A look at Thunderbird 0.4

Setting up Thunderbird is as simple as uncompressing a tarball in the directory you'd like Thunderbird to live in. Configuring Thunderbird is likewise an easy task, and it only takes a minute or two to have the client up and ready to send and retrieve email from the default account. Like most modern email clients, Thunderbird allows users to set up multiple email accounts if they wish to do so.

One of the more exciting features with Thunderbird is adaptive spam filtering. Users can tag email as "junk" and Thunderbird will try to automatically determine which incoming email is spam in the future. This feature is not on by default, so the user will need to enable the junk folder and features.

Thunderbird's adaptive junk mail controls aren't perfect (yet), but after only using Thunderbird for a little more than a week, I found that it was catching on pretty quickly. Thunderbird didn't tag all of the spam I received as junk, but it didn't tag any of my legitimate email as junk after a few days. While some may be annoyed when they see spam slip through Thunderbird's filter, I'm much happier to know that it does very well at avoiding false positives. There is also a junk mail log, so users can follow which messages have been tagged and moved. I would recommend using the Junk folder rather than deleting messages for at least a few weeks.

As the developers point out in the release notes, the default interface for Thunderbird has matured since the last release, and is looking very nice. If the default theme isn't quite right, Thunderbird allows the user to choose custom themes instead. Right now there are about twenty themes available for Thunderbird. Installation of themes is easy, though it's still necessary to restart the application once you've installed a new theme.

Themes aren't the only thing that's changeable. One of the nicest features of Thunderbird is the ability to add extensions to the application. One of the goals for Thunderbird was to stay "small and unbloated," which is a laudable goal. However, most users will differ on the features which are necessary, and the features that should be considered bloat. Extensions allow users to modify Thunderbird's feature set to their liking; available extensions include a calendar, external application launchers, "splitter grippies," a calculator, an offline operation mode, and numerous others. Installing extensions in Thunderbird is as simple as downloading an extension and running the "Install New Extension" wizard.

By default, (unfortunately) Thunderbird's message composer is set to send mail in HTML format rather than plain text, but this behavior is easy to turn off. If a user prefers to send HTML-formatted email, or if certain recipients prefer to receive HTML-formatted email, Thunderbird allows the user to set specific domains that will receive plain-text or HTML email. However, at this point this feature only works if the user has Thunderbird set to compose HTML email by default. It would be nice if this worked both ways, so a user could send grandma HTML emails by default and avoid getting flamed by accidentally sending HTML email to a mailing list.

Another welcome feature in Thunderbird is customizable message views. Users are able to view messages according to a wide range of criteria, which makes it very easy to sort through your inbox. For example, the user can choose only to view messages with attachments, or only messages sent by people who are in their address book. Thunderbird includes only a few preset filters, but users can create others of their own.

One of the few gripes I have with Thunderbird is that it only allows the user to import mail from Communicator 4.x clients. If the user wishes to switch from Pine, Evolution, Outlook, Eudora, Sylpheed or any number of other mail clients, there is no automated tool with Thunderbird to help with the task. A simple utility to import email stored in mbox format would be a nice addition, and might help Thunderbird add to its user base.

It should also be noted that the application isn't entirely stable. It did crash during testing a few times though it didn't lose any messages or important data. Note that I experienced crashes during testing before installing any extensions, so it wasn't the addition of third-party code that caused the problems. The interface is also a bit slow, even on a fast machine. Often, it takes a few additional seconds for dialog boxes to disappear completely and for new windows to appear. Of course, one does not normally expect perfection from such an early release.

Overall, however, Thunderbird is a well-designed mail client, and is quite usable for an application that is only a 0.4 release. I expect that as Thunderbird matures, the stability will improve even further and that the speed of the interface will also be improved. Thunderbird should be acceptable for daily use for users who are looking for a different mail client. Though I only tested the Linux version of Thunderbird, there are also builds for Windows and Mac OS X for users of those platforms.