Mozilla today, after releasing Firefox 10, has also released Thunderbird 10, a new version of the email software.

Thunderbird too is now flagging add-ons as compatible by default. Add-ons ship with minimum and maximum version compatibility information. The issue previously was that add-ons were flagged as incompatible if the author failed to update the version information in time. This made it difficulty for developers to keep their add-ons compatible with the latest releases.

Another change is the native integration of the Open Search extension in the email client. A right-click now displays an option to search for the selected term on the Internet. This is handled in the email client and not in the default system web browser.

The rendering component uses the Gecko 10 engine that the Firefox web browser uses as well.

Users who do not want their searches to open in the email client can set the preference mail.websearch.open_externally to true. This is done with a click on Tools > Options, switching to Advanced > General, clicking on Config Editor in the menu and filtering for the above preference. Just double-click it to toggle its value from false to true. Is there a way to disable web search completely? Not that I’m aware off. Maybe there is a preference but I have not found it yet.

Two new keyboard shortcuts have been added to Thunderbird 10, in addition to the changes outlined above. It is now possible to add attachments to messages with the Ctrl-Shirt-A (Command-Shift-A) shortcut. Named anchors can now be removed with Ctrl-Shift-R (Coammdn-Shift-R), and messages in the message reader and compose window can now be zoomed with the scroll wheel (Ctrl-Scroll Wheel).

Thunderbird users should have received update information by now in the email client. New users can download the latest version for all supported operating systems and languages from the Mozilla website.

I also have to say at this point that I’m not including add-ons in this guide. This guide only looks at the native options that Thunderbird offers. The majority of changes should also be applicable in other email programs.

1. Disable HTML messages

I get it. HTML messages look nicer. You can do all kinds of things with HTML messages that you cannot do with plain text messages. Plain text messages on the other hand only display textual contents and nothing else, which reduces the likelihood of exploits.

You find the setting under View > Message Body As > Plain Text.

2. Disable JavaScript

The developers have removed JavaScript in Thunderbird 3 for emails completely. There is no option to enable JavaScript for emails. JavaScript for RSS feeds is enabled on the other hand. Thunderbird users who do not use RSS or do not want JavaScript in their feeds can disable it the following way. Click on Tools > Options > Advanced tab > Config Editor to open the advanced configuration window.

Filter for the term JavaScript and double-click JavaScript.enabled to set it to false if it is set to true.

3. Use SSL

You should furthermore make sure that all of your email accounts use SSL connections to protect against snooping and eavesdropping. Click on Tools > Account settings, and there on the Server Settings listing underneath each email account.

Check the help pages or contact support if None is selected under Connection Security. You also need to click on Outgoing Server (SMTP) at the bottom of the listing to see if all outgoing servers are also using SSL for connections.

4. E-Mail Scams

Go to Tools > Options > Security > E-Mail Scams and make sure that Tell me if the message I’m reading is a suspected email scam is enabled. This basically checks back if the email is a known scam email and warns you if it is.

5. Master Password

If you are working on a multi-user PC or want to protect your email passwords from unauthorized access, you should consider setting a master password in the email client for that purpose. Anyone with access to the PC can look at all email usernames and passwords if they are not protected with a master password.

Click on Tools > Options > Security, and check the Use a master password box there to enable the option. You are then asked to enter a password which from that moment on will protect the password database from unauthorized access.

Thunderbird displays a form on start up that asks for that master password. The password quality meter visualizes the strength of the selected password.

6. Disable the preview pane

Thunderbird uses a layout with three panes by default. Email accounts and folders on the left, the email messages on the upper right, and the preview pane at the bottom right.

Email previews are automatically displayed when you select a message in the email client. You may want to disable that feature as it may be used for malicious purposes. Please note that this is unlikely, especially if you have disabled HTML messages and JavaScript.

The easiest way to disable the message preview pane is to press the F8 key on the keyboard. You can re-enable the pane easily with another tap on the same key.

7. Display All Headers

Email headers help you find out if an email is legit or fake. Thunderbird displays a compact version by default which cannot be used to verify an email address. You can enable full email headers with a click on View > Headers > All.

Please note that Thunderbird limits the space available for email headers on its page. You can scroll the page by holding down the left mouse button and moving the scroll wheel up or down.

