Comments on: Thunderbird 2 Released! Why are you still using Outlook Express?

By: sprkymrk

sprkymrk — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 13:52:01 +0000

If I may ask, how does Thunderbird2 compare to Ximian’s Evolution?

By: jdmurray

jdmurray — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:31:59 +0000

I agree that Sunbird needs some more polish before it can really compete with Outlook’s calendar feature, but I’ve found it serviceable for appointments and schoolwork reminders. I wouldn’t throw away my Daytimer just yet.

And speaking of eye candy, have you checked out the new beta of Yahoo! Mail? It’s as pretty as Gmail is ugly, and it has a calendar, contacts, and notepad feature too. Still, I can’t see people dumping Gmail just for Yahoo! Mail’s new GUI and the “forever unlimited” storage space.

Yahoo! Mail is also sprinkled with ads and connected to the Spyware sites atdmt.com and ad.doubleclick.net. I need to blog about the HOSTS file to help prevent this kind of invasion of net privacy.

By: Webmaster

Webmaster — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 18:13:34 +0000

I think Thunderbird 2 is a good alternative to Outlook Express for home users (and as you mentioned “If you don’t get your email directly from a corporate Microsoft network”), being a lightweight email client, but I’m not ready to trade in my Outlook (the real thing from MS Office) yet. And with Microsoft’s popular and downright best ever email server (Exchange Server) Outlook will remain to be popular and therefore Outlook Express as well. Shakespeare was wrong, there much more in a name than he thought.

Outlook is much more than an email client though, and if you actually use those additional features, Thunderbird is not a real alternative. But this is also partly why organizations like Mozilla can exists I guess. Microsoft adds more bells and whistles every version. Lot’s of them usually (Office being a good example). And most users don’t use many of the features, perhaps 5-10% of everything. Why pay for a Microsoft product (Outlook) that does 10 times more than you actually need, while you can get something free that does pretty much everything that’s essential.

and a spelling checker, both features which are sorely lacking in the aging Microsoft Outlook Express.

It seems like Outlook and Outlook Express are actually competing in a way. The spelling checker in Outlook is Word’s spelling checker, which is rather good. I know many tech writers prefer it over anything else. If Microsoft would add such a good spelling checker to Outlook Express, the difference with Outlook would become smaller, which is exactly what they do not want, at least that’s my perception. A dangerous strategy because it will allow Thunderbird to get a larger market share, allowing Mozilla to get a larger piece of the browser market with FF as well.

Anyway, I’m not getting on the Mozilla train yet. I’m looking too much forward to upgrading to Outlook 2007 on Vista. It’s the eye-candy I always wanted, … I know, I should have bought a Mac. ;)

Anyone tried the Enigmail OpenPGP add-on for Thunderbird yet?

By: determinedgerman

determinedgerman — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:13:29 +0000

It looks like that Microsoft is loosing a lot of market share to Google and Open Source.
I have never tried using Thunderbird but I am not really using any Desktop email client like Outlook or Outlook Express.
I have to say that since I have been invited to use gmail I have stopped using any other web-based email and I am not afraid that Google will go away anytime soon…

But if I will need to combine some email accounts I might try to use Thunderbird…

Mozilla Sunbird is not working for me at all….I tried it and just didn’t like it.