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Mozilla Thunderbird

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{{Infobox_Software2| name = Mozilla Thunderbird |logo = Image:thunderbird-logo-64x64.png left|64px |screenshot = Image:Thunderbird-1.5.png 250px |caption = Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 under Ubuntu Linux 5.10 |developer = Mozilla Corporation |operating_system = Cross-platform |genre = E-mail client and news client |license = Mozilla Public License MPL, MPL/GNU General Public License GPL/GNU Lesser General Public License LGPL tri-license |website = [http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird www.mozilla.com/thunderbird] }} '''Mozilla Thunderbird''' is a Free software free, cross-platform e-mail client e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a smaller and faster web browser. Just as Firefox aims to redefine the web browser, Thunderbird is a refinement of the mail and news interface. On December 7, 2004, version 1.0 was released, and received over [http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/007074.html 500,000] downloads in its first three days of release (and [http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/007119.html 1,000,000] in 10 days).

History
{{main|History of Mozilla Thunderbird}} Image:Mozilla Thunderbird logo history.png 300px|right|Various logos used during the development of Thunderbird Originally launched as ''Minotaur'' shortly after ''Phoenix (mythology) Phoenix'' (the original name for Mozilla Firefox), the project failed to gain momentum. With the success of the latter, however, demand increased for a mail client to go with it, and the work on Minotaur was revived under the new name, and migrated to the new toolkit developed by the Firefox team. Significant work on Thunderbird restarted with the announcement that from version 1.5 onwards, the main Mozilla suite would be designed around separate applications using this new toolkit. This contrasts with the previous all-in-one approach, and will hopefully lead to more efficient and maintainable code, as well as allowing users to mix and match the Mozilla applications with alternatives. Although this statement has since been retracted, the Mozilla Suite will continue to be released as one application while Firefox and Thunderbird are alternatives, it has continued to grow. The original Thunderbird logo is just a modified Firebird logo: with a simple shifting of hue value from red to blue. In 2004, together with the change of Firefox's mascot visual identity by Jon Hicks, a more professional logo that is currently in use was introduced in version 0.6. On December 23, 2004, the Project Mozilla Lightning Lightning was announced for tightly integrating Mozilla Calendar calendar functionality (scheduling, tasks, etc.) into Thunderbird. Lightning is a project name, not a product name.

Features
Thunderbird aims to be a simple e-mail, newsgroup and news feed client. It is not a personal information manager. Additional features, if needed, are often available via extension (Mozilla) extensions.

Message management
Thunderbird can manage multiple e-mail and newsgroup accounts and supports multiple identities within accounts. Features like quick search, saved search folders ("virtual folders"), advanced message filtering, message grouping, and labels can help manage and find messages. On Linux-based systems, system mail (movemail) accounts are supported.

Junk filtering
Thunderbird incorporates a Bayesian filtering Bayesian e-mail spam spam filter, a whitelist based on the included Address Book, and can also understand classifications by the server-based filters such as SpamAssassin {{ref|mozillazine1}}

Extensions
Extension (Mozilla) Extensions allow the addition of new features such as OpenPGP through the installation of XPInstall (pronouced zippy-install) modules (Enigmail in this case). Thunderbird also supports a variety of skin (computing) themes for changing its appearance. Themes are simply packages of Cascading Style Sheets CSS and digital image image files. Many themes can be downloaded from the Mozilla Update web site. All extensions and themes available on the Mozilla Update site may be upgraded through the browser interface itself. Mozilla Update also allows users to update Thunderbird without browsing the Mozilla Foundation's website.

Themes
Thunderbird allows you download and apply Themes to change the overall look and feel of the application.

Standards support
Thunderbird supports Post Office Protocol POP and Internet Message Access Protocol IMAP. It also supports Lightweight Directory Access Protocol LDAP address completion. Both reading and writing of HTML e-mails are supported. The built-in RSS (file format) RSS/Atom (standard) Atom reader can also be used as a simple news aggregator.

Cross-platform support
Mozilla Thunderbird runs on a wide variety of platforms. Releases available on the primary distribution site support the following operating systems {{ref|ThunderbirdSystemRequirements}}: *Microsoft Windows, including Windows 98 98, 98SE, Windows Me Me, Windows NT NT 4.0, Windows 2000 2000, Windows XP XP, and Windows Server 2003 Server 2003 *Mac OS X *Linux-based operating systems Since the source code is available, it can also be compiled and run on a variety of other architectures and operating systems. Thus, Thunderbird is also available for many other systems.

Internationalization and localization
With contributors all over the world, the client is translated into at least 36 languages/locales, covering some of the least supported locales, such as Chichewa language Chichewa. Because of the use of DTD and property files for storing the string (computer science) string literals, part of the internationalization and localization job can be done easily by anyone without programming background, using simply a text editor.

Security
Thunderbird provides enterprise and government grade security features such as S/MIME, digital signature digital signing, message encryption, support for public key certificate certificates and security devices. Security protections include optionally disabling loading of remote images within messages and optionally disabling javascript which provides increased privacy and security. With the addition of the Enigmail [http://enigmail.mozdev.org] extension, support for Pretty Good Privacy PGP signing, encryption, and decryption is also available. As of 2005 As of December 2005, security site Secunia counted [http://secunia.com/product/4652/ 1 unpatched security flaw] for Mozilla Thunderbird 1.x.

