Mozilla Releases Thunderbird 5 154
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"
Re:Who uses Thunderbird? (Score:5, Informative)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
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? (Score:4, Informative)
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.