Mozilla Thunderbird 0.2 Released

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla Thunderbird 0.2 is out! For those who haven't heard about it yet, Mozilla Thunderbird is mozilla.org's new standalone mail client and sister product to Mozilla Firebird. According to MozillaZine's article on the release, new features include 'a redesigned Options dialogue, spell checker improvements, enhancements to the default theme and better performance and stability'. More information can be found at the Mozilla Thunderbird Project Page and in the release notes (which include the important information that a clean install is vital). Builds are available for Windows (7.3Mb), Mac OS (11.1Mb) and Linux (9.5Mb) or you can download the source (29.1Mb) and build it yourself for extra geek points."

One feature I want...

[chrisgeleven]

Exchange server support. Unfortunately I must use it at work and at school, which also means I must use Outlook.

Thank you for the explination

[Raul654]

Thunderbird, Firebird, Phoenix - the common naming scheme might sound cool, but it gets confusing really quick and I think the dev team would do well pick more differentiable names.

Speed

[miradu2000]

While I love the idea of ridding my windows desktop from any microsoft software other than what is required (windows), Thunderbird needs to majorly work on it's speed before it is of any use to me. I use a 500 mhz k6-2 with 512 MB ram, and often I can't type an email message because the program is so slow. However, it deals with IMAP much better than outlook- which makes my life much easier. Plus I can match skins to firebird!

What about my hotmail?

[Henry V .009]

Anybody have a hotmail account hack for this yet?

Something I've been wondering

[revividus]

I haven't seen it referenced in the moz dev plan, but does anyone know if there are plans to make the HTML Composer in Mozilla into a stand-alone app? Or the IRC client?

They could call them, oh, I don't know, Hummingbird and Lovebird.

The release notes don't mention ...

[altp]

... If there is an improvment with imap accounts. Is there a setting to check all imap folders, what doesn't cause it to error on folders that cannot contain mail?

Does it handle gpg any better than it did before? Evolution users couldn't verify messages signed with thunderbird perviously.

I'm all for ..

[SirSlud]

.. the lack of Outlook Express for free.

Its the killer net-wired computer app, and Microsoft is taking away the free treat. Interesting to see what happens with Mozilla's email client.

I wonder what Eudora Lite is like these days? ;)

GPG Support

[danielrm26]

I just hope the GPG support stays solid and consistent. I am about to try and upgrade here both on a Linux and XP system and I am praying that we won't be burdened with enigmail problems.

If this client stays as solid as it seems to be, and is able to maintain good GPG support, I think I am going to be *very* pleased.

Trying to switch from Mozilla...

[abischof]

I'm trying to switch over from Mozilla to Firebird and Thunderbird, but I've run into a few niggles. On the Thunderbird side, for instance, is there any way to open links in a new Firebird tab? In Mozilla's MailNews, I like being able to middle-click to open URLs in a new browser tab :).

And, on the Firebird side, is there a way to turn on inline-autocomplete for the URL bar? (If you're not familiar with inline-autocomplete, it's when the top-match dynamically appears in the URL bar as you type.)

Other than that, I'm also looking for a DOM Inspector extension for Firebird as well. Yeah, there are some one-off XPIs [mozillazine.org] to get the DOM Inspector in Firebird, but I'm concerned that they may not be actively developed. For instance, if the Firebird extensions API changes, I'm not sure if someone would step up to release a new DOM Inspector XPI :-/.

Re:One feature I want...

[Anonymous Coward]

And a lot of people use it because it is still the best one-stop-shopping product for email, shared folders, scheduling, contacts, tasks, etc. Say what you want about the insecurity of Outlook but there are a ton of great features about it too that aren't yet available elsewhere. This holds true for a lot of Office. There is nothing (and trust me I have looked) that comes close to Excel and its macros/vba.

Memory Footprint?

[mhlandrydotnet]

Does anyone know if the memory footprint has improved? It is the only thing keeping me from switching from OE (which has about 1/3 memory footprint) and the memory footprint section has not been updated on their web site.

Two questions

[helix400]

1) Is it possible to upgrade your existing Thunderbird 0.1 settings into 0.2? I know Thunderbird is not an installer, its just an unzip and go application. So I worry about upgrading.

2) Does Thunderbird bounce mail? Unfortunately, I have no clue what bouncing mail means, although it has something to do with stopping spam with SpamAssassin. My brother says he'll only switch from Eudora as soon as it can bounce email.

Long term plans?

[Malc]

Maybe I didn't read the roadmap thoroughly enough, but I can't see the long term plans for this. I switched my mail and news from Netscape 4.8 to Mozilla 1.4. So far it's been reasonable, even though there are some quirks, sluggishness and some rather obtuse UI choices. Mail in Mozilla 1.4 has finally reached a level that is good enough for my full time use. I would really love to get away from the integrated monolithic process of Mozilla 1.4, but when it comes to email, I'm very conservative about trying software before it's ready.

