Mozilla Thunderbird 3 is out

bledd · 9 Dec 2009 at 05:01

http://en-gb.www.mozillamessaging.com/en-GB/thunderbird/

http://en-gb.www.mozillamessaging.com/en-GB/thunderbird/features/

Mr.Fantastic · 9 Dec 2009 at 05:19

Thanks.

Hairybudda · 9 Dec 2009 at 06:59

Looking good, i'll have to grab this when i get home.

memyselfandi · 9 Dec 2009 at 08:05

Whilst it looks good I think I'll be waiting for 3.0.1 (at least) before trusting my email to it ...

betaspin · 9 Dec 2009 at 08:45

memyselfandi said:
Whilst it looks good I think I'll be waiting for 3.0.1 (at least) before trusting my email to it ...

I have been using all 3.0 beta's and rc's, and have never lost anything. Most of the bugs were associated with various usability features. It is a very solid code, but they could have done a bit more work on the interface.

Admiral Huddy · 9 Dec 2009 at 08:47

I've only used this once when I installed on someone else's PC as an alternative to Outlook. Wasn't that impressed then.. Is this version worth a go?

- Edit Features page is corrupted here.. Not a good impression.

Slime101 · 9 Dec 2009 at 09:57

Admiral Huddy said:
I've only used this once when I installed on someone else's PC as an alternative to Outlook. Wasn't that impressed then.. Is this version worth a go?

- Edit Features page is corrupted here.. Not a good impression.

My single experience with it was for several weeks on an ex-boss's computer, it was a nightmare and doesnt have an export function so is totally uselessif you ever want to move to somthing better, such as outlook!

Never again.

Pho · 9 Dec 2009 at 10:54

It has an export extension: http://nic-nac-project.de/~kaosmos/mboximport-en.html.

I find outlook painfully slow half the time, but then again I don't use thunderbird either, Gmail suits my personal needs.

rctneil · 9 Dec 2009 at 10:54

I have been using TB3 Betas and RC's like above for ages as my full time mail client and it's been solid and excellent. I'm glad the final version is out now though

simisker · 9 Dec 2009 at 18:35

Heads-up for existing Thunderbird 2 & Kaspersky users:

Read this first before upgrading to 3.

A downgrade back to 2 [installed over the top] seems to have worked while I wait for Kaspersky to make their anti-spam extension compatible.

apatia77 · 9 Dec 2009 at 18:42

I've been using Thunderbird for like last 5 years now, its nice and simple and does what it's supposed to do. Of course Outlook is much better but also it costs like £80.

philjohn · 9 Dec 2009 at 18:50

memyselfandi said:
Whilst it looks good I think I'll be waiting for 3.0.1 (at least) before trusting my email to it ...

meh, everything on mine is stored on google apps premier and I access it via IMAP so even if it trashes my local store I'm safe.

Clarkey · 9 Dec 2009 at 18:59

Will this be coming through the automatic update on TB2?

betaspin · 9 Dec 2009 at 20:13

Clarkey said:
Will this be coming through the automatic update on TB2?

No, TB2 is a separate branch which will most probably continue to get security updates for a year or so. However, uninstalling TB2 and installing TB3 will preserve all your files and settings, but you may need to update some of the add-ons.

gsf600y · 9 Dec 2009 at 20:44

Been using the latest beta for some time, and zero problems.
I find it much faster than Outlook, if all you're doing is email - takes about 2 seconds to start and check my IMAP email account.

I love the tabbed emails, like Firefox tabbed browsing.

MarcLister · 10 Dec 2009 at 00:16

Tried this at work today. Much better, and quicker, than using the ruddy webmail interface.

Mattus · 10 Dec 2009 at 01:19

Does anyone else get a vertical scrollbar on the panel showing the subject/sender/recipients of a message, when there are too many Ccs?

It's the kind of UI bug you'd really expect them to have caught...

simisker · 10 Dec 2009 at 01:40

Mattus said:
Does anyone else get a vertical scrollbar on the panel showing the subject/sender/recipients of a message, when there are too many Ccs?

It's the kind of UI bug you'd really expect them to have caught...

IIRC that's always been the case, and working as intended.

The alternative - well, one of them - would be to have that area expand and push the body of the e-mail down, but screen real estate is limited; you can only do that for so long until something somewhere has to have a vertical scroll bar.

Mattus · 10 Dec 2009 at 01:43

What was wrong with the way TB2 did it? It displayed one line of CCs by default, and there was a [+] button to expand the panel if you wanted to see the rest. The new way isn't as functional and it looks awful.

tolien · 10 Dec 2009 at 08:16

Here, it shows a "more" link next to the list of names/addresses, then once you click that the header pane stays the same height and a vertical scroll bar appears. The header pane was meant to do more AIUI but it got scaled back to get TB3 out the door (and it's been implied that there'll be a "shorter" run to 3.1 along the same lines as Firefox 3.5/3.6 so it's possible the bar will change then).

betaspin said:
No, TB2 is a separate branch which will most probably continue to get security updates for a year or so.

I'd have expected a major update offer before then - probably when 3.0.1 is released.

Pho said:
It has an export extension: http://nic-nac-project.de/~kaosmos/mboximport-en.html.

Thunderbird used Mbox anyway - there are a million converters between that and the eml format Outlook can understand. The onus is on Outlook though, there's nothing stopping it supporting an open standard except MS don't want it to...