Email client Thunderbird 3 beta 2 released

The Mozilla developers have released the second beta of Thunderbird 3 which includes a large number of bug fixes and several new features. Thunderbird is an open source email and news client that supports over 40 languages. The release comes just over two months after the release of the first beta.

The change log lists over 340 changes from the previous beta 1 release. New features in the second beta include a new activity manager and the ability to archive email, a feature admittedly borrowed from Gmail. Messages now load faster when using IMAP, as Thunderbird downloads the messages in the background by default. The feature can be enabled or disabled, on an individual folder basis, via the folder properties, or for all folders under account settings. Other notable features are improved Growl notifications on OS X, keyboard short cuts and fewer dialogue boxes.

Mozilla plan to issue yet another beta on the road to Thunderbird 3. This third and last scheduled beta will include several new features along with bug fixes from the previous release.

Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 no longer supports Windows 95, 98, ME and NT. More details can be found in the release notes for Thunderbird 3 beta 2, which is now available to download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

(crve)