Closing Words

Add-ons can furthermore improve security but that’s outside of the scope of this guide. Let me know if you are interested in a list of security related add-ons for the Thunderbird email client.

Have additional tips you’d like to share? Let me know in the comments.

The release notes list several fixed security vulnerabilities which make Thunderbird 9 a mandatory update for all users of the email client. The security advisories page lists a total of seven security vulnerabilities, of which one has been rated critical and the other six as moderate.

It is however relative unlikely that Thunderbird will see attacks exploiting the issue, as it uses a crash when scaling an Ogg video element to extreme sizes.

The remaining list of changes is not nearly as spectacular. Thunderbird 9 uses the new Mozilla Gecko 9 engine, and an opt-in system to send anonymous performance and usability reports to Mozilla. The data is used to improve future versions of the email client. This is the same feature that has already been implemented into the Firefox web browser.

Windows users can now show and hide the menu bar when they press the Alt key. The change log furthermore lists better keyboard handling for attachments without going into details as to what has been improved in the version.

The only other features listed in the change log are additional support for Personas, and “several user interface fixes and improvements”.

Thunderbird 9 ships with another change that has not been mentioned in the release notes. Users who click on the Tools menu will notice a new Test Pilot entry there. This is a Thunderbird extension that the developers have installed in the email client. Test Pilot is used to “make Thunderbird better by running user studies”.

Silently installing the extension without giving users options to opt-out during updating or installation is definitely something to be criticized. Thunderbird users can however uninstall the extension in the add-ons manager.

Have you updated your version of Thunderbird yet? What’s your take on the new version?

I tried a lot of “internal” fixes, like removing the msf files so that Thunderbird would regenerate them, or reinstalling the program to see if that would resolve the problem.

Unfortunately though nothing did. I did notice that my mail was still there which was reassuring to say the least.

I first thought about backing up all emails to Mailstore and starting anew, but this would have meant that I would have to juggle between two programs (the new Thunderbird and Mailstore) for a while.

I kept the option in mind and decided to play around with profiles first. First thing I did was to add -profilemanager to the end of the Thunderbird startup command to launch the profile manager during start up.

You can do that by locating the Thunderbird shortcut in the taskbar or start menu. Right-click it and select Properties from the options. Look for the Target field and add -profilemanager at the end of the command. This launches the profile manager before the email client is started. A profile is like a new user account for Thunderbird.

I decided to create a new profile. This is a simple process, all you need to do is to click on create profile and enter a name if you like. Exit the window afterwards.

Now for the difficulty part. Locate your Thunderbird profile folder on your hard drive. Windows users find the profile under C:\Users\Martin\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\

Note that you should see at least two profiles listed there. For the sake of simplicity, we assume you see two profiles. First your original profile with all your emails, and then your secondary profile that you have just created. We are now going to move important data from the old profile to the new one. Important data in this regards are all emails, contact information and preferences.

Locate the Mail (and if you like ImapMail) folder in your old profile and copy it to the new profile. Look into the root folder of the profile and copy the following files to the new profile: all abook*.mab files, all prefs files, all signons files.

Once done start Thunderbird using the new profile. Please note that you need to enter the mailbox passwords again. All extensions and other customizations are not moved. I’d suggest to install them anew, but you could try and move them from the old to the new profile.

You should now see all your mailboxes in the new profile. The preferences should be the same as in the old profile, as we have moved the preference files to the new profile as well.

This process has resolved the issue on my end. I selected the new profile to be started with Thunderbird automatically, and removed the profilemanager command from the startup.

Have you ever experienced issues with an email client? What did you do to resolve them?

Probably better than that is the integration of Google Calendar information into the Lightning add-on as it integrates better with Thunderbird. The requirements are the following: You need Thunderbird 8 or later at the moment as Lightning is only compatible with that version of the email client currently. The developers however have stated that the next version of Lightning will again support previous versions of Thunderbird as well. Lastly, you need a Google account with Google Calendar enabled as a service.

Installing Lightning

Install Lightning in Thunderbird by dragging and dropping the downloaded add-on file into the program window. You can alternatively click on Tools > Add-ons to open the program’s add-on manager. Click the small options icon next to the search and select Install Add-on from File. Locate the Lightning add-on on your computer and select it to install it in the email client.

