seem that anything has 3.1.12 or 3.2

You can get some of the older releases here :
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/
(most of the major releases anyway ... there's 3.1.11 and 3.3a3 but no 3.2)

version numbers

[utkonos]

Hey developers! It's much more annoying when you have version numbers like 0.9.3 or 0.10.1. Why are you afraid of version 1.x.x?

Re:OK, and what is new? (HTML)

[oldCoder]

For rich text effects. Bold, code font, italic, decent looking quote of previous mail.

The new account setup continues to suck

[Kargan]

It won't let you create an account (even for testing purposes) using servers and settings that it can't "probe".

Working at a tech support firm as I do, the new account wizard that was implemented with TB3 is an absolute nightmare for users. I like TB better than MS mail clients in general, but they make us and our users' lives far more difficult than need be.

Do away with the "autoconfiguration" crap and just let people specify what they want, or at least make it optional to have TB "autodetect" everything, for cripes' sake. What's wrong with letting the end-user configure an account using any settings they want?

Re:The new account setup continues to suck

[Anonymous Coward]

You can create accounts that it can't probe. I'm not sure why you haven't seen this yet. After hitting continue on the first screen, click manual config on the lower left side. You can not save the account unless you change the auto detect drop downs to actual values, but that's not an issue for someone that wants to manually config. It should drop to this screen anyway if it can't figure out the settings. This was available in 3.0 and 4.0 (oh wait we skipped 4.0 for version envy) and 5.0.

Re:The new account setup continues to suck

[supersloshy]

True true. I've gotten that screen after it failed to automatically find the proper servers and it let me manually input my information just fine.

Thunderbird search SUCKS

[Anonymous Coward]

> What i really miss from Thunderbird is a better search interface.

Search is seriously broken. I don't want the pretty and sparse search results of recent versions.
There also is no indication of progress while a search is running

How is the new MS Live (vs Outlook Express?)

[Vegan Cyclist]

Curious if there are any other OE (Outlook Express) fans still out there - it's a nearly perfect mail no-frills client, imo... The only thing i'd like to see updated is an insta-spell feature like in practically every other program...

I know they've got an MS Live email client, how does it compare to OE?

Sorry this is off-topic from Thunderbird (i've tried a few releases, but never been happy with it), but obviously fans of mail clients (vs browser mail) will be reading this. =)

- Dave

Re:How is the new MS Live (vs Outlook Express?)

[shutdown -p now]

Live Mail originally was, essentially, just a rebranded major release of Outlook Express.

Re:How is the new MS Live (vs Outlook Express?)

[Vegan Cyclist]

Interesting....so if i like OE, is it worth checking out Live Mail?

TIA!

Still using 2.0.0.24

[grolschie]

I never liked Thunderbird 3.x. Thunderbird 2.x is just what I want.

Re:Still using 2.0.0.24

[raju1kabir]

Same here. WTF is the point of using tabs for email? If I want multiple messages open, it's BECAUSE I WANT TO SEE THEM AT THE SAME TIME. The whole thing felt like using webmail, the avoidance of which is exactly why I was using a desktop email client in the first place.

Still on 2.0.0.24 and apparently I'll still be on it for a long time â" especially since a commenter above said that the "redirect" plugin no longer works in 5.0. Why on earth they are so rabidly resistant to adding that basic feature I'll never understand.

Mini review after 4 hours of use

[sttlmark]

I upgraded today on my Windows 7 work machine. The overall email experience is unchanged--I use it to access my work account on Rackspace email via IMAP, and the new version continues to work fine. But overall I'm underwhelmed to the point that I wish I hadn't upgraded.

At first the new Windows 7 theme struck me as a nice improvement with all its pretty glassy transparency up top, but a few hours of hard use it's just annoying... the menu bar is partially transparent now, so if there's clutter or a dark background under the Tbird window then the top-level menu items lose some contrast and become harder to read (for my crappy eyes, at least). The whole UI lost some of its snappiness, too--I'm not sure if it's the new theme's fault, but resizing the Thunderbird window isn't nearly as smooth as it used to be and the menus feel sluggish when I click on them.

