Thunderbird’s anti-spam tools are very good, but I find SpamBayes even better. The one problem with it (at least in the Outlook plugin version) is that it can be a little slow if you check multiple e-mail accounts simultaneously in Outlook.

Thunderbird is great software, however. It’s the mail client I use to check my other three e-mail addresses from my work computer.

Since I’m on a loaner machine, I haven’t upgraded from 0.8 (and probably won’t until January).  *sigh*

I have 0.8 at home, on my Windows machine, but here in the workshop I find the spam filters of the Mac OSX Mail better. However, if Thunderbird 1.0 is an improvement, I’ll try it out.  Any experience out there?

I literally just got the upgrade installed this morning so I have nothing to judge any improvements on at the moment. They’ve worked pretty well for me so far, though. I’d say a good 95% of the spam I get is junked before I ever see it and it’s been ages since the last false positive I’ve gotten.

I agree Les. It has been a long, long time since I’ve gotten a false-positive. The longer you run Thunderbird, the better the junk mail controls work.

It just works so damned good. I can’t believe that I ever used that piece of crap Outlook Express.

I really like the subtle refinement of the look and feel as well. The new icons are really cool.

Thanks for the heads-up, Les!

Zilch: It seems more stable, and should definitely be an improvement over 0.8 in that department. The overall look has been refined, with new icons that are both more attractive and easier to comprehend at a glance.

As much as I like the new look, I was hoping for an appearance that was more consistent with Firefox. The printer icon and the newsfeed icons are an example of deviations that could be considered confusing or aesthetically disruptive.

The way newsfeeds are managed could use a little work. Also, if you have your feeds grouped into subcategories I feel that clicking on the category should display all feed contents within that category. This would be consistent with just about every other newsreader I’ve used, but it’s not the case in Thunderbird. RSS is a new feature, though, and will probably mature in future releases.

All in all, it’s a worthy 1.0 release. Definitely worth upgrading, and worth a spin for anyone contemplating an alternative to Outlook Express.

I just converted from Outlook.  I didn’t have to lift a finger except to click on “Import from:  Outlook” and then wait about ten minutes (yes, I have a lot of folders).  SCHWEET.

I still use Outlook for my primary e-mail client because of its scheduling/PIM features. Outlook 2003 is really quite nice, actually. I don’t much like supporting the Redmond behemoth, however, and if Novel Evolution were ported from Linux to Windows, I’d switch in a heartbeat.

Mozilla Thunderbird was cool. But on the second day of my usage (v 1.0), it ate my two folders of lots of emails in it when I move them under another folder.

Mozilla Thunderbird is packed with features (I mean really, the dream features!) but based on my 6 years experience with Outlook Express, it does not eat any of the email, not once!

TO Permalink:, Please be careful when you moving folders or reorganizing folders. Do a back up before you do that. Otherwise you’re taking the risk of losing some of the folders.