For most of us, email is something we check in a browser or from a phone. But there’s value in having a dedicated desktop app just for managing our mail. This software loads our inbox faster than a browser and offers more functionality than we have on our phones.
There is plenty of diversity in the Linux world and this is on display when it comes to email clients. Thunderbird is the default email client for all Ubuntu Flavors.
Thunderbird comes from Mozilla, the non-profit behind Firefox. Thunderbird is the most popular Linux mail client, and for good reason. Thunderbird comes with many of the same advantages as Firefox. It’s cross-platform. It supports add-ons. It has relatively large name recognition.
The setup experience takes the complication out of setting up a desktop email client and usually guesses the correct settings using only your email address and password. Thunderbird makes it easy to hit the ground running if this is your first time using dedicated email software.
This email client is also powerful enough for power users. If you want to encrypt your email, Thunderbird is one of the few clients that supports GPG/PGP encryption. While there are encrypted webmail providers, a desktop client like Thunderbird allows you to encrypt the mail you send using services like Gmail or Yahoo.
With the right add-on, Thunderbird also supports Microsoft Exchange. That makes this client suitable for corporate use. These days, the client also comes with calendar functionality built-in.
Thunderbird gives you the ability to follow your system Theme or setup a separate theme within Thunderbird.
Thunderbird gives you IMAP/POP support, a built-in RSS reader, support for HTML mail, powerful quick search, saved search folders, advanced message filtering, message grouping, labels, return receipts, smart address book LDAP address completion, import tools, and the ability to manage multiple e-mail and newsgroup accounts.
Free and open source: One of the best thing about Mozilla Thunderbird is that it’s a free & open source Email application platform.It is free to use, change and update the software anyway and share the source code among peoples.
Standard Supports:
- POP3: It is used to retrieve the email.
- IMAP: Thunderbird implements most of the capabilities and functionalities by the use of IMAP protocol. It also allows adding their own extensions, De-factor standards by Google and Apple.
- LDAP: is used in Mozilla Thunderbird for address completion.
- S/MIME: S/MIME is used for encryption and digital signing using X.509 keys which are provided by the Centralized Certificate Authority.
- OPEN PGP: It is used in Thunderbird for Email encryption.
File Format Supported in Mozilla Thunderbird:
- Mbox: one file holding many emails.
- Maildir: it is basically by default format of Thunderbird, it stores one file per each email.
Message Management:
In case of message management advantages of Thunderbird is search quickly, saved search folder, advance message filtering, messages grouping and find messages
Large file linking:
Since version 38, Thunderbird has integrated to support for large files is up to 2GB free without signing up for an account, rather than attaching them to mail message.
Customization:
In the case of Email customization, Thunderbird has a better platform, There are vast collections of Extensions and Themes. The extension will enable us to add various features through the installation via Add-on. It also features an update functionality to update extensions. Add-on also supports various features to upgrade background color, color scheme .some also provide various button themes that will make Thunderbird looks so different program. There are two types of themes available in Thunderbird such as,
- Background Theme: It is light weight theme so that it is smaller to download.one can easily change background image and color schemes of Mozilla Thunderbird in it’s toolbar.
- Complete Theme: It is heavy weight theme so it is larger to download,it is more customization than the background theme.
Spam filtering:
Spam filtering is a email filtering feature of Thunderbird;Which in corporate with various statistical techniques for email filtering such as,
- Bayesian spam filter (technique of filtering spam which doesn’t determines which are spam and which are not.It also determines how to over come from spams)
- white-list(it allows particular identities to allow access particular service, mobility, access)
- spam assassin (is a server side filter which filters mail and identify the spams)
Security and privacy features of Thunderbird:
- Remote content in messages: Show the privacy result of allowing remote content messages such as display images, videos, or spreadsheets in a message.
- Digital signing and Encrypting message: This page detailing how to set up Thunderbird for digitally signing and encrypting messages for security purposes.
- Password manager: securely protect your Thunderbird username and password. It also enables tips about how to save, view, delete, edit the Password.
One-click address book:
One click address book is helpful to you by adding more people to your contacts. It is good to add more details about your contacts.
Support for Multiple Client Chat:
Best thing about Thunderbird,it also a chat client application. It provides multiple channel chat so you can chat with various chat box such as Odnoklassniki, Google Talk, IRC, XMPP.
HTML Code Insertion:
The insertion menu in Mozilla Thunderbird helps to provide the ability to include HTML code. One can use subscripts with in <sub>…</sub>,degree symbol with ° into a message which is being to be computed.
Cross Platform Support:
User can run Mozilla Thunderbird in variety of software such as Linux, Windows, Mac and various ports are available such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD.
Attachment Reminder:
Attachment Reminder feature is beneficial to remind attach a word document or other file document in your message body before send.
Smart folders:
One of the major advantages of Mozilla Thunderbird is to manage multiple email accounts by combining special various folder. They are Inbox, Send, Archive, and save all incoming Email accounts in the same Inbox folder. Instead of going, again and again, inbox folder for each of your Email accounts.
Quick Filter Tool Bar:
In Thunderbird users can get an advantage like to easily filter their email accounts simply go to the Quick filter Toolbar. Then start typing in words in the Quick Filter search box and the result will display instantly.
To install and configure Thunderbird please head to our install guide section for instructions.
