Mozilla simplifies Thunderbird

After skipping a 4.0 release altogether, Mozilla developers have rolled out version 5.0 of Thunderbird; an open source news and e-mail client, reports The H.

Thunderbird 5.0 is based on the same Gecko layout engine as Firefox 5 and includes a new add-ons manager and extension management API.

There are also updates to the user interface and a revised account creation wizard and a new troubleshooting information page to help users support and diagnose problems.

OnSoftware says tabbed messaging, one of Thunderbird's strongest features, now supports reordering and dragging tabs into different windows.

Attachment sizes are now displayed along with attachments, plugins can now be loaded in RSS feeds by default and there are several theme fixes for Windows Vista and Windows 7.

According to Computer Weekly, regarding the Mail Account Setup Wizard, Mozilla says: “Prior to this feature users had to know their IMAP, SMTP, and SSL/TLS settings.

“Now all you need to provide is your name, e-mail address, and password and the email account set up wizardry will check our database and find the e-mail settings for you."