Thunderbird
What is Thunderbird?
Thunderbird is Firefox's kid sibling, and is built on the same technical platform as the award winning web browser. In development for many years, and currently one of the most popular open source email clients, it is used by millions of people around the world to bring together all their email accounts, newsgroup and feed reading in a familiar high-productivity environment.
Thunderbird 2
Thunderbird 2, the current version, is a rich email client with popular features like tags and message filters. In addition to talking to a variety of email servers, Thunderbird can help you:
- read newsgroups and blog (RSS) feeds;
- manage both your personal and organizational contacts;
- with the popular Lightning extension, keep track of both personal and shared events.
Thunderbird 3
Thunderbird 3 is currently in development by Mozilla Messaging staff and a global community of contributors. Current plans for Thunderbird 3 include:
- Integrated calendaring (based on the existing Lightning extension)
- Radically improving search
- Many other user interface improvements such as faster workflow, improved feed reading, simpler user interface, automatic configuration, and more.
If you want to get involved in the Thunderbird 3 discussion, read the newsgroup or mailing list and help us get there.
We are releasing early alphas of the next version of Thunderbird 3, and welcome feedback on these pre-production releases.
The Thunderbird Vision
Thunderbird is a unique product with unique opportunities. As a messaging system produced by a non-profit, public benefit company, it is uniquely positioned to be a tool that users can use to integrate as many of their communications as they want.
By combining an open architecture, a powerful extensibility and customization framework, and a person-centric perspective on communications, Thunderbird can become a powerful yet enjoyable tool to help individuals manage their online interactions, whether that's email, instant messaging, social networking messages, or other types of message.
The design principles which guide feature choices for Thunderbird are that Thunderbird should be highly usable as-is by as many people as possible. Like Firefox, it will also be easily customizable and extensible to meet the specific needs of individuals and groups.
Thunderbird will also evolve to embrace the Web, by continuing to blur the distinction between what's on the web and what's on the desktop, while keeping in mind the importance of keeping the individual in charge of their online experience.