When is this supposed to be ready? What is the long term plan for version 1.0? Does anybody have a clue, or will it follow after Debian and release when it's ready? The Mozilla Foundation is very different to Debian, and I think they need to provide more foresight. How long do people foresee it being until they spin off a stable branch meant as a replacement to for Mail/News in Mozilla 1.4? Anpther year?

Palm Desktop and Thunderbird

[Enzo1977]

Why is it so difficult to get Thunderbird to import an entire address book from the Palm Desktop? Do I really have to be bothered to export every single name in my Palm address book to a Vcard or Address Archive, and then import them individually into Thunderbird? The day Thunderbird can import my entire palm address book will prove to me its effectiveness over any previous mozilla/netscape mail client I've used in the past. Has anyone else tried this process? Ever notice how the values get jumbled? Mr. A's phone numbers are showing up in the home address line, Mr X's E-mail address appears in the work phone line, etc. Its such an inconvenience it would be more effective if I just manually entered each address, but I won't, and I refuse to, because I own a computer, and not a rolodex that I have to fill out by hand.

Re:Two questions

[PoisonousPhat]

1. Don't worry about upgrading. I believe your settings are stored wherever you have your user profile, usually at /Documents and Settings/username/Application Data/Thunderbird/ for Windows users. The program folder is replaced, but your local saved messages and settings are not. Note that Mozilla recommends you delete your Thunderbird 0.1 folder before installing the new folder, though.

2. Thunderbird does not bounce mail, AFAIK. Usually email bouncing occurs when an email is returned to its sender for some reason or another, such as sending to an invalid email address. Eudora, if I am reading their website correctly, doesn't bounce email either.

The Slashdot readers will correct me on this hopefully, but I believe email bouncing via SpamAssassin needs to happen at the mail server level, not from within your email application. Any spam that does or doesn't get through to you locally using Eudora will or will not get through using Thunderbird. Perhaps your brother is either running his own mail server, or has mistaken Eudora's internal junk mail filtering--which only moves email from your inbox to a "junk" folder--for email bouncing.

That said, as a Thunderbird user, I'd highly recommend upgrading, especially since it's a free upgrade with better stability and speed (for most people, anyway).

AMD used Thunderbird

[boy_afraid]

Why didn't Ford sue AMD for the use of Thunderbird in their line of processors??

Re:It's rather good

[Overly Critical Guy]

People bitch about the bloat of Windows and Office, yet tolerate the ridiculous slowness of Mozilla/Firebird and memory footprints of 23MB for an open source e-mail client. I don't get it.

Re:Something I've been wondering

[blinq]

Remember, bugzilla doesn't take referrals from slashdot.

If you're using the "Tabbrowser Extensions" [texturizer.net] for Firebird, then you can set the "Block Referrer" option for the tab, and bugzilla's referrer restriction won't matter :) Sorry Moz team ... hoist by thy own petard!

Re:One feature I want...

[Aadain2001]

There's a reason it costs money: it is NOT an easy project! If it was something that just took some time, there would have been a plugin already. Also, it requires access to a working Exchange Server, which isn't exactly cheap or easy to get working in the first place.

The better solution is to develope a sane, open protocol that ANY developer could use, including Microsoft. Then would could have all the alternative programs (you know, mostly OSS) start using it and to start pressuring for more interoperablility from MS. Yes, I know, that's a long shot. But if we do all the work for them, they are more inclined to use it. Anyway, that's my two cents.

Re:Please tell me I'm missing something....

[catbutt]

2) I'm not quite sure what you want... More than just sorting by a field? Or a custom filter?

Well, I want what Eudora has, I'm sure others must have it.

The field is called "Who" (rather than "Sender" or "Recipient"). So if I am the sender, the Who field would contain the recipient. If I am the recipient, the Who field contains the sender.

See http://www.eudora.com/email/43/screenshot.html [eudora.com]

(outgoing messages are shown in italic to distinguish them from incoming)

It is SO much more useful that having seperate sender and recipient fields.

Re:Long term plans?

[snilloc]

Most clients have an option to leave the email on the server, so a conservative person could try a new client with that setting and continue to download email with both clients.

Sending mail might require you to cc/bcc yourself if you usually save outgoing messages too. A bit of a PITA, but it would reduce any risk in experimenting with new email clients.

Of course you get it.

