Mozilla releases final version of Thunderbird 2 e-mail client

Mozilla Corp. on Thursday unveiled the final version of its award-winning Thunderbird 2 e-mail client, featuring many new enhancements to help users better manage their unruly inbox, and stay well informed.

Available worldwide to download, the latest version of its free, open-source email allows users to easily manage and organize email with tags, highly-developed folder views, and fast inbox and message searches. In addition, users can customize the Thunderbird 2 with hundreds of add-ons, provided with the application, that match individual preferences.

“Thunderbird 2 has powerful new features and proven security, delivering an improved e-mail experience to users worldwide,” said Scott MacGregor, lead engineer for Thunderbird at Mozilla. “In Thunderbird 2, we incorporated the proven benefits of tagging to email. Tagging initially gained popularity on blogs, photo and link-sharing sites as an intuitive way to organize online information so users could easily find desired content.”

Its Message tagging feature allows users to “tag” messages with descriptors like “To Do”, “Personal” or “Important” that can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize email. Users can even create the new tags according to their needs.

Besides applying tags to specific messages to group them together for easier management, by harmonizing professional networking tools, VOIP calling, and shared address books directly into Thunderbird, users can expand the Thunderbird 2 into a versatile information and communications portal.

The other major enhancements in this new updated application include Message History Navigation, Improved Searching Capabilities, Web Mail Support, etc.

Message History Navigation enables the user to move around from one message to another like a Web browser forward and back button.

By using the find-as-you-type pane, users can speed up searches within displayed messages. Its quick search feature starts showing search results as soon as users start typing in search terms. Thunderbird 2 saves users’ time by allowing them to store searches as folders. Rerun saved searches by clicking on the saved search folder in the folder pane.

Web mail support offers quick and easy access to several Web mail services like Google Inc.'s Gmail and Apple Inc.'s Mac.

Thunderbird 2, which is built using the same open source development model as the Mozilla Firefox Web browser, is available for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, Apple's OS X and Linux in more than 30 languages, Mozilla said.

Although Thunderbird 2 just became final, the Mountain View, CA-based Mozilla Corporation, the wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, has released information on the next version, Thunderbird 3, due in early 2008.

Established on August 3, 2005 to handle the revenue-related operations of the Mozilla Foundation, Mozilla Corp. has become a global community dedicated to building free, open source products and technologies that improve the online experience for people everywhere.