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Thunderbird 3 is go

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 9 Dec 2009 at 09:35

Mozilla has officially released the third version of its Thunderbird email client.

Thunderbird 3 brings a fresh look and swathe of new features to the email client, which hasn't had a major version upgrade in more than two years.

The software has a new browser-like interface, with each message and mailbox search given its own tab. The minimalist design is a million miles away from Outlook 2010, which has just been granted the elaborate new Ribbon interface.

Mozilla has also beefed up Thunderbird's search facility, which includes options to search the entire mailbox or only selected fields, such as the subject line, or the "to" or "from" fields. The search facility also includes some clever filtering options: search your mailbox for "PC Pro", for example, and a list of people appears on the left-hand side of the screen, allowing you to drill down to individual contacts who sent you a message regarding PC Pro.

In a bid to make the open-source software more friendly, a wizard appears when you first download the software, prompting you for nothing more than your name, email address and password, and then automatically goes and fetches your server settings. However, in our brief tests this morning, it failed to correctly detect Gmail's SMTP server settings, leaving us unable to send outgoing messages.

Although Thunderbird 3 does support Microsoft Exchange, it's still some way short of being a direct replacement for Outlook. There's no built-in calendar, for example, although Mozilla's Lightning calendar is available as an add-on.

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User comments

how long have you had that headline waiting?

By TimoGunt on 9 Dec 2009

Thunderbird 3 is go

F.A.B.

By Amnesia10 on 9 Dec 2009

How long?

Just over two years, Timo:)

Barry Collins
Online Editor
Headline-mangler-in-chief

By Barry_Collins on 9 Dec 2009

reply

in the Beta I really didn't like the one-line message preview headers. I hope they have made it so that you can have more than one line.

By 00lissauers on 9 Dec 2009

There seem to be problems upgrading with Kaspersky's anti-spam extension installed. I got a blank screen when I upgraded and nearly trashed Windows trying to roll back to thunderbird 2. I would hold off on this until 3.0.1 if you're running Kaspersky.

By c6ten on 9 Dec 2009

TB3

I've had no problems with 3, I've been using it since the middle of summer - its been smooth sailing. Would be nice if they added a few wizards for those who want things simpler - but that can be an add-on's job can't it? Likewise for the calendar - you're not stuck with one you don't like - instead you can download one that you like - and Lightning is the preferred choice there for me.

Simplification allows for speed. Elaborate and complex menus are not going to help and will only deter users. Therefore the simple menu in Thunderbird 3 is definitely a go!

PS I don't use Kaspersky - so I'm not familiar with c6ten's problems.

By nicomo on 9 Dec 2009

Kaspersky and Thunderbird

c6ten that sounds like a problem with Kaspersky rather than one with Thunderbird.

By Linux_User on 9 Dec 2009

What's that got to do with it? You can't remove Kaspersky just to run a mail program. Just saying that Thunderbird ought to be tested with this configuration and a fix applied.

By c6ten on 9 Dec 2009

btw does nicomo even use windows? That's a remarkably useless piece of puff.

By c6ten on 9 Dec 2009

Kaspersky

I would argue that Kaspersky should be testing their software with common utilities, not the other way around.

By Linux_User on 9 Dec 2009

That have only just been released you mean? That were in beta until 24 hours ago, and therefore not finalised code? You are being unreasonable.

By c6ten on 9 Dec 2009

@c6ten

I hate following up comments because there's always some {insert insult} who really has no brain cells between their ears and just prefers their own point of view instead.

FYI I use both Win 7 and Linux - in Win 7 I use AVG and in Linux I don't use any anti-virus stupidity.

Don't worry - I won't be back here!!

By nicomo on 9 Dec 2009

Kaspersky

I have Kaspersky and had the same problem as c6ten. Installs but then no folders, no threads, etc. Uninstalling and re-installing didn't help. Uninstalling and re-installing a previous version also initially didn't work. Freaked me out until a previous version finally installed. Agree that Kaspersky should have been working with the beta to avoid these problems with the full release version.

By jbass on 9 Dec 2009

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