Using E-mail with Thunderbird Mail

The Evolution mailer provides a full set of office services including e-mail management, calendar scheduling, and task lists. While it does each of these tasks, it still has some stability and usability problems. If you only need e-mail access, you might want to consider Mozilla Thunderbird:

 sudo apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird 

This installation enables you to run mozilla-thunderbird from the command line or select it from the menu: Applications Internet Thunderbird Mail. Unlike Evolution, this only runs one application and starts up a little faster.

In my opinion, Thunderbird is much more refined than Evolution, but not as full featured. Table 5-1 shows a functionality comparison. Generally speaking, both systems are nearly equivalent when it comes to e-mail-only requirements. Although Evolution does support more protocols and non–e-mail features, Thunderbird currently offers more stability.

Table 5-1: Comparison of Evolution and Thunderbird
Open table as spreadsheet

Feature	Evolution 2.6	Thunderbird 1.5.0.5
Protocols	POP, IMAP, Exchange, Hula, Files	POP, IMAP, Files
Security	SSL and TLS	SSL and TLS; only available by Edit Acccount Settings Security Settings after creating account
LDAP	Yes	Yes
E-mail Security Options
Load Images	Can be disabled, enabled for all, or enabled for known contacts; default: enabled	Can be disabled, enabled for all, or enabled for known contacts; default: enabled
JavaScript	No	No
E-mail Scam Detection	No	Yes
Antivirus Support	No	Yes; default: disabled
Additional Functionality
Address Book	Yes	Yes
Calendar	Yes	No; available as plug-in
Task List	Yes	No
Memos	Yes	No