I use deer park (firefox nightly) & ONLY use tbird with gmail as my one & only email account. I would no more use outlook (deleted) than I would pay for an xp pro disc. Tbird has never failed me for any reason & is very easy to setup. Anyone who argues over which email client to use needs to get a life and quit playing with their cell phone. I can't stand email but it is a required item in the modern world.

Speaking as someone who's job it is to support Outlook in a business environment, it's the LAST PIECE OF SOFTWARE ON THE PLANET I would ever recommend to anyone. It's so buggy, it's bugs have bugs. Bravo to anyone trying to create a new standard, which is the point of Thunderbird. If FireFox is to be our open source standard for web browsing, it stands to reason that Thunderbird be it's kindred spirit.

Just another email client. Outlook is impossible to beat for the serious professional, and PocoMail is best for FAST, feature packed productivity for the home user. Products need to be judged on usefulness to the situation not on some geek/nerd who thinks they have to fight the world powers of technology( IE microsoft). Get A Life.

Outlook? For the serious professional? HAHA! All serious professional's use Lotus Mail. Please spew your MS drivel elsewhere.

...because you need to be a serious professional to understand and utilize the schizophrenic interface of the mighty Notes. Let the Notes be damned! A sad excuse for an "enterprise communication software".

Just to make things clear, I am a 53yr old truck driver, been one for 35 yrs. now, not exactly the "techy" type. I have used both Firefox and Thunderbird for years, Since Firebird first became Firefox, I think it was around version 0.4 or 0.5. Have had very few problems with either one. Much less than I have with IE. Any problems I ever had were easily solved by reading the INSTRUCTIONS. Of course from the spelling I see by those complaining I suppose that would be a bit much to ask now wouldn't it.

I still use Mozilla Mail and I think it is great. I also use TB on my laptop and Outlook for my msn email. I figure each application has its uses.

I don't understand most of these comments ... Thunderbird is remarkably easy to use and set up. I have 4 gmail accounts set up in it and it's incredibly easy to read my e-mail, respond from certain accounts, and so on. Set-up was not very hard at all for me. I have never seen it crash, have used it singularly for months and have not encountered any serious bugs....

As far as Firefox being difficult to set up for someone just wanting to surf web pages -- I just don't get it. You install it. You run it. You surf the internet. What is hard to install about that? Profiles are only necessary if you want them, and any of the advanced features are easy to set up and again -- only there if you want them.

I don't understand why this immediately turned into a Mozilla bashing fest. If you don't like the software, get back to Internet Explorer and Outlook. No one here is stopping you.

I applaud Mozilla Foundation's dedication to providing us with stable, fast, and feature-rich alternatives to Internet Explorer and Outlook. While I use IE and Outlook at work, I enjoy using Firefox and Thunderbird at home for the beaucoup of customizations that are possible between the two.

Either way, a post about a call for beta testers is not really the place for immediate bashing of the Mozilla Foundation for any specific reason. I'm sure if you wrote up a cohesive problem list with your personal likes and dislikes, then distilled it down to a much smaller list of what you think is actually 'wrong' with each client, and then submitted it to the proper places -- something might be done about it.

But maybe I'm thinking too hard about this.

Maybe.

It's just a bunch of Microsoft zealots having their usual bashfest on anything non Microsoft.

Mozilla sold out and is now a for-profit corporation — why would I ever want to use any of their crappy, buggy software?

I totally agree. The instant Mozilla Corporation was formed, all of their software became crappy, unstable and full of bugs. I guess it's time to find a new and more obscure browser and mail client so I can look down on all the uncool Mozilla software users.

Becoming a corp wont affect bugs instantly like you suggest. Also, the formation of the mozilla foundation was not for profit purposes. Please do research before making bogus claims.

I think you may need to check the batteries in your sarcasm detection unit. ;)

Sheesh.

