Thunderbird

Open source; $0

Current Version: 2.0.0.18 (November 21, 2008)

The point of Thunderbird - as with Firefox, the new standalone Mozilla web browser component - is to take real steps toward simplifying all the great stuff that comprises the Mozilla project, allowing you to download what you need and nothing more. After Mozilla 1.4 came out, new implementations of the two main Mozilla components (web browser and newsreader/email client) have been be offered as separate downloads. Mozilla Thunderbird is the standalone email and Usenet newsreader client, available for Mac OS X.

Thunderbird is now a mauture, stable, and very capable email and usenet client, offering just about every major feature you might expect, from message and junk filtering to spell checking and beyond. Part of Thunderbird's maturity is due to the fact that Thunderbird really isn't new; it's based upon the email client and newsreader that have been included in Mozilla for quite some time. However, Thunderbird benefits from the same streamlining and interface improvements that are making Firefox so desirable: by focusing solely on standalone mail, the development team can make some dents in the overall footprint and performance of the mail client by removing components and user interface elements that they don't need. On top of that, the UI becomes much cleaner in the standalone application as opposed to being part of the Mozilla suite.

In addition to the feature set found in Mozilla Mail, Thunderbird has several new features and improvements to make your mail and new experience better. Highlights include:

• The ability to customize your toolbars the way you want them. Choose View / Toolbars / Customize inside any window.
• UI extensions can be added to Mozilla Thunderbird to customize your experience with specific features and enhancements that you need. Extensions allow you to add features particular to your needs such as offline mail support.
• A new look and feel. Thunderbird also supports a large number of downloadable themes which alter the appearance of the client.
• An addressing sidebar for mail compose which makes it easy and convient to add address book contacts to emails.
• Online help includes a FAQ, tips and tricks and other useful information.
• Simplified preferences UI and menus.
• Footprint and performance improvements.

Apart from fixing a large number of bugs in the 1.5.x release, Thunderbird 2 made the following major enhancements:

• Message Tags: Create your own tags for organizing email. Messages can be assigned any number of tags. Tags can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize email.
• Visual Theme: Thunderbird 2's theme and user interface have been updated to improve usability.
• Session History Navigation: Back and Forward buttons allow navigation through message history.
• Folder Views: Customize the folder pane to show favorite, unread or recent folders.
• Improved Support For Extensions: Extensions can now add custom columns to the message list pane in addition to storing custom message data in the mail database.
• Improved Offline Management: Thunderbird (Linux and Windows) automatically adjusts the offline state based on current network connectivity.
• Improved New Mail Notification Alerts:New mail alerts include information such as the subject, sender and message text.
• Folder Summary Popups: Mouse over a folder with new messages to see a summary of the new messages in that folder.
• Saved Search Folder Performance: Search results for saved search folders are now cached, improving folder loading performance.
• Find As You Type
• Improved Filing Tools: Recent folder menu items for moving and copying folders to recently used folders. Move / Copy again functionality.
• Updates to the extension system: The extension system has been updated to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions.
• New Windows installer: Based on Nullsoft Scriptable Install System, the new Windows installer resolves many long-standing issues.
• Mac OS X Universal Binaries.

Version 2.0.0.18 addresses several security issues.