Comparison Between Outlook 2003 and Thunderbird 0.5+

[Smartweb]

I've used a lot of email clients and can't say that I've been quite satisfied with any of them. I've used Outlook Express 6; Outlook 2000, XP, and 2003; Mozilla Mail 1.6; and Thunderbird 0.4, 0.5, and 0.6 nightlies. All I'm focusing on now is Outlook 2003 and Thunderbird 0.5+.

Outlook 2003 is Microsoft's top email client. It is by far the most updated part of the Office 2003 suite. It is unarguably the most bloated of the main email clients of today with its thick border around messages, etc. I don't personally even like the way its bloat looks, though others may think differently. It does have the new vertical viewing mode in which the message preview pane is on the right, but it doesn't really help much. It does give messages more screen space, but I rarely have to scroll email messages with the classic layout. I do, however, have to scroll horizontally a lot with the vertical layout for emails with more advanced Html content.

I would sooner use Outlook 2003 than earlier versions of Outlook because it has many new features, though it has more more bloat. It does finally have a way to filter emails as they come in to send them to different email folders. It also has junk mail filters. It finally has a good alternative to the famous Outlook bar for navigating through email folders. Before this version, Outlook lacked what even Outlook Express has always had: a tree view that is on by default.

Then there is Thunderbird. Like FireFox, it is very fast. You won't be waiting for messages to display in Thunderbird. Its interface is very similar to Outlook Express's, but is very rich in features that go deeper than the surface. When it comes to which client is more customizable, there is no contest. Thunderbird has an assortment of themes just waiting to be downloaded. It also has many extensions, including Sunbird (or Mozilla Calendar) that makes up for Thunderbird's lack of a built-in personal information manager. There are many smaller things too. The header of messages in the preview mode can be expanded or collapsed. Also, Outlook 2003 lacks a threading feature. In the list of email messages, there are two columns that don't appear in Outlook. One is for marking a message as read or not and the other is for marking it as junk or not. Saves some time. It really is the little things that count.

Thunderbird really is easy to learn and use. Don't worry about ever scrolling through email folders again. Thunderbird has a filtering bar above the list of messages that filters the messages as you type into it. It works as well as the filtering tool in the Longhorn version of Windows Explorer. One of the fun things that I've learned about Thunderbird is how to see what mail client anyone that has sent you an email uses. This is possible because Thunderbird allows you to view the real message source of an email. Outlook lets you look at the Html source if the email contains Html content, yes; but the real source of an email contains all sorts of fun details, including mail client used to send the email and IP of the sender. Thunder bird is certainly easy to use since it looks just like Outlook Express. No one would have difficulty using it.

I really can't do either product justice in such a short article. For the average user, the good stuff about Outlook ends there. It's a typical Microsoft product in that many features are exposed, but that is all the features. On the outside Thunderbird looks like Outlook Express, but as you explore it, it appears more and more advanced. I highly recommend for anyone to take a good look at Thunderbird by downloading it at http://www.mozilla.org . Go ahead, there's nothing to loose!

EDIT

You may also want to check out the following link which has 18 reasons why TBird is better than OE.

http://www.neilturner.me.uk/2003/Aug/16 ... an_oe.html

[Tebow2000]

Smartweb made me make the change, and I have no regrets!! Go Thunderbird!

[Aggressor Prime]

I stick with Outlook because it gave me no problems yet.

[indogo]

Thunderbird...now at version 1.0...used heavily every day with no probs..now with good security features included ..... Outlook used to let in viruses far too easily and sometimes would take five minutes to boot for no obvious reason. Also for hotmail users i heard that msn were removing the ability to download locally to outlook(express)at some point in the near future. Thunderbird is free and enthusiastically developed....outlook is paid for somewhere along the line......... If one insists on using mshtml......then foxmail is a better client with some nice extra features such as template editor with easy macros ,ability to send direct to inbox and interface included for hotmail/yahoo access.