Why Not Bother Using Thunderbird 3?

Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes

For quite sometime that I have been blogging, my POP3 email has always been my companion in communicating with my readers, newsletter subscribers and direct advertisers so basically, it’s that pretty important.

Being a fan of open source, I have tried Thunderbird twice not only because it handles POP3 emails very well but also because it can carry RSS feeds readily available for reading as I’m subscribed to a few frequently updated blogs so it helps me to be always in the know.

As time goes, my first and second trial runs that lasted for several months have not been very pleasing. At first it was but then in the latter part, it has failed to update RSS feeds automatically until I finally given up.

I’m sure that updating the program would help when needed but the extent to which these updates lead to ineffectiveness then that makes me think that I’d rather not update and wait for the bugs to fix itself but instead totally get rid of the whole thing.

I ended up using a separate RSS reader and settled altogether with Outlook Express and was happy with the move.

Now, here’s the reason why you don’t need to bother yourself with the new Thunderbird email client.

First thing is that the new email client opens new messages in tabs similar to the new Yahoo email web interface, quite cool but not for some people. The more you click mails, the more tabs will open which can lead to confusion.

Among the other troubles I’ve found were incompatibility issues with Mozilla Lightning as a calendar tool and Keyword Highlight add-on.

Third party email settings on Thunderbird are more confusing than Outlook Express or MS Outlook. I even found Incredimail more user-friendly.

Lastly, the fact that Thunderbird adds the capability to fetch RSS feeds from blogs/sites, I think they should have not added this functionality if they can’t even prove its worth so why not concentrate on things that matter the most—a great user experience and a friendly user interface.

If you’re Thunderbird fan then I’d love to hear from you on why you loved it and if you can convince me to switch back, the better.

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Tagged as: email client, email software, rss feed reader, Thunderbird

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