Mozilla Thunderbird 3 Released 272
Posted
by
kdawson
from the hot-bits dept.
from the hot-bits dept.
supersloshy writes Today Mozilla released Thunderbird 3.
Many new features are available, including Tabs and enhanced search features, a message archive for emails you don't want to delete but still want to keep, Firefox 3's improved Add-ons Manager, Personas support, and many other improvements. Download here."
Tabs (Score:5, Insightful)
a message archive for emails you don't want to delete but still want to keep
Well that was cleverly written :)
But tabbed email sounds interesting. It makes text editors, web browsers and many other apps so much better and makes so much sense for email application that I'm thinking why didn't Thunderbird have it before.
One thing I would surely like to see in email clients however - the gmail like threaded conversation view. It's just so much better and nicer to use, but still many email applications tend to have the plain-list-of-messages view.
Re:Low standards (Score:4, Insightful)
"hardly ever crashes (perhaps twice in 3 months), search is *way* improved, and it finally feels like first-rate software.".
The specific releases he is mentioning are beta. Standards for 'numbers of times crashing' are different. I am guessing, but the 'first rate software' quote may also be speaking of look and feel. Thunderbird was good, but lacked polish. I have not tried any of the 3 series, but I will now that it's golden
Re:Lightning.... (Score:3, Insightful)
That seems quite an important extension - any idea when (or if) it will be supported by TB3?
Try the lightning nightly builds. It worked with TB3 beta.
Re:Does it matter all that much? (Score:2, Insightful)
I personally prefer to know that I have a copy of my own emails stored on a computer that I control. Sure google is good at what they do and all and they are not evil, but server foul ups happen. It is also nice for when my laptop is not connected to the internet.
Web apps also have some usability issues: no right click, usually less good keyboard shortcuts and/or clashes with browser. They loose screen real estate that the browser takes up. A tab within can't be easily alt tabbed to. There are not as many good options for say notification about new mail.
Gmail and the like are nice for when I am not on one of my computers, but there are still many advantages to having an actual local client, some can probably be mitigated by browser interface improvements, but some are going to be a lot harder.
So I for one am glad to see thunderbird is still being developed
Re:Does it matter all that much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, I switched *away* from in the web-based GMail client, opting for Evolution (mainly because of it's calendar integration). Why? Well, I wanted to access my personal and work email through the same client. But, of course, I'm not gonna forward my work email to GMail. So the only solution available was to use an IMAP client, through which I now access both my work and gmail accounts.
So, no, desktop clients are alive and well, and probably always will be, thanks to corporations and individuals who choose to run their own email services (Microsoft Exchange in particular).