Restart Thunderbird after you have installed the calendar add-on.

Setting up Google Calendar

Go to the Google Calendar website and log into your Google account. Click on the options icon in the upper right corner of the screen next to the profile picture and select Calendar settings from the menu there.

Switch to the Calendars tab under Calendar Settings and locate the calendar that you want to sync with Thunderbird. Click on that Calendar and scroll down until you Calendar Address and the Calendar ID listed there.

Syncing Google Calendar with Thunderbird

Click on File > New > Calendar to create a new calendar. In the next menu select On the Network from the available options and click Next.

Select CalDAV from the available options and paste in the following url:

https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/[Calendar-ID]/events

with Calendar ID being the ID listed on the Google Calendar page.

You are then asked to enter a name, color, alarms and an email address for the calendar.

If everything has been done correctly the Google login credentials need to be entered on the next page. Once done the new calendar will be displayed in the Lightning calendar in Thunderbird.

With the release of Thunderbird 8 came the release of Lightning 1.0. We already mentioned that in the Thunderbird release review we posted yesterday.

Lightning in terms of compatibility has made a step backwards. The calendar only supports Thunderbird 8 and later versions, which can be a serious problem for users who do not just jet want to upgrade to the new version of the desktop email client.

Mozilla has this to say about Lightning:

Lightning 1.0 is the fully integrated calendar Add-on for Thunderbird that lets users organize their schedules and life’s important events as a natural part of their email experience. Lightning gives users the ability to manage multiple calendars, create daily to do lists, invite friends and colleagues to events and meetings, and subscribe to publicly available calendars. With over a million active users, Lightning 1.0 is the calendar solution that users rely on to help them manage their daily lives at work and at home.

When you look at the release notes of Lightning 1.0 you will notice that there are not really that many notable changes to report. Most of the changes are bugfixes that resolve issues of previous Lightning versions. Lightning 1.0 has received some cosmetic changes, most notable new user interface styles for all calendar views.

When you install Lightning in Thunderbird you will notice – after a restart – that it adds a column on the right side of the program. Here you see the current date and calendar week as well as events for today, tomorrow and “soon”. Lightning adds the Events and Tasks menu to the top menubar.

An import option is available supporting iCalendar and Microsoft Outlook comma separated value files. It is furthermore still possible to synchronize Lightning with Google Calendar and other remote calendar locations (via New > Calendar > On the Network).

New Lightning users should take a look at the known issues highlighted on the Lightning 1.0 release notes page.

Are you using a calendar application? If so, which?

Thunderbird 8 has just been released. Existing Thunderbird users may have already noticed the update when they have stared the desktop email client today. Users who have not can check for new updates by going to Help > About Thunderbird in the main menubar of the email client. This triggers an automatic check for new updates in the program itself.

So what’s new in Thunderbird 8? The beta release notes, which have been published last month list the following improvements:

• Add-ons installed by third party programs are now disabled by default
• Added a one-time add-on selection dialog to manage previously installed add-ons
• Improved accessibility of the attachment lists
• Several user interface fixes and improvements
• and numerous other platform fixes

The big new feature is the blocking of automatic installations via third party software programs. This is actually the same feature that made it into Firefox 8 released a few days ago. In addition, Thunderbird users now get a one-time dialog when the update in which they can manage installed add-ons. The email client will suggest add-ons that may not be compatible giving the user the choice to disable them to improve stability of the email client.

The official download site is still listing Thunderbird 7.01 as the latest stable version. It may take some hours or maybe even a day until the new Thunderbird 8 version is published on the official website. Download portals such as Softpedia or MajorGeeks are already hosting the new version, so grab it from there if you are in a hurry.

Update: The calendar add-on Lightning for Thunderbird has been released in version 1.0 as well today.

With Firefox it is another issue. The browser just stops receiving traffic from the Internet as if it is blocked by a firewall or as if the Internet connection died. The only solution here so far was to restart the web browser.

David Bradley now has found a solution that fixed the Thunderbird lag issue, and probably the Firefox no traffic issue as well.

