Mozilla on Thursday announced the release of Thunderbird 2, a new release of its free e-mail client software for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It’s available for immediate download.
Thunderbird 2 — a free e-mail client that’s the result of open source code development — continues the software’s renowned abilities to sort out junk mail from “good” e-mail, and adds new features including advanced folder views, support for RSS and newsgroups, message “tagging” with descriptors like “To Do” or “Done,” message history navigation, an improved search engine, the ability to save frequently used searches, and easier access to popular Web mail services.
Security has been improved in this release, as well, Thunderbird 2 has better protection from “phishing” e-mails: e-mails disguised as legitimate communications from your bank, credit card company or frequently-used e-commerce sites that are actually efforts to scam you out of important personal information. Thunderbird 2 can also automatically block remote images, and has added an automated security update system.
Thunderbird 2 is also highly customizable — hundreds of add-ons are available, everything from contact management to Voice over IP support, appearance mods, templates for frequently-written e-mails, and a new Add-On Manager to help keep straight what extensions and themes you’re using.
System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.2 or later, 128MB RAM and 200MB hard disk space. Thunderbird 2 is a Universal binary.