Thunderbird LogoI’ve been waiting for awhile now for Mozilla to catch up to Microsoft Office 2003 (which I am currently using) in hopes of switching to open source, so I’ve been beta testing Thunderbird 2.0 since they announced their first beta version. Now it looks like they are confident they have gotten rid of all the bugs, as yesterday they made Thunderbird Release Candidate 1 available for download.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t include the tabs feature we were all hoping for (Thunderbird 3.0 hopefully!), but here are a few of the things you can enjoy in the new release:

  • Message Tags: Create your own tags for organizing e-mail. Messages can be assigned any number of tags. Tags can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize your e-mail.
  • Easy Access to Popular Web Mail Services: GMail users can now access their accounts in Thunderbird by simply providing your user names and password.
  • Updates to the extension system: The extension system has been updated to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier extension installation.
  • Visual Theme: Thunderbird 2’s theme and user interface have been updated to improve usability. Those who are comfortable with Microsoft Outlook will appreciate the similarity.
  • Folder Views: You can now customize the folder pane to show favorite, unread or recent folders.

If you’ve been waiting to make the switch from Microsoft Outlook, now is as good a time as any. In my experience, the release candidates are pretty stable, so I recommend giving it a try.