David mentioned frequent stutter or lag in the browser leading to the “not responding” message that can last for a few moments. This was the same behavior that I experienced in Thunderbird.

The solution or fix here is to assign one specific core to the Firefox, or in my case Thunderbird, process. This obviously only works if a multi-core cpu is available.

Users who just want to test the setting can assign a specific core by opening the Windows Task Manager with Ctrl-Shift-Esc, right-clicking the firefox.exe or thunderbird.exe process and selecting Affinity from the context menu.

Here they need to select a specific cpu core or remove one from the listing to test the fix. Please note that this is only a temporary solution. A system state change, e.g. a reboot, standby or hibernation resets the affinity settings there.

A permanent solution is to create a new program shortcut and set the cpu affinity this way.

The command for Firefox is this one:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\” /affinity x firefox.exe

where x is the cpu core number. (cpu 0 = 1, cpu 1 = 2, cpu 2 = 4, cpu 3 = 8 and so on).

For Thunderbird the command is

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start “C:\Program Files (x86)\Miramar 3.3 Alpha 1\thunderbird.exe” /affinity x thunderbird.exe

The easiest way is to copy the shortcut from the start menu or to use Windows Explorer to open the folder where the program is installed. There you can right-click firefox.exe or thunderbird.exe and select to create a new shortcut.

It is likely that we will see an official fix in the coming days / weeks. You can then simply delete the shortcut or modify it again so that all cpu cores are used by the application. It is unlikely that this change has an effect on the program’s performance.

Windows XP users cannot make use of the command. The suggestion here is to use the freeware RunFirst which sets the process affinity automatically to one core.

Has this fixed your issue as well? Let me know in the comments. (thanks David, via)

As you can see, lots of border and toolbar transparency. You basically have two options at your disposal to get rid of the Aero theme and transparency that comes with it: Install a different theme.

Ignore Aero

Ignore Aero is a theme for the Thunderbird email client that disables some, but not all, of the Aero effects. The title bar and borders still use transparency, while the other toolbars do not.

The extension is not an ideal solution for users who want to get rid of Aero completely, as it reduces the Aero effects only in the email client. You can download the Ignore Aero add-on for Thunderbird from the Mozilla Thunderbird Extension repository.

Alternative themes that pretty much have the same effect are NoGlass or Classic Reloaded.

Compatibility Workaround

You can run Thunderbird in compatibility mode to disable Aero automatically and only for that program and no others running on the system. For that you need to right-click the Thunderbird shortcut that you click on when you start the email program and select Properties from the context menu. Switch to the Compatibility tab in the Thunderbird Properties window.

Enable “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” and select Windows XP (Service Pack 3) from the options.

Running Thunderbird in compatibility mode has the same effect as installing one of the themes mentioned earlier in this article. The title bar and borders remain transparent, the other toolbars turn solid.

Disable Aero transparency

If you dislike the Aero transparency, you can disable it in Windows 7 by right-clicking on your desktop and selecting Personalize from the options. You then need to click on Window Color at the bottom of the Personalization window. Here you can uncheck “Enable Transparency” to disable it completely or use the color intensity slider to modify it.

Inspiration for this post taken from Ask VG.

With the release of Firefox 7 came also the release of Thunderbird 7. The email program made a big jump from version 3 all the way to version 7, even skipping a version to sync with the Firefox browser.

Existing Thunderbird users should get update notifications right in the email client. They can then update from within without having to download the client from the official website. Users who have not received the notification of the update yet can check for it manually by going to Help > About Thunderbird.

The release notes list several changes and feature enhancements.

• Thunderbird is based on the new Mozilla Gecko 7 engine
• Several user interface fixes and improvements
• Several fixes to attachment handling
• Ability to print a summary of selected email messages
• Platform improvements to Address Book
• Fixed several security issues
• Numerous platform fixes that improve speed, performance and stability

Nothing major as you can, mostly under the hood improvements or changes that the majority of users might not even recognize.

The Welcome to Thunderbird page after updating or installing the new version lists additional features. I’m not sure if they all made their way into this version or if they have been available before. Thunderbird 7 starts up faster and is more responsive according to that feature listing. A new troubleshooting information page is listed there as well. It looks exactly like the page of the Firefox web browser.