[Compact Dick]

You're being Overly Critical, aren't you? :-) Speaking for myself, I use Free Open Source software because I don't want to "pirate" the programs you mentioned. Also known as keeping your conscience clean. I'm also doing my best to move people away from Windows and Office, but only where appropriate. I have realistic expectations - I don't want them to end up hating OSS apps cos they didn't fit their needs.

Having said that, you'll notice from my earlier post I'm not happy about the code bloat and huge memory footprint. The tolerance is there, but because of other reasons such as trustworthiness.

A personal note: while I do applaud your efforts to negate the bias around here, I'd be more impressed if you adopted a more neutral attitude. Thanks!

Cheers,
CD

Re:Speed

[boarder]

Are you freakin kidding me? You need to reconfigure your system if you're having that kind of problem. Seriously. I was running a k6-2 350 with 384M ram and was able to run mozilla mail (much larger and slower). Thunderbird is already pretty darn fast compared to MozMail, Lotus Notes (what I am forced to use at work, what a waste or resources that is for just mail), and KMail. Granted, I have run into the occasional memory leak with TBird, but that is less than once per day (I use it all day everyday at work and home).... and it's only a 0.1 release.

Memory Usage of TB + FB vs Mozilla 1.4

[SilentMajority]

Anyone notice the difference in memory usage between running Thunderbird 0.2 + Firebird 0.6.1 vs Mozilla 1.4 on Windows?

A suggestion (long-term)

[symbolic]

I've used Mozilla primarily on the Mac (OS 9), and one thing I've NEVER understood is why Mozilla, at its worst, eats up about 137+ MB of RAM. This is unacceptable. I suspect that much of it has to do with the growing amount of E-mail that i've collected in to various folders, but there has to be a better way.

I've been wondering if piping all the email to a true database engine wouldn't be an interesting option for those that want to endure the process of setting it up. MySQL is fast, lean, and I'm guessing that the initial load time when opening the e-mail client might be cut substantially.

none of the mozilla mail clients can talk SSL

[Bob Bitchen]

Sure they have neat themes but they can't even do SSL email! I was forced to change recently because my ISP blocked outbound SMTP. Lots of others have hit this problem but it has yet to be fixed.

Try Sylpheed, there's a native win32 version and of course *nix versions.

Re:Thunderbird is not working on RedHat 8.0

[pirhana]

I think you need GTK 2 libraries for Thunderbird to be installed. You have to upgrade to redhat 9 or atleast upgrade gtk for that( I am also facing the same problem BTW :-)

Re:hefty

[kelnos]

my (unchecked) guess is that a goodly chunk of that is XPCOM and gecko, mozilla's component architecture and layout renderer, respectively. my hope is that eventually when that stuff stabilises enough we'll see a single download for the gecko runtimes, and then you can install thunderbird, firebird, etc. without having to download/install XPCOM/gecko along with the package.

then again, average-joe user generally doesn't care about download sizes and multiple copies of shared libraries - all they care about is how many clicks it takes from the website to having a usable app. perhaps they could just have a "if you don't know what you're doing, download this" package that has it all, with the smaller pieces for people that know what they want. i suppose the net-installers serve that purpose well enough, actually, as long as they can detect the presence/absence of the core libraries well enough...

Why is it so big?

[68k geek]

Why the helll does an email client weight 7-11 MB? I really don't see what kind of functionality it has that requires it to be more then a few 100's of kilos big (not to say 10's of kilos).

Re:none of the mozilla mail clients can talk SSL

[kelnos]

uh, sure they can. i'm using pop3-over-ssl to talk to one of my mail servers, and imap-over-ssl on another. i've never tried the smtp ssl support, but the option appears to be there.

regardless, why aren't you using your isp's mail server? it's there for a reason. unless there is something wrong with it, like it delays mail unreasonably or loses mail, you should be using it. if you really want a smtp log on your own machine, set up your mta to use a relay host. in any case, what does your isp blocking outgoing smtp have to do with what email client you use?

Outlook/.pst operability?

[Likes Microsoft]

I'm already a fan of Firebird. Maybe someone here could answer a question I couldn't find in the FAQ. Can I use Mozilla Mail or Thunderbird to access my Outlook *.pst file to use my stored e-mail addresses (which I keep synced with my palm pilot through Outlook)? I would happily switch over if it did that.

If not, maybe this is a plugin worth making. It would ease the transition of many current Outlook users. Oh, and please don't tell me I can import the addresses. That's no use to me if I can't keep things synchronized with my palm pilot.

What happened to re-usability

[NibbleAbit]

new features include 'a redesigned Options dialogue, spell checker improvements, enhancements to the default theme and better performance and stability'.

Open Office has a spel checker, gnome has one, firebird has one, why don't they all use the same fabulous one. Less code and more functionality.Just a pasing thought, congratulations to the team.