Mozilla Cuts Thunderbird Mail Client Development

[Guest]

Mozilla sacrifices the continued development of its mail client Thunderbird and is shifting focus to other areas, namely its core product, Firefox. Thunderbird isn't dead yet, but it has been put on life support and may disappear as interest fades.

Mozilla Cuts Thunderbird Mail Client Development : Read more

 

[Shin-san]

That bites. I love how simple and stupid the client is. Lots of others tend to be bloated. I guess it might be time to move onto Outlook finally

 

[LORD_ORION]

All they need to do is market it as "peep" free

All the web e-mail peeping advertisers do surely has reached a point where a peep free client would have a niche?

People still have personal mail addresses with their ISP that do not give out, right? :\

 

[Onus]

"Cloud" can't die too soon.

 

[inerax]

That sucks

I like Thunderbird. Now (someday) I am going to have to find a new client that is light like this one.

Hope they change their mind.

 

[QEFX]

Awww that just sucks, TBird is just so simple, fast and it always works.

It's a shame there will be no more development, but it really doesn't need any more work.

 

[delazaren]

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

I have been using TB for so many years I cannot even remember what I had before that. What are the options now?

 

[shloader]

[citation][nom]QEFX[/nom]Awww that just sucks, TBird is just so simple, fast and it always works. It's a shame there will be no more development, but it really doesn't need any more work.[/citation] Precisely. So they didn't meet their needs in making it this social hub client... whatever. It did meet our needs. I need a mail client that is 'mom simple' cuz she's not ready, yet, for web mail.

 

[bunch]

For me an offline mail client like Thunderbird saves so much time over cloud email.

Getting serious work done in Hotmail is slow and frustrating because of all the ads and the back-and-forth through the internet.

Sorry to see you go Thunderbird...

 

[Hellbound]

wtf!!!! How else am I going to receive my email for various gmails, comcast accounts? I mean, I have 7 pop3 emails for different things and I view them all on Thunderbird.. This really sucks.. I guess I'll have to archive the latest version so I could continue to use it..

 

[teh_chem]

Email clients were important back when you only had like 10MB of online storage, and couldn't afford to have everything sitting on a server somewhere. With the improvement of email services, Email clients (for non-business/corporate purposes) are less and less appealing to me for personal use. I generally use gmail exclusively for my various email accounts, and now that you can have multiple accounts associated with each other for simultaneous use in multiple browser tabs, it mostly defeats the purpose of an email client. But at the same time, I'm still clinging to TB use.

Not to mention that searching withing a gmail account in a web browser is so much faster and less complicated than in TB...

 

[opmopadop]

I can understand that Thunderbird doesn't need new features / development. After all, how do you enhance a mail program that does what its suppsoe to do (and does it well).

But please, dont cancel support for it!

 

[belardo]

If/when development of Thunderbird ends - it doesn't mean it will stop working. Even many many years later, Eudora still functions.

A major problem that could have helped Thunderbird (TB) is *IF* they would have integrated a PIM into TB... a contact list, to do and calendar. Then it can be a real replacement of MS-Outlook.

Admittedly, even MS sells MS-Office without Outlook. $125~140 for a 3-user home license.

 

[Onus]

[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]...A major problem that could have helped Thunderbird (TB) is *IF* they would have integrated a PIM into TB... a contact list, to do and calendar...[/citation]
Have you ever tried the Lightning add-in? It adds these very things.

 

[randomizer]

Thunderbird development has not stopped. Development by paid Mozilla employees has stopped. Community contributors will still be working on it, and probably with a greater level of freedom as well.

See this blog entry from a Mozilla employee : http/mikeconley.ca/blog/2012/07/06/no-thats-not-it-for-thunderbird/

Let's be honest, this is an email client. Email has not changed much in the last decade, so there's not much you can do to "innovate" an email client. Casual users mostly use webmail now, and Outlook is embedded in the corporate world, so Thunderbird is not a strategically sound investment for Mozilla.

 

[Darkk]

I've been using Thunderbird with Lightning and Zindus (Google sync for contacts and calendar) add-on for years. It's a very stable platform compared to Outlook. Before that I was using Netscape mail client then I started using TB.

TB will continue to work even Mozilla decides to stop supporting it via new features. I refuse to use Outlook as my main e-mail client. Hopefully Mozilla will change their minds about this.

 

[tului]

So stop localizing it and let the barbarian hordes learn English?

 

[Guest]

Try Postbox. Yes, it's $30/user or so but that is for unlimited computers. It's Thunderbird done better.

 

[Darkk]

Just FYI.. correct URL for postbox is http/www.postbox-inc.com/

 

[velocityg4]

This stinks. Thunderbird is hands down the absolute best e-mail client I have ever used. I can quickly blow through all the e-mail in my various IMAP accounts. Drag and drop messages between them. Plus keep my contacts and calendar updated and synced with Google using Lightning, Google Contacts and Provider for Google Calendar add-ons.

Thus everything is kept synced between my computers and my iPhone.

Outlook is too slow, bloated and the IMAP support sucks. IMAP folders are always collapsed when you open Outlook. All other mail clients I have tried are useless. They have no support for syncing contacts and calendars.

Mail clients are dying in part because most computer users are too naive to know that they can work with their e-mail much more efficiently in a mail client and keep their contacts synced between their smartphone and computer over the internet. I've installed Thunderbird in many computers. Never have the users switched back to web mail or their other mail program.

I couldn't imagine any small business not benefiting from using Thunderbird with the above mentioned add-ons. I'm just a one man show and benefit greatly from the syncing so I can keep my appointments quickly organized and contacts. Heck even medium sized businesses with Thunderbird and Google Apps could save a lot of money over Outlook and Exchange.