Well as an example Microsoft is a for profit corporation which truely make crappy, buggy software. Yet people like you that make completely unfounded claims that firefox and thunderbird are buggy still pay hundreds upon hundreds of dollars for Microsoft products.

LMAO, I get you now, too...

So then, what non-profit, bug free software do you use?

It is not impressive indeed and what me turns off is the fact that setting up new accounts isn't that easy at all for all those who just want to surf web pages, reading email and that's it. I'm talking here about people in the age 45 or maybe 55 and up a big new group of people retired and discovering the Internet as a new medium to kill their time. The trick with Thunderbird GUI is that it looks easy and smooth in the first place but however by starting to using it esp. if you want to set up more then 1 account to show that it's just a pain in the ass.
Another problem with Thunderbird the fact that's open sourche. Good software like Plaxo, prooven to be a killer app just doesn't run good as the guys from Plaxo are restricted for making money out of it and that's why not really interested to get it right in the way as it is for Outlook. The whole Mozilla is shaking anyway, see the news, and actually waiting for the moment that they realize that open sourche is just fine but nowhere helping to get the number of users over the 25% market share. They are loosing actually right now. The hipe is a bit over and after several months numbers of users are dropping, those who realize that Thunderbird doesn't bring anything more as Outlook, excepts the look and feel.

Where do you get that it's hard to add an email Account to Thunderbird. I mean seriously you click Edit>Account Settings. It doesn't get much easier than that. Unless you are talking about the part where ou put in the in and outgoing mail servers which is pretty much the same in every mail client I've ever tried including Outlook. The only way it gets any easier than that is if you use a webmail service. If you really want to see something unimpressive, take a look at outlook express....total garbage.

Mozilla Thunderbird is an alternative to Microsoft Outlook Express or Eudora.

Mozilla Sunbird is an alternative to Microsoft Outlook.

Remember, Outlook isn't an e-mail program, it's much more involved than that. Apples + Oranges.

I use Mozilla Firefox and Outlook 2003 for most of my Internet use. I'd rather not use Outlook 2003 as it is clunky and unnecessarily cluttered in my opinion and lacks the ability to customize itself in a manner that I would desire. Being that there is no all-in-one solution that syncs on an exchange server (exchange.1and1.com), I'm sticking with Outlook but tipping my hat to Mozilla Thunderbird for those who desire the best e-mail client.

You mean Mozilla Lightning (Thunderbird combined with Sunbird) is an alternative to Microsoft Outlook. For some reason it doesn't look like that many people are talking about Lightning. The latest nightlies do seem kind of raw, so maybe that's why. I'm assuming this might take a while before it gets to an actual useable state.

Love Thunderbird 1.x, and while it lacks some of the polish of Outlook, and exchange functionality, for home use Outlook is overkill, and Outlook Express isn't anywhere near as good.

They must be getting ready for the release of Thunderbird and Firefox 1.5 next month. I think I'll pass the beta test up this time around. I'll be happy to pick up the final product though. Haven't used another email client since I converted to it from Outlook. Now since I'm running Linux and I would have to get an enulator to run outlook I don't suspect I'll ever go back.

I was never impressed by thunderbird, i used it as my primary email client for about 1 year, even tested nightly's for a couple months. Im not sure what it is, but some thing is missing that it needs bad. Im a outlook 2003 fanboy unfortunatly until something better comes along.

I agree. Outlook 2003 is a real memory pig but then when people have 1GB+ of memory who cares.

I do use TB for news and that's OK

I'm right with you there. The Spam-filter drew me in, but something with the client turned me off and I could never really figure out why. Figured I'd just wait until 1.0 came out, but still have yet to mess with it. Just haven't been interested.

That, and I'm using GMail now, so it makes any client kinda pointless.

=) -- I have 1GB of memory and Outlook 2003. What I find funny is that when I have Photoshop, Firefox, Excel, and a few more applications open, Outlook stalls for up to 5 seconds before displaying a message in the 'reading' pane. There's absolutely no excuse for that! =)