Using Thunderbird for email

Being someone who has a lot of email addresses, I am constantly on the lookout for the “best” email program to help me manage my accounts.  With the advent of Windows 7, Microsoft decided not to include an email client in the base installation, forcing users to download “Windows Live Mail“.  I’ve used WLM for a while, but it seemed to give me the dreaded “Program not responding” error messages a lot.

As most of you know, I’m a big fan of FOSS, (Free and Open Source Software), so I thought I would give Mozilla’s Thunderbird a try.  I’ve been using Thunderbird on my MacBook for over a year now, and it is so much better than the stock email client that comes with OSX.

(Side note:  Over the last 6 years, I’ve either used a Linux computer running Thunderbird, or now my MacBook as my primary email computer.  Doing this eliminates the effects of Windows based email viruses.)

I like Thunderbird’s ability to manage multiple email accounts, when correctly set up, it sends email to the appropriate inbox, not lumping everything into a global inbox.  Years ago, when I used Outlook Express, I would have to set up different “identities”, and also run Mailwasher to deal with the SPAM.  Thunderbird does a wonderful job of dealing with the “tons” of SPAM that I get from 3 of my oldest email addresses.  These email addresses probably show up on all of the spammers marketing lists that are sold everyday.  Although you have to “train” Thunderbird as to what SPAM you want removed, it does a great job of keeping my inboxes clean.

Give Thunderbird a try by downloading it here.  There are versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers.

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