back to article Mozilla hatches Thunderbird 3 release candidate

Thunderbird 3 is nearly ready to leave the nest. Mozilla Messaging on Wednesday conjured up the first release candidate for version 3.0 of their popular open source email and news client. What's that mean to you, the reader who doesn't like plunking fledgling code on their system? Only that portentous feeling that the final …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. MJI Silver badge
    Go

    A new Thunderbird

    A red space ship - to replace a green transport craft.

    Thunderbirds are (see icon)

    1. BoldMan
      Thumb Up

      Thunderbird 3 was Orange not Red!

      Well at least my treasured plastic model of it was many many years ago...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Can't wait for version numbers to get higher

    I can't be the only one thinking "F.A.B." every time I see a headline like this. Can I?

    Pint cause I really want one right now...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm still using it only for two reasons

    Option to display message as plain text (which I always activate) allowing me to concentrate on the content (i.e stripping flashy formatting), especially when it is what we call "gray-list spam" and the possibility to view the message in its source (raw) form including all headers and HTML tags etc. without opening the message, extremely useful in avoiding dangerous spam. Add as a bonus, a good Bayesian spam filter and you can survive with its modest graphical user interface.

    If I still have the first two options in the new version I'll just stay with TB for another decade.

  4. Phil Koenig
    Stop

    A fertile platform for exploits

    Never really liked the direction that browser-vendors have taken email clients, essentially web browsers that understand SMTP/POP/IMAP.

    With that built-in browser engine, 3rd-party plugins, script support in email and so on, I hope you're all ready for a new wave of trojans that infect via email client vulnerabilities. And Microsoft isn't the bad guy this time.

  5. mwk
    Thumb Down

    I tried beta 4

    Didn't actually intend to (apparently the Fedora team occasionally confuse "leading edge" and "unstable test version") and really didn't like it. I eventually replaced it after a week or so because the UI was annoying the hell out of me.

  6. Richard 51
    Unhappy

    I wish

    that Moz would bring out TB with calendar functionality and an interface to Iphone so I can get rid of Outlook which is probably the most crappiest application ever!

    1. OffBeatMammal

      no calendar :(

      while I was freelancing and trying to live the open source life I used thunderbird for a while. it's a nice mail reader but the lack of calendar / task management (and ability to integrate with Exchange) means that it's only half a solution for me.

      If it offered a way to seamlessly integrate into an Exchange environment (I use a hosted Exchange service for the family) or even integrate Google email and calendar or Live mail/calendar in one coherent interface (and deal with meeting requests etc) I'd probably look at it again...

      That said I've been using the Office 2010 beta for a short while now and it's like the Vista -> Win7 switch... they've improved virtually everything... so Thunderbird etc will need to add useful functionality to really appeal (besides the cost and the open source posse)

      1. Pandy06269

        Sunbird

        Did you never see the strangely-named Sunbird? It's a local calendar/tasks application (similar to Mac's iCal) that was in early development - and also had a Thunderbird plugin called Lightning.

        I've not heard anything of Sunbird for ages so it may not have got any further than an alpha.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    I'm still using it.

    And not just for the easy view-source and spam filtering.

    The beta has been the standard client in both Fedora 11 and Fedora 12 so it's had a fair bit of testing. I was getting a bit blasé about mail clients — they generally do the job but there's nothing especially exciting about them. Having use TB3 for a while now though I'm really quite impressed.

    The big things like the local index for "search everywhere" and the smart folders are good, but so are the little things like reminding you that you haven't actually attached that CV to the message.

    It's well worth sticking with.

  8. Tim Bergel

    @Richard51

    Have you tried the Lightning calendar? OK it doesn't synch with iPhone (I think) but its a fine calendar and iyts worth almost anything to get away from Outlook...

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why?

    There's nothing wrong with Thunderbird 2.

  10. Bassey

    It's okay-ish

    The last beta was buggy as hell - constantly crashed. However, the searching IS fantastic and tabbed email is just one of those "doh! How come nobody thought of that before" moment. I just hope the RC is as stable as they are making out. Oh, and PLEASE get lightening working for this ASAP.

    1. Phil Koenig
      Stop

      Uh - "tabbed email" is old news

      There have been email clients around for ages that do "tabbed email". For example, Eudora has had that feature for, I would guess, a good 10+ years now.

  11. Martin Gregorie
    Thumb Down

    I still won't touch it

    I've only ever used TB for news reading. Its kill-filing facilities were underwhelming in scope and appallingly implemented. To top it off, it regularly forgot things, such as which dictionary it was meant to be using and the list of subscribed newsgroups.

    As a result I binned it in favour of Pan.

    Having just looked at the v3 features list and found NO/NADA/NOTHING has been done to improve news handling, its going to stay in that bin. Forever.

  12. The Black Hand

    How about a progress bar

    A proper progress bar would be nice. I'm so fed up of the "This folder is being processed..." alert box, that won't go away until you click it.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like