Two million Thunderbirds are go

Daily Newsletters

Sign up to ZDNet UK's daily newsletter.

NEWS
The open source email application Thunderbird 1.0 has been downloaded two million times within a month of its release, according to the Mozilla Foundation.

Mozilla employee Asa Dotzler celebrated this news in his blog on Sunday.

"That's two million people that won't be getting the next round of Outlook viruses," said Dotzler. "That's two million people who will be able to push the spam aside with Thunderbird's innovative junk-mail filters and get back to using email again rather than being abused by it. That's two million people who will have access to the new and exciting world of RSS."

Firefox, the Mozilla Foundation's browser, has already attracted considerable attention, racking up over 16 million downloads since its release in November 2004.

James Governor, an analyst from Red Monk, said that although Thunderbird will benefit from the attention around Firefox, both still have a long way to go before they achieve mass market status.

"I do think it [Thunderbird] will benefit from this groundswell around Firefox, but we shouldn't get too carried away by that groundswell," said Governor. "For all the momentum Firefox has enjoyed, it still only has a small, technically savvy, user base."

He claimed that Firefox's success among technical users has not yet translated to the corporate space.

"If you look at a lot of blogs, 50 to 60 percent of visitors are using Firefox, but this is not a broad-based enterprise phenomenon," said Governor. "I haven't spoken to any enterprises who have rolled it out end to end."

Talkback

I use Thunderbird at work and at home and it is superb. As the article says, the Spam filtering is so good that you go back to using email the way it was meant.

I have converted several of my colleagues to use Thunderbird and they are all happy using it.

Give it a try !

via Facebook 11 January, 2005 22:31
Reply

Hi James,

You may not be talking to enough people because I know a few very large companies who are looking to deploy Mozilla solutions for both Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird.

And, if you don't think Firefox and Thunderbird are hitting the mainstream I'm amazed that there's 17 million tech savvy users out there. Aren't you? You'd think there'd be a handful of less savvy users in there?

-Rafael

via Facebook 12 January, 2005 05:02
Reply

The times, they are a changing. At my company, we integrate a product made in our Taiwan office, works great with IE (The web portal and javascript OA&M interface). Being part of the interface to a telecom product, and all telco's are security extremists, lab trials failed because neither Mozilla or Firefox or Netscape, the ONLY ACCEPTABLE AND ALLOWED BROWSERs in the production environment (i.e. critical security areas running UNIX or Linux only, you don't find a lot of Windows in telcom offices), didn't work. The reason, relying on IE's MIME sniffer (or rather automatic virus propagation feature) the coder's got lazy in the javascript. Guess what, within 2 weeks, everything was tightened up, Firefox works great, and the customer is deploying the product. Amazing too, I told them for months it didn't work except with IE, they too scoffed, who cares, IE rules.

Something else to keep in mind, if there are 16M downloads of Firefox and 2M downloads of Thunderbird, then there are at least 32M firefox users and 4M thunderbird users because, like me, it came packaged with my distro, so I didn't download them.

Kevin

via Facebook 12 January, 2005 05:33
Reply

Times are changing. iWork, Macmini and Firefox are at the forefront of competition against Microsoft and they won't be ignored forever. Also when looking at Firefox download counts you have to think about people who carry the portable versions of Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird on their memory sticks ready to install onto machines of less tech-savvy people.

via Facebook 12 January, 2005 13:33
Reply

Thunderbird works on a daily basis for me. OK, I'm only dealing with 100-200 emails, but Thunderbird has proven itself. The best part is, it will only get better.

via Facebook 12 January, 2005 16:18
Reply

Here's a little $100m company that uses Firefox exclusively. Adios, MS!

via Facebook 12 January, 2005 23:40
Reply

I've sent y'all an email but for the benefit of Joe Public, the vast majority of my TB adopters are not techies. They're ordinary people who want things to Just Work(tm) and do that safely.

via Facebook 13 January, 2005 09:38
Reply

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

You can also log in with Facebook. Log in or create your ZDNet UK account below

  • Login

Will not be displayed with your comment

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy. Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Community FAQ

Get ZDNet UK's daily newsletter

Enter your email address to sign up

ZDNet UK Live

kevinmchapman

"the very significant number of users" and "many (most) of us" - you have no evidence for these statements. It is a fact that most users are saying...

7 hours ago by kevinmchapman on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Marg Menzies Harrison

Another grammar faux pas is the improper use of "you". When sitting down down in a restaurant, for example, I get cringe when the waitress...

8 hours ago by Marg Menzies Harrison via Facebook on 10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid
zdnetukuser

And NOW, folks, for Canonical's next trick... Kubuntu is late. Here's a pencil. Draw your own conclusions. cf.:...

9 hours ago by zdnetukuser on Linux Minterface
Moley

@kevinmchapman. The discussion here reflects the very significant number of users who really do like the traditional menu system and who wish to...

11 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
kevinmchapman

Er, no... It is an efficient means of finding the application/file/setting you need in one place. The icons are a simply a fallback for when you...

13 hours ago by kevinmchapman on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
TerryRK

Isn't the provision of a text based search an admission by the developers that the mass of icons approach does not work? I don't need to use a...

14 hours ago by TerryRK on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
kevinmchapman

"Unity and GNOME 3 both abandon the old text-based cascading menus in favour of a graphical icon-driven system." Point truly missed. Both use a...

14 hours ago by kevinmchapman on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
TerryRK

whs001 - Thank you, I'm glad you