I have been using Thunderbird for a quite a while now and have to say that 3 is vry disappointing and feels unfinshed and has no polish whatsoever. Well, except the new search which seems to be where all the effort has gone!

I’m pretty sure that during the install process, there’s an option to set thuderbird as the default client, so chances are if its default, the box was left ticked. I’m using thuderbird, and although its not apparently feature-rich as, it does a greap job of being a lightweight email client for my multiple emails.
I dont see what the fuss is about, its just a steamlined version of Thunderbird 2. If you liked the last one, you’ll like this one

Barry obviously did the usual experienced users trick of not checking the Dialog boxes. Thunderbird 3 asks if you want it to be the default both during install and at first start. (Did for me anyway)

@Paul: yeah, that is annoying. It seems they have some problems with building the Sunbird/Lightning 1.0 release. Should be fixed this week. Till then, try this one: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/calendar/lightning/nightly/2009/12/2009-12-05-06-comm-1.9.1/

Exactly the reason why I switched back to outlook quite quickly after installing thunderbird

Anyone else notice the Account settings window has buttons that are only half visible? And you cannot resize the window to bring them into view!!

Thunderbird 3 is annoying me the address book is just not what I expected, can not update the address fields nor the email addresses seems to hang (or is it just me) Vista Ultimate on a Toshiba equium

Otherwise TB3 works well at searching over the three accounts I and indeed it did ask if it was to be my default email client!!!

I have a set of subfolders and sorting rules.
TB3 seperated these from the Inbox, so they weren’t visible under it.
I moved them back and TB said it was adjusting the message rules. But it didn’t.
There are now several broken rules, which is bad enough. But every time a message comes through that meets a rule it throw up an error, that has to be cancelled.
And it doesn’t offer an immediate edit with that message. Nor is there a utlility that will make the link. So I then have to go back and sort out all these rules 1 at a time.

Most of the posts I have read identifying problems have surprised me. I installed 3.0 over the last version of 2.0.?? with no problems. It asked me if I wanted it to be the default or not, brought over all four of the email accounts I use it for, my address book works great and is beginning to capture addresses from emails as it is supposed to, I can edit my contacts no problem. Lastly, it brought over all my local folders and all the rules I have for sorting new emails into the local folders and they run fine. The only oddity I have run into is one of my email accounts on the smtp side suddenly doesn’t need user name and password security in order to send a message. I’m looking forward to continuing to explore its new features.

I upgraded from Thunderbird 2 to 3 with no issues. All my email accounts worked fine. First time I ran Thunderbird 3 I was asked if I wanted to make Thunderbird default for email, newsgroups and something else. I just thought that email was ticket as I used Thunderbird 2 as default before.
Same thing we are using in Office Outlook

System Admin
Avila Solutions
http://www.avilasoft.com

Considering that this is now at the RC2 stage, I’m concerned about the stability of the Message Filters window. I am often unable to save edited filter rules because it complains about some of them being invalid, even if I haven’t touched them. Fixing it requires a bit or random clicking around on the rule list. Then, having edited my rules, I try to to run the filter using the button in the Message Filters window but nothing happens – I have to use the option in the Tools menu instead. And then I could mention how damned slow it is to save a rather modestly-sized filter…

There is one new great thing with version 3 – it integrates with Windows 7 search. It’s the main reason why I moved from 2 to 3 and it always worked like a charm.
Thanks to all the thunderbird dev team, don’t be discouraged by negative posts, you know, bad news travel fast

Used to use TB2, then went back to web mail only, now using TB3 & very impressed.
One nag…No addons seem to work for syncing with my gmail contacts & TB address book.
Any ideas?

I agree with Neil December 10th, 2009 at 12:05 pm. I have been running Thunder for years and 3 works just fine because I use nothing else so don’t get problems. Who messes with more than one system .. gets messed up .. logical .. and why can an open source fight dirty just like profit takers else … may the force be with our Open Source Crusaders of true freedom like the fraternity of Mozilla who make honest mistakes sometimes .. just like the rest of us who are not microsoft droids. Live long and prosper

Had to dump TB after it ‘lost’ a whole page of emails; one minute they were there and the next gone, I know not where. Searching failed to locate anything as did a peek into the file. Weird. Just cannot afford such problems whatever the version.

Streamlined version? Yea sure. No scroll-bars on the right, forced to use the scroll-wheel on mouse — what happened to the choice?, to compose in Write, no contacts — they are still there in Address Book, but not in Write (Streamline?), reading emails open the header with all the crap exposed for wonderful screen clutter (how do you close it?), it’s really cutsey with the “You” stuff — hell I know who I am!, enlarged icons — more wasted screen clutter: I’m old but my eyes ain’t that bad!; and slow — TB2 loads 10 messages in the time that TB3 loads one — no, it is not my computer, it is running fine. My support calls have quadrupled. I have been forced to download MS Mail on all Win7 unit — gave up trying to get through the crap of auto-config: It just does not work for any of my local ISP’s. Yesterday, Thunderbird (2) was just a click away. Now its gone to yesterday. Did they monkey-test this thing before they auto-downloaded it? Did Microsoft buy Mozilla? What’s going on?

Thunderbird doesn’t even come close to offering all the features Outlook has – NOT EVEN CLOSE. You want a full featured email and organizer ? Outlook wins, hands down. Forget the MS haters, or the FF lovers…. features-wise, there is no contest.

@stig An unfair article??? Both Mac & Open Source lovers do *nothing* except slag off Microsoft all the time. What’s up? Can’t take the heat? Once ‘minority’ products become mainstream they are fair game. That’s what’s happened with MS, now it’s TBird’s turn. I use TBird, but having just upgraded to v3 it’s driving me crazy with it’s indexing hanging up everything for at least a minute every time I open it. I’m perfectly entitled to criticise. Who are you to say I can’t?

Hi,

I simply love the Thunderbird application, however with the new version I found that when sending an email with an attachment, especially if it’s somewhat large (not huge by all means), that the whole program, and the rest of my programs lag excessively. It’s only when I send such email, yet didn’t find it to happen with Thunderbird 2.

I’ve changed from Outlook to Thunderbird due to the look and feel, and also the functionality but the new version has driven me to go to the ftp site and download an updated version of the Thunderbird 2 and reinstall it.

I would happily change back if this was not the case…

…or is it just me that this is happening to?

sorry, typo error,, i mean, ‘it used to be very fat, works like spotlight’

anyway, anyone would like to use previous version, can get in here.
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/

I believe the information covered in the discussion is top notch. I’ve been doing a research on the subject and your blog just cleared up a lot of questions. I am working on a custom research paper and custom research papers for my English class and currently reading lots of blogs to study.

I have been using Thunderbird since the very beginning and I’m quite happy with version 3. Faster, smarter and I have no technical problems at all. I do sysadmin work for people who use Thunderbird with Windows, Mac and Linux.

TB 3 is crap.
As network manager I have to create lots of accounts.
The new way is a waste of precious time… if it actually works, mostly it crashes.

I fresh installed TB 3 and initialized it on TB 2 files -> local folders got corrupted and mails dissapeared.
Not to mention the lay out, that’s too complex for normal users.

I’m sorry, this is a total fail for me

The Thunderbird 3 is not working right as it should has to the Thunderbird 3 playing dirty tricks? or it is making not right things which the users do required from it, it may can cause it a very bad thing to the company.