New users can download the latest Thunderbird version from the official Mozilla Thunderbird project homepage. It is available there for all supported operating systems and languages.

Are you using Thunderbird? Let me know what you think of the latest update.

Use BCC Instead is a Mozilla Thunderbird extension. It works almost like the native attachment warnings that you get when you use words like attached in the email body or subject without attaching a file to the email.

The extension warns you whenever you send emails to multiple recipients using either To or CC instead of BCC.

Please note that the extension warns you about sending the email to multiple To or CC recipients. It gives you the option to go ahead and send it anyway or to click cancel to modify the parameters to BCC. It does not auto-correct the issue.

The default limit is set to 10, which means that you only get warnings if you send out emails to more than ten recipients using To or CC. You can change that in the options, for instance to 1 which would always warn you when To or CC is used.

You can furthermore block emails from being send out at all if the selected value is exceeded.

Thunderbird users can download Use BCC Instead from the official Mozilla extension repository.

There are even extensions that synchronize data with social networking sites. We have reviewed Thunderbird Contacts in the past which can be used for that purpose.

Most users open the Thunderbird address book from within the email client. That’s great as long as the program is already open. But what if you want to open the address book when Thunderbird is not running on the system?

You could of course start Thunderbird on the computer before opening the address book via Tools > Address Book or with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-B.

Or, you could create a new shortcut on your computer that opens the Thunderbird address book directly and without starting the email client itself.

Navigate to the Mozilla Thunderbird folder on your computer. The default installation folder under Windows is C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\

Right-click the thunderbird.exe file and select Create Shortcut. Save it in that directory or alternatively on the desktop if restrictions prevent the saving in the same directory.

Right-click the shortcut afterwards and select Properties from the context menu. Locate the Target path in the Shortcut tab and add -addressbook at the end of it (there is a blank between the closing ” and the -addressbook).

Select Apply and OK afterwards. Double-click the shortcut. If everything went right, you should now see the address book open up immediately. If something went wrong, retrace the steps to correct the error.

So what is new in Thunderbird 6.0? The release notes, which are up already on the official website, list the following items that have been updated, changed or added to the email client.

• Thunderbird is based on the new Mozilla Gecko 6 engine
• Several theme improvements for Windows 7
• Support for Windows 7 Jump lists
• Several fixes when importing email from Microsoft Outlook
• Default mail client check now works with newer Linux distributions
• Various other user interface fixes and improvements
• Numerous platform fixes that improve speed, performance, stability and security

The feature list, as you can see, is rather small, and offers barely any new features for users of the email program. Windows 7 users benefit from jumplist support and theme improvements. Jumplists show up when a Windows user right-clicks on the icon in the taskbar. For now, Thunderbird users get links to their address book, writing a new message and the mailbox.

The update check from within the email client is already picking up the new version. This makes it possible to perform an in-program update to install the latest version of Thunderbird.

Users can do that with a click on Help > About Thunderbird.

The email client is also available for download at the official website for all supported operating systems and languages. Thunderbird users who want to take a closer look at the release notes of this particular release can do so here.

There they find troubleshooting tips and known issues, which are always worth checking out before upgrading or install a new version of the software.

Thunderbird does not come with options to set different archiving folders for emails, which means that users who want to have more than just a single archive folder per year need to move the emails manually into other folders.

Or, they could use QuickArchiver for the Thunderbird desktop email client which is a brand new add-on that speeds up the archiving noticeably.

The idea behind the extension is simple. When you archive emails, you usually archive emails from the same sender into the same folder. The extension remembers the target folders once you start archiving emails, for instance by pressing a or moving emails to another folder using the context menu or drag and drop.

These folders can then be displayed in the Thunderbird inbox, so that it takes only one click to move a particular email into the previously used folder.

You need to enable the Folder header in the Thunderbird mail view after installing the extension to make use of the feature. This is done with a click on the rightmost icon of the inbox header bar and the selection of Folder from the available options.

Once enabled it will display the last archive folder of that particular email sender. A click on the location moves the selected email automatically into that folder without further confirmation or menus.

The technique used is different from filtering emails into folders. Filtering is an automated process which means that the user cannot read the email subject or body before it is moved. With QuickArchiver, that is possible.

