Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 Email Client Has Landed

Mozilla Foundation announces the release of its open source email software

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - December 7, 2004 - The Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving choice and promoting innovation on the Internet, today announced the worldwide availability of the Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 email client. Thunderbird focuses on new features and settings to help stop spam and prevent viruses, the two biggest problems facing email users today. Mozilla Thunderbird follows last month's highly successful release of Mozilla Firefox 1.0 that has been downloaded by over nine million users.

Today's announcement marks the immediate availability of Thunderbird 1.0 for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux-as a free download from mozilla.org and by CD from the Mozilla Store. Thunderbird is now available in English, German, Greek, and Turkish with more languages on the way.

"Thunderbird 1.0 marks another successful product milestone for the Mozilla Foundation, made possible by hundreds of community volunteers and developers around the world," commented Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation. "Thunderbird is the perfect companion to Firefox and demonstrates another success of the open source development model."

Research firms estimate that fighting junk mail and viruses are costing billions of dollars each year. "We think people will benefit from our adaptive junk mail filters in addition to new features like saved search folders and RSS integration," said Scott MacGregor, lead engineer for Thunderbird. "We view Thunderbird as a big step towards providing people with a better email experience."

Millions of consumers are already using Thunderbird because of its stability, trustworthiness, and innovative features.

• Adaptive junk mail controls - Thunderbird's junk mail controls learn and improve from emails that you receive to stop spam.
   
• Integrate RSS news and blog reader - View RSS news feeds and blogs with Thunderbird to quickly scan and sort through hundreds of headlines.
   
• Saved search folders and search bar - To help you find emails faster you can save common searches in virtual folders and find emails with the search bar.
   
• Tools to efficiently manage email - Global inbox, message filters, grouping, message views, labels, and much more are available to help you manage your email.
   
• Extensible with themes and Add-ons - Extensions like Palm Synchronization with address book make Thunderbird even more customizable and convenient to use.
• Easy migration - With Thunderbird it's easy to switch from Outlook Express and other email clients. When you first launch the product, Thunderbird migrates your mail account from Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, and Netscape Communicator.
   

Extensive Support Network

With thousands of technology contributors and advocates engaged in the development, documentation, testing and marketing of Mozilla Thunderbird, a rich ecosystem of support resources and tools is available. Online documentation, tutorials, FAQs and links to commercial support partners are available online at http://www.mozilla.org/. Independent news, commentary and community support is available from mozillaZine at http://www.mozillazine.org/.

Getting Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 can be downloaded for free or purchased in a CD-ROM Edition with Thunderbird Guidebook from the Mozilla Foundation at http://www.mozilla.org/. Thunderbird supports both IMAP and POP3 protocols and works with popular email services.  Check with your company or email provider to learn how to setup your email account to work with Thunderbird.

About the Mozilla Foundation

Established in July 2003, the Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization hosting a collection of leading innovators whose mission is to preserve choice and innovation on the Internet. The Foundation provides organizational, legal, and financial support for the Mozilla open source software project. The Foundation is based in Mountain View, California and is the heir to the legacy & tradition of the Internet's first widely used browser, Netscape. Learn more about the Mozilla Foundation at http://www.mozilla.org/.