Mozilla Thunderbird mail client and news
Mozilla Thunderbird is a mail client and news (because it can handle RSS feeds and newsgroups) developed by the Mozilla Foundation (the same community that develops Firefox) and is a free software. Version 1.0 was released December 7, 2004. Its version 1.5 was released January 12, 2006, while the? Latest stable version, 2.0, was released April 18, 2007.
The program is available for Microsoft Windows, GNU / Linux, Mac OS X and many others. Supports extensions (additional features to be installed as needed) and themes (with which you can customize? Aspect of the program).
Other features are:
- a Bayesian spam filter;
- the ability to create filters? sort? automatically placed on different folders;
- grouping messages by date, sender, priority or other characteristics;
- ability to import messages from other programs (including Eudora and Microsoft Outlook);
- Single inbox for multiple accounts;
- fast search;
- POP and IMAP account management;
- LDAP address completion.
The success of Thunderbird
Thunderbird was developed in parallel to? Brother? better known, the Mozilla Firefox browser. According to many, this software was created in direct competition with Outlook Express, another program to provide free e-mail from Microsoft with the Windows operating system. But the Mozilla Foundation’s own admission, it was thought that the timing of spreading Thunderbird would have been much longer, because it is more difficult to convince a user to change a program as personal as an email client, rather than convince him to change a simple browser. Yet, one month from the provision of the first official release, Thunderbird has reached and surpassed 2 million downloads. Now, the Mozilla Foundation created the Lightning project, to combine the functions of Thunderbird software known to those of the third of Mozilla, Mozilla Sunbird, which manages the calendars. In this way Thunderbird can not enter into direct competition with Outlook Express, but with the full version of Outlook, a payment provided by Microsoft in the Office package. According to Mozilla Thunderbird’s future developments will make it more palatable to corporate customers, Microsoft has held, however, in a statement, not to fear competition from Thunderbird on the corporate market segment, do not regard this as a competitive opponent.