Ars Technica reviews Thunderbird 1.0

[MacBytes]

Category: Reviews
Link: Ars Technica reviews Thunderbird 1.0
Posted on MacBytes.com

Approved by Mudbug

[iceDogg]

I've been using Thunderbird for a while now and I like it a lot. However, I only run it while I'm using Windows. I think mail for OS X is just as good and mail has a better junk mail filter(atleast from what i can tell).

[muire]

Totally agree with iceDogg, I've been using Thunderbird for a while on the PC at work as well, great alternative to all the "others". Now if only Mozilla would get on Sunbird development (works pretty decently now mind you), they'd have a 1-2-3 punch on Windows and Windows users can at least get somewhat of a feel of what it's like in OSX with Safari, Mail.app, and iCal.

Now if only Mozilla could work on an OS alternative?...hhmmmmmmm...

[Bendit]

Mail.app's junk filtering is very poor at learning. The basic spam filtering is handy but it doesn't learn. I don't know why it even says it can learn.

My ISP has great server side spam filtering and it labels everything with [SPAM] in the subject line and Mail.app still can't catch it, as much as I keep labelling them as spam. Yes a simple mail rule would get rid of those, but it's just stupid that the junk filter doesn't recognize it.

[shamino]

A good review, but someone should tell them that the "bubble" icon for threading messages is not unique, nor is it a copy of GMail. This feature has been in the product line for a lot longer than GMail, or even Google itself, has existed. It was in every version of Thunderbird, every version of Mozilla, and in Netscape Communicator, going back at least to version 3, and perhaps earlier than that.

I've also found some nasty glitches when using multiple mailboxes and spam filtering. I have my Thunderbird set up for two mailboxes (a corporate IMAP mailbox and my personal POP mailbox). It remains connected to both at once. The POP messags are auto-downloaded as they arrive. In addition to the junk mail controls, I have mail filters set up to auto-move messages to appropriate mail folders and to move/mark-as-junk any messages that my corporate/ISP mail servers have marked as spam.

When I show up in the mornng, there are typically around 100 pieces of spam in my IMAP box plus a dozen or so in my POP box. The message filters and junk filters all run. The two mailboxes appear to be processed at the same time. But since all the spam for both mailboxes ends up going to the same place ("Junk" on "Local Mail") things sometimes go wrong. In pre-1.0 builds, the program would sometimes crash or hang. 1.0 doesn't do this anymore, but I see other weird symptoms, including:

• Messages copied to the junk folder but not removed from the original
• Junk messages duplicated locally
• Locked out of my own Junk/Trash folders (a dialog pops up telling me that it's in-use). I have to quit and restart Thunderbird to recover from this.
• Inability to move/copy messages between folders. Probably related to the same thing that keeps me from viewing some folders.

These problems don't happen every day, but they happen often enough that it's annoying.

I keep using Thunderbird because, despite these bugs, it's still the best mail program. (Don't bother suggesting Apple's Mail.app. In all the years Apple's been shipping it, I have never once had it run more than an hour without crashing.)

[kerb]

anyone know if we'll be seeing an add-on programme that allows it to download Hotmail messages?

I know they exist for the Windows version.
Then it would be my one single mailbox.
Though I still can't get Gmail to function as POP yet...

[nagromme]

Originally Posted by Bendit

Mail.app's junk filtering is very poor at learning. The basic spam filtering is handy but it doesn't learn. I don't know why it even says it can learn.

Maybe it takes time? I get 200+ spams a day, mixed with a smaller number of real mail, and Mail.app has nealry 100% accuracy in telling them apart.

Also, check the box in Mail that says "trust ISP's junk mail headers" or something like that. My ISP doesn't have that, but maybe it's relevant to your case.