But here's the part about the theme that's driving me batshit insane: Moving the Thunderbird window is broken (it's an advanced feature, I know, but hear me out). There's this big transparent glass area up top with all kinds of empty space that's just begging for you to click on it so you can drag the window around. But the click only registers if you hit it on the very top part of the window. Every other Windows program with a big transparent glass area (including Firefox) lets you click anywhere on the glass to move the window. But not Thunderbird. Most of that glass is a useless no-man's land. (This is so contrary to my deep Win7 usage reflexes that I thought that my mouse was broken for a while.)

The highly-touted improvements to the tab management doesn't do much for me either. Sure, it's neat that I can detach tabs and move them around now, but if I compose a new message then it has to be in a separate window. I can't dock the composition as a tab anywhere, so I have to mess around in the Windows taskbar or Alt-Tab to switch between the messages I'm composing. I'm not sure how this oversight slipped through the cracks.

Oh, and half of my extensions are incompatible after the upgrade. This should annoy much more than it does, but I've grown numb to it over the years.

Why I don't like Thunderbird

[alantus]

- Search functionality is worse than it used to be
- User interface with tabs is complicated (I know it can be disabled)
- Can't add entries to LDAP addressbooks
- Can't browse LDAP addressbooks (only filter)

It seems like the LDAP missing features have never been implemented because the main focus is on changing the UI with every new release.

Outlook still not so good

[dbIII]

While the new MS Outlook is miles ahead of the clunky virus vectors of the past it still has a few nasty quirks that make it a pain for the user and waste everybodies time. The worst IMHO is very unreliable secure authentication with mail servers which makes it unsuitable for staff that travel. Even the iPhone gets it right but under the same circumstances MS Outlook randomly fails when it's trying to send email. I had to get external MS Outlook users to connect via a VPN and get their machine to pretend to be on a LAN and use email insecurely before they could send email more than 5 out of 6 times.
While MS Outlook is well presented there are plenty of internal flaws like the above which you just will not find in any other released email client and would be considered unacceptable elsewhere - it's a highly polished turd.

Re:Outlook still not so good

[Anonymous Coward]

"I had to get external MS Outlook users to connect via a VPN and get their machine to pretend to be on a LAN and use email insecurely before they could send email more than 5 out of 6 times."

You aren't doing it right then.

Windows 7 "theme fixes" = complete trash

[Cl1mh4224rd]

I know that eye candy isn't really the measure of a quality product, but, by the same token, I can't comfortably use an application that is visually offensive to me. Thunderbird 3.1 on Windows XP had some aspects of its UI that didn't seem quite right. When I moved to Windows 7, everything looked pretty good.

Then Thunderbird 5 comes out with their "theme fixes" and the menu bar and Mail Toolbar look unbelievable awful. I use Thunderbird to access my two Gmail accounts, because I prefer a more traditional, folder-like interface to Gmail's weird labeling scheme. Since the major reason for me using Thunderbird (the UI) has gone straight to hell, I may just have to suck it up and get used to Gmail's web interface.

Mozilla's losing its shit. These are some fairly serious fumbles they've been making lately.

Shutdown?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was this project not shutdown by Mozilla a while back?

Agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

The account setup has been completely, utterly broken since 3.0 and the new "wizard". Trying to setup a POP account in particular is nothing short of maddening. I have asked multiple times for a simple bypass for the wizard, only to fall on deaf ears. How difficult could it possibly be to prompt the user "use the wizard or setup manually"? And make this occur BEFORE the wizard starts spinning out of control?

As long as there is no proper bypass for the wizard, my small network of roughly 35 PCs will stay on 2.0.0.24.

Of all the things...

[tompccs]

...you could copy from Google Chrome, why copy their exponential versioning system?

Not impressed with the new chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

I vastly preferred the look of 4.x, is there a theme or add-on that makes it look like it used to? It's a step backward in terms of user experience.

Also, from http://kb.mozillazine.org/Performance_%28Thunderbird%29

Why it's slower than the competition
Many Windows e-mail clients call the operating system (win32 API) to display the GUI, or call some wrapper that adds no significant overhead. Thunderbird uses XUL (Mozilla's XML-based User-interface Language) to display its GUI. This decreases performance but it allows users to write XUL extensions to extend the functionality, rather than having to write traditional plug-ins or ActiveX controls. There are over a hundred extensions available, most written by users.

so they flushed performance down the toilet so people can write extensions I'll never use? Not cool.