Market adoption
As of April 2005, the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (which includes both Harvard College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences) was [http://www.fas.harvard.edu/computing/thunderbird/ making] a customized version of Mozilla Thunderbird available to students and faculty. According to an article posted on May 9, 2005, New York University's Stern School of Business had also [http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=163100275 started] using the open source e-mail client. Starting 2005 fall, the Networking Services and Information Technology department of University of Chicago will [http://blog.ebrahim.org/archives/2005/06/02/uchicago_to_distribute_firefox_and_thund.php include both Firefox and Thunderbird in its connectivity package] for all incoming students. More recently, Saint Louis University College of Arts & Science have adopted Thunderbird as their e-mail client of choice.

Portable Versions of Thunderbird
John T. Haller has developed [http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_thunderbird/ Portable Thunderbird] as one of the major offsprings of the Thunderbird project. Portable Thunderbird is a mobile version of Thunderbird which allows you to carry your whole e-mail client and all your contacts with you on an iPod, USB flash drive, Zip drive, portable hard drive or any other portable media. You can plug it into any Windows computer and use it just like you would a locally-installed version. It retains nearly all of Thunderbird's functionality and includes a specialized launcher that allows extensions to be portable as well. It also uses UPX compression to reduce the overall footprint making Portable Thunderbird load quickly from a USB device. It is also available with GPG and Enigmail preconfigured for those that encrypt and sign their e-mail. A spinoff product based on Portable Thunderbird called Mobility Email has also been released by Opendawn Ltd. It uses the Portable Thunderbird launcher and techniques with some enhancements by John Urbanek as a part of his Portable Thunderbird with Enigmail and GPG (PTEG) project. Mobility preloads several extensions to provide OpenPGP encryption and signing, access to Hotmail, Yahoo!, Lycos and MailDotCom e-mail accounts, and a simple way to quickly access the contact list.

Criticisms

Possible deficiencies
Mozilla Thunderbird lacks a number of features that are found in other e-mail clients: *The ability to save multiple messages to one file. *The ability to update (not just search) an LDAP address book, i.e. change, add or delete entries. *A built-in, user-friendly ability to back up and restore user data and settings. Currently an external application such as [http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/ Mozbackup] is typically used. * Support for fast full text search through entire message contents including message bodies, using an inverted index. (Thunderbird currently only indexes subject and sender fields, so searching through message bodies requires a complete and relatively slow scan of all messages.) *Built-in calendar feature (a Mozilla Calendar calendar extension exists, but launches the calendar application in a new window; integrating calendar functionality into Thunderbird is the goal of the Mozilla Calendar Lightning project).

Footnotes
# {{note|ThunderbirdSystemRequirements}} [http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/sysreq.html Thunderbird System Requirements]. ''Mozilla.org''. # {{note|mozillazine1}} [http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=367638&highlight=spamassassin Mozillazine Forums]

See also
*Mozilla Firefox *Mozilla Calendar *List of e-mail clients *List of news clients *Comparison of e-mail clients

External links
{{wikinews|category:Mozilla}}
- Mozilla Thunderbird homepage
- Mozilla Thunderbird project page — For developers.
- MozillaZine Forum for Thunderbird *[https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/?application=thunderbird Mozilla Thunderbird extensions on Mozilla Update] *[https://addons.mozilla.org/themes/?application=thunderbird Mozilla Thunderbird themes on Mozilla Update]
- The Rumbling Edge — Weekly developments in Mozilla Thunderbird builds.
- Portable Thunderbird — A portable/USB drive-friendly version.
- Collection of all ThunderBird Extensions
- Unic0der: Importing Mozilla Thunderbird mails in Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express — Exporting mails from Thunderbird to Microsoft Outlook (Express) Category:Mozilla Thunderbird Category:Usenet clients Category:Linux e-mail clients Category:Mac OS e-mail clients Category:Windows e-mail clients Category:Free e-mail software ca:Mozilla Thunderbird cs:Mozilla Thunderbird de:Mozilla Thunderbird es:Mozilla Thunderbird eu:Mozilla Thunderbird fr:Mozilla Thunderbird gl:Mozilla Thunderbird it:Mozilla Thunderbird he:Mozilla Thunderbird ku:Mozilla Thunderbird hu:Mozilla Thunderbird nl:Mozilla Thunderbird ja:Mozilla Thunderbird no:Mozilla Thunderbird pl:Mozilla Thunderbird pt:Mozilla Thunderbird ru:Mozilla Thunderbird sk:Mozilla Thunderbird sl:Mozilla Thunderbird fi:Mozilla Thunderbird sv:Mozilla Thunderbird th:มอซิลลา ทันเดอร์เบิร์ด tr:Mozilla Thunderbird zh:Mozilla Thunderbird see Mozilla Thunderbird {{catmore}} Category:Mozilla Thunderbird

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