QuickArchiver is a handy extension for Thunderbird users who archive emails from one sender in the same folder. Interested users can download the Thunderbird extension from the official Mozilla Thunderbird extension repository.

I understand that some studies have suggested that it is actually faster to leave all mails in the inbox. I on the other hand believe that my system is better suited for accessing all important emails immediately after they have arrived. (sorry cannot find a link to the study right now)

The Thunderbird email client comes with powerful message filtering options. You can access the filtering management window with a click on Tools > Message Filters.

Thunderbird can apply filters to a specific email account or all email accounts.

Select an email address or the global Mail address from the pulldown list at the top of the screen. A click on New opens the message filter configuration screen. Each filter is configured with four parameters.

• Name: A unique name. Best option is a name that identifies the filter on first glance.
• When to apply: When to run the filter.
• Match: The data of the message that needs to match the entered information.
• Actions: The actions that are executed when a message matches a filter.

Any or all rules need to match for the actions to be executed. It is alternatively possible to run a filter on all messages. Rules consist of three parts. First a data field or custom field, then a state and lastly a custom string.

A data field can be the message subject, body, data, priority status, age, size, tags, recipients, senders and a lot more. The state basically defines if the email needs to contain the selected string or not.

Basic examples are

• Subject > Contains > Ghacks
• Priority > Is higher than > Normal
• To > Is in my address book > Personal Address Book

The actions are executed if the selected rules match. Basic actions include moving, copying or deleting email messages. Other options include setting tags or stars, setting the emails junk status, deleting it from pop3 servers or replying to it automatically with an email template.

Filters can not only be executed when new emails arrive, but also on existing mailboxes. Just select a mailbox in the main Message Filters window and click the Run Now button to execute all filters on the selected mailbox or folder.

As a side note. Thunderbird users can create from filters right from the message preview area or the mail viewing window. A right-click on an email address in the email header opens a context menu with an option to create a new from filter.

And that’s how you create message filters in the Thunderbird desktop email client.

Are you using filters in Thunderbird or another email software? Let me know in the comments.

The first beta of Thunderbird 6 is not introducing new groundbreaking features into the email client. Most notable change in this release is support for Windows 7 jumplists, which are accessible via a right click on the Thunderbird icon on the Windows 7 taskbar.

There are only options to write a new message or to open the address bar. A list of the latest emails would be handy for instance.

Other changes mentioned on the announcement page are Microsoft Outlook importing fixes, working default mail client checks on newer Linux distributions and other unmentioned fixes. Again, nothing to get to excited about. Still, users who want to download the latest beta version can do so right now from the official beta release page. The Thunderbird 6 beta release is available in all languages and for all supported operating systems.

With the rapid release process in motion, it should not take longer than one and a half month before the final version of Thunderbird 6 is released by Mozilla Messaging.

In related news. Designer Sean Martell has published new concept logos for the Nightly and Aurora channels of the email client.

The names are not entirely correct though. You may know that Mozilla has decided to use different names for the Thunderbird Nightly, Aurora and Beta releases. The two logos that you see above might make they way into for the Daily and Earlybird channels. Well done and nicely looking, what do you think? (via)

For now, downloads are only available on the official Mozilla ftp server and on some of the mirror servers. It is likely that the big software download repositories will have the release for download before the official announcement.

The release notes have not been updated yet. The beta release notes however hint at the changes and additional features that have made their way into Thunderbird 5.

With the streamlining of the release cycle with the Firefox browser come additional similarities. Thunderbird now sports the very same add-on manager that Mozilla added to the Firefox browser earlier.

The email account creation wizard has been revised to improve the setup of new email accounts in the program. See the list below for a full list of changes in Thunderbird 5.

• New Addons Manager and extension management API (user interface will be changed before final release)
• Tabs can now be reordered and dragged to different windows
• Revised account creation wizard, offering improved set-up
• Attachment sizes now displayed along with attachments
  New troubleshooting information page to aid supporting and diagnosing problems in Thunderbird
• Plugins can now be loaded in RSS feeds by default
• Various other user interface fixes and improvements
• Support for Mac 32/64 bit Universal builds (Thunderbird Beta will no longer support PowerPC on Mac)

The big version jump from Thunderbird 3.1 to 5 will definitely render some addons incompatible. The easiest way to force compatibility is to install the Addon Compatibility Reporter extensions.

