Mozilla minggu ini mengeluarkan release candidate yang pertama untuk Thunderbird 2, generasi masa hadapan untuk ‘open source email client’ . Team Thundercird mengesyorkan kepada pengguna agar memberikan sebrang laporan jika ada apa-apa masalah.

Terdapat banyak ciri-ciri baru dalam Thunderbird 2 ni, kata ‘Mozilla spokesperson’. Antara ciri-ciri tersebut ialah:

• Message Tags — Create your own tags for organizing email. Messages can be assigned any number of tags; tags can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize email.
• Visual Theme — Thunderbird 2’s theme and user interface have been updated to improve usability and maximize screen real estate.
• Session History Navigation — Back and Forward buttons allow navigation through message history.
• Advanced Folder Views — Customize the folder pane to show favorite, unread or recent folders.
• Easy Access to Popular WebMail Services — Gmail and .Mac users can access their accounts in Thunderbird by simply providing their user names and passwords.
• Improved Support For Extensions — Extensions can now add custom columns to the message list pane in addition to storing custom message data in the mail database.
• Improved New Mail Notification Alerts — New mail alerts include information such as the subject, sender and message preview text.
• Folder Summary Popups — Mouse over a folder with new messages to see a summary of the new messages in that folder.
• Saved Search Folder Performance — Search results for saved search folders are now cached, improving folder loading performance.
• Find As You Type — Finds and highlights message text as you type.
• Improved Filing Tools — Recent folder menu items for moving and copying messages to recently used folders. Move/copy again functionality included.
• Updates to the Extension System — The extension system has been updated to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions.
• New Windows installer — Based on Nullsoft Scriptable Install System, the new Windows installer resolves many long-standing issues.
• Windows Vista Support — Many enhancements and fixes for Windows Vista.