Free and open source tool #1: Thunderbird

Before the holidays, I promised that I’d do 100 posts this year on free and open source tools. So, I’m starting with Mozilla Thunderbird. I use it every day, nay, almost every waking minute, since email is such a critical beast.

Generally, Thunderbird falls into the category of free and open source software that “just works.” It’s easy to set up accounts, move mail around, and do sophisticated filtering of mail, and such. And, because it’s in the Mozilla family, it has a plug in architecture which can add some really neat features. I’m using one that allows me to see a calendar (I use it to view my google calendar) – it’s a good quick way within Thunderbird to see if I’m free on a certain day.

Thunderbird is cross platform, too, so if you’re like me, and hope between platforms, Thunderbird is there with you.  And its secure, makes doing GPG signatures and encryption easy (although I haven’t gotten around to doing them, though. Shame on me.)

Thunderbird is in the process of being spun out of the Mozilla Foundation into it’s own organization, dubbed “MailCo.” I don’t know if that name will stick. But I think that Thunderbird has suffered from the Mozilla Foundation’s focus on Firefox, and some good solid focus on it as a product is welcome news to me, as a daily user.