Have you downloaded and installed Thunderbird 5 yet? If so, what’s your opinion so far? (via)

A new version every three months or so, and a confusing assortment of release channels makes it less interesting to keep an overview over each channel. With four channels for Firefox and Google Chrome alone each, it would mean to spend more time monitoring the development to stay up to date.

Thunderbird recently joined the rapid release process as well, with the beta versions recently jumping a version to version 5.

Instead of using Firefox’s naming convention, which is stable, beta, aurora and nightly, the developers have decided to introduce a new set of channel names. The nightly versions of Thunderbird are called Shredder, the Aurora versions Earlybird and the beta versions Miramar. The latest nightly versions are already at version 7, while the latest stable releases are at version 3.

We have already looked at the features that Mozilla Messaging plans to introduce in Thunderbird 5. You can get the full overview here.

Among the changes are a new add-on manager that looks identical to the extensions manager of the Firefox web browser. Other new features include a revised account setup wizard that has been optimized once again, an optimized display of email attachments including attachment sizes, tab reordering and a new troubleshooting information page.

Interested users can download Thunderbird 5 Beta from the early releases page over at Mozilla Messaging. The beta version is available for all supported operating systems and languages. Nightly releases are currently only available at the official ftp server.

What’s your take on the rapid release process and the new names for the different Thunderbird channels? Let me know in the comments. (via)

The idea behind SeaMonkey is to provide users with an all-in-one Internet application for their needs. SeaMonkey is based on the Mozilla platform which is also used by the Firefox web browser. Unlike Firefox it includes additional tools and internet applications like an email client, IRC chat client or news feed client. It shares code with both Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird.

Experienced Firefox users may weight in that they can install add-ons that add the functionality to the browser. While that’s true for some features like the IRC chat, it is not true for others like the email client. When you look closer, you will notice that SeaMonkey has integrated some of those add-ons in the browser.

Users basically get Firefox plus already installed add-ons and additional integrated tools like the email client. That’s handy for Internet users who are not tech savvy enough to install add-ons for instance, or users who want one software for all their Internet needs. SeaMonkey offers to import data from Thunderbird if the email client is discovered during installation which is handy for users who want to make the switch.

The release notes list the new features of SeaMonkey 2.1, among them integration of data synchronization, the Firefox add-on Personas which can be used to modify the browser’s theme more easily, a new data manager for managing permissions, cookies, passwords and form data, and improved plugin handling.

The release benefits from Mozilla core platform changes, resulting in better startup and shutdown performance, better memory management, better HTML5 support and protection from out of date plugins.

Windows 7 users benefit from jump list and download progress support and Linux users from desktop notifications.

Interested users can download SeaMonkey 2.1 from the official project website. The Internet software is available for Windows, Linux and Mac, and is offered as a localized version.

As a note on the side. SeaMonkey 2.1 is still using the old Firefox design, making it an excellent alternative for users who do not want to make the switch to Firefox 4 because of the design.

The jump from Thunderbird 3.3 to 5 is a big one. The most likely explanation is to sync the versions with the Firefox web browser.

The release notes list the new add-on manager as one of the few changes of the new release. The add-on manager is now identical to the add-on manager in Firefox 4.

Other changes include options to reorder and drag tab to different windows, the display of attachment sizes next to attachments and a revised account creation wizard that promises improved account set ups.

Users who do not have Thunderbird installed on their system can download the latest beta version of the email client from the early releases download page on Mozilla Messaging. The beta version is available for all supported languages and operating systems.

Mozilla has released the third beta of the Firefox 5 web browser as well on the same day. It is again possible to check for updates manually by clicking on Help > About Firefox. Keep in mind that only Firefox Beta users will see the new update. Users who are running the stable version of the browser or the Aurora / Nightly builds won’t get the update notifications.

Users who do not run Firefox Beta yet can download the latest beta channel release from the Future of Firefox download page. There they can download the latest Firefox Beta and Aurora releases.

Release notes have not been published yet. interested users can take a look at a list of all bug fixes in Firefox Beta.