General

Thinking Outside The (Windows) Box,
Part 3: Free Mail Clients—
Mozilla Thunderbird

While many businesses depend on Microsoft and its various product suites, alternatives exist, some of which are not well known. Part three of this series examines free e-mail clients.

by Lisa Phifer VP Core Competence, Inc. [March 2, 2006]

Another mail client with a reputation for UI simplicity is Mozilla Thunderbird. We installed the open source Thunderbird version 1.0.7 on Windows XP SP2. This program also runs on Windows 98, ME, NT, and 2000, with a minimum of 52 MB of free disk space and 64 MB RAM. Linux (2.2.14 or higher, including Red Hat 8.0) and Mac OS X (10.3.x and later) versions are also available.

Mozilla Thunderbird www.mozilla.com Mozilla Corporation Mountain View, CA

Right from the start, it's clear that Thunderbird is not just a mail program. The installer includes a POP3/IMAP/SMTP mail client, an optional NNTP/RSS news client, and an optional quality agent that sends feedback to Mozilla. Like Firefox, Thunderbird can be augmented with numerous extensions from the open source community. Examples include a contacts sidebar, a calendar program, scheduled reminders, and Enigmail (a GnuPG encryption/authentication program for Thunderbird and Netscape.)

Thunderbird's default "skin" is clean and simple, but can be customized by adding toolbar buttons, downloadable themes, and saved searches. All personal settings are stored a profile folder, which can be backed up and re-applied—for example, to create consistent mail environments on your desktop and laptop.

Thunderbird does a good job of keeping simple tasks simple, while providing bells and whistles for advanced users. For example, Saved Searches are virtual folders that, when opened, display a list of messages that match previously specified criteria. Group by Sort reorganizes any message list into groups, based on attributes—for example, grouping messages by sender, date, etc. (see figure at right).

We found this a little awkward at first, but soon developed a rhythm—search, then sort, then group—that makes it easier to "see the forest through the trees" when dealing with a large volume of highly dynamic messages.

On the other hand, first-time Thunderbird users may find Inbox choices a tad confusing. Early releases assigned each POP/IMAP account its own folders, including an Inbox. Later releases added an option to send mail from multiple accounts to one Global Inbox. Use the Global Inbox if you have just one account, or several accounts used for the same purpose. Choose separate Inboxes when you need to keep incoming mail segregated—for example, communicating with multiple employers.

Junk Mail Controls work well, but require training to become truly effective. After enabling adaptive detection, you must manually mark some messages as "junk" or "not junk." Thunderbird quickly learns what you think is junk, but review the Junk folder to avoid surprises. Handling can be customized with white lists, auto-delete rules, and a sanitize option that lets you view junk without HTML rendering or images for safety (see figure at left).

In fact, Thunderbird blocks all remote content embedded in HTML messages from senders not in your address book. This option (and Javascript blocking) prevents undesirable actions that can otherwise occur when viewing messages from strangers. Blocked content can always be loaded by clicking a button on the associated alert.

Finally, Thunderbird provides solid message security features, including SSL/TLS-protected sessions and S/MIME message signing and encryption (see figure at right). A digital certificate is required to use S/MIME—if you don't already have one, free personal mail certificates can be obtained from Thawte. Mail account passwords and private keys associated with certificates are all protected by a Master Password, similar to Firefox.

If you're a Firefox fan, you'll probably like Thunderbird, but there is absolutely no requirement to pair these programs. If you need a secure, easy-to-use mail client that deals well with junk and multiple mailboxes, take Thunderbird out for a spin.