Mozilla Thunderbird and Mozilla Firefox: Microsoft Alternatives Come of Age Stealing Outlook's Thunder, Thunderbird Wayne Kawamoto
Stealing Outlook's Thunder, Thunderbird
If you're in need of a slightly different "outlook" on your e-mail tasks, Mozilla's Thunderbird 0.7.3 presents a solid alternative to Microsoft's Outlook. Thunderbird not only performs similar functions to Outlook and Outlook Express, it also comes with integrated spam filters that can intercept and cut down on the unwanted e-mail that you receive throughout the day.
Like Firefox, Thunderbird was easily downloaded and installed from the Mozilla website, and we encountered no problems importing our e-mail settings and addresses from Outlook and then sending and receiving e-mail. While Thunderbird can import your settings, messages, and addresses from Outlook,
Outlook Express, Eudora, or Netscape Communicator, one drawback is that Thunderbird can't import your message rules/filters from any of these other e-mail clients.
If you're familiar with Outlook, you'll find Thunderbird to be intuitive and easy to use. It displays HTML-based e-mail, searches for data in messages, manages addresses, offers extensive sorting and filtering capabilities, and handles return receipts. It also manages multiple e-mail and newsgroup accounts and supports enterprise and government security protocols. When you compose a new e-mail, the program offers a competent spell-checker – a big plus – and its search tools are flexible and thorough.
Thunderbird's most notable feature is its integrated ability to detect incoming junk mail. You initially "train" the program by showing it your real and junk mail in your inbox. After that, the program does its best to analyze incoming e-mail and identify the spam, which you may choose to have automatically deleted or placed into a specified folder. In theory, the more that you use Thunderbird and refine its e-mail filters, the more useful its anti-spam features will be to you. In our tests, the anti-spam filter performed adequately.
As with Firefox, you can customize the program by adjusting its toolbars and setting other options, and you can change its appearance by selecting and applying downloadable themes. Thunderbird can also be enhanced through extensions that offer additional features like the ability to zoom into images, add calendar capabilities, look up words in an online dictionary, and more.
While it's not a real improvement over Outlook, Thunderbird works as a first rate e-mail client. Don't let its free price sway you.
Pros: Integrated spam filter, helpful Themes and Extensions managers, extensive sorting and filtering capabilities, imports mail and settings from other mail clients
Cons: Doesn't import message rules/filters from Outlook/Outlook Express, feature-set on par with Outlook Express but trails Microsoft Outlook
