Thunderbird 3 out now: can it rival Outlook?

For years now, Microsoft's Outlook has been the e-mail client of choice for enterprise users--especially when connected to an Exchange server.  But not everybody--and not every company--needs the power of Exchange.  Might this new version of Thunderbird be a real alternative?


This update has been so long coming that some people had begun to think the project was dead, but Thunderbird 3 has plenty of new features.

To start with, it has a new tab-based interface.  Like in a web browser, you can open several mails at once without having to put each one in a separate window.


There's also a new archive system, as well as smart folders that make handling multiple accounts easier.  Plenty of small improvements have been made, too, including one-click contact creation (like adding bookmarks in Firefox) or the attachment warning system which will remind you that you might have forgotten a file if it spots keywords like 'document' or 'attached' in the body of your message.


Security hasn't been left behind, with new filters to flag up potentially harmful e-mail.

Thunderbird 3 might not be the best all-round messaging tool for huge organisations--and it's not clear that's aiming to be, either--it could easily become the new standard for home users and small businesses, provided it can outstrip the competition from very powerful web-based solutions like Zimbra.

> New Features in Thunderbird 3

> Download Thunderbird 3 (British English) for Windows
> Download Thunderbird 3 (British English) for Mac OS X
> Download Thunderbird 3 (British English) for Linux

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