Nathan Exposed » Geek Speak with Thunderbird 3

Geek Speak with Thunderbird 3

Almost a year ago, I wrote the post Geek Speak with Eudora, discussing news that the Eudora e-mail program was going to be re-built using code from Mozilla’s Thunderbird program.

I was really excited about the news because I used to love Eudora back in the day. And Thunderbird is a painfully under appreciated piece of work. It has many great and useful features, all for free. So the possibility of Eudora combined with Thunderbird sounded perfect.

Well it doesn’t look like much has happened since then with the project. BUT… right around that time, it was announced that Thunderbird was no longer going to be developed. Sad news. It was unfortunate that Thunderbird had not gained the same momentum that Firefox did.

In 2008, Thunderbird was given new life when Mozilla announced the Mozilla Messaging project. They now have a team giving Thunderbird the care and attention that it deserves. Their goal is to re-think e-mail programs in the same way they re-thought the browsing experience with Firefox. I really think it’s going to stick this time.

I’ve been using developer versions of Thunderbird 3 for a few months now, and I’m in love. It is my favorite e-mail program. Lightweight and fast loading, but also robust and full of great features. I discover something new it can do almost daily.

Like Firefox 3, Thunderbird 3 now matches the look of your operating system. The search engine is lightning fast (something Thunderbird 2 was really weak with). It also has tabbed browsing, which has mysteriously stopped working in the latest release, but I’m sure it’s a bug they are working on. When you’re using test versions of a program, expect bugs.

Point being, Thunderbird 3 has won me over in the features department, and I know the final release will be even better. I’m happy that Thunderbird isn’t dead after all. Maybe someday it will make a dent in the e-mail market the way Firefox has in the browser market.

Wed, Aug 13, 2008 @ 6:10 pm | Filed in Technology | Permalink

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