I was willing to try Thunderbird because I'm a fan of Firefox, another Mozilla product. Version 5.0 made an even worse impression than version 3.0, however.
Thunderbird 5.0 has a default interface that can only be described as strange, a list of commands arranged one per line on a plain white screen like a web site from the 1990's coded by someone who just picked up HTML for the first time.
Thunderbird usurps control from the user, attempting to connect immediately, before the user has had an opportunity to enter all of the details about a mail server. This generates errors, some of the time, and is both annoying and alarming. I do not see any advantage to this approach. The developers rely upon a database maintained at the Mozilla web site and auto-detection in a misguided attempt to spare the user from ten seconds of typing. Ten seconds? Is that really a problem that is worth compromising security? During this automatic connection attempt, if the user has not first selected SSL encryption, Thunderbird will reveal to any listening hackers the unencrypted password and username, placing its users at risk of identity theft and financial loss in order to potentially spare them ten seconds worth of typing--although ten times the ten seconds gets lost if there are any failed automatic connections. The program assumes that the email address is the same as the username. That is certainly not true for all mail servers, but the program will attempt to connect anyway using the erroneous credentials, during which time the user will be staring at the screen, waiting.
The basic problem with Thunderbird, as well as with many software applications, is that the designers assume that they know much better than the end user. When that assumption proves mistaken--the user actually knows better than the developers about his own mail server--then the application falls flat upon its face.
I found Thunderbird to be annoying and primitive. I uninstalled it after twenty minutes. I was not impressed with Thunderbird several years ago and am even less impressed today. Thunderbird is the Google Chrome of mail clients, making a feeble attempt to be simple and easy to use for novices, but lacking in the features and flexibility that expert users desire.
I believe Thunderbird was designed with the mobile user in mind. Users that have a black-and-white display with a resolution of less than 640x480 and a keyboard that is less than two inches wide may prefer Thunderbird, because it uses very little screen width and makes heroic efforts to spare the user from typing.
2 comments:
I have have just started using thunderbird at our office is there way to make for that SSL encryption is always enabled. We have a bit of security issue at the office as we share the building internet access with other companies.
I have no idea. I don't use it. My recommendation is to uninstall Thunderbird and install a real mail reader such as Forte Agent, which is both secure and easily configurable. Configuring Thunderbird is like pulling teeth. Thunderbird wants to figure everything out by itself, but the problem is that it's not that good at figuring. I would not gamble security on a mail reader that is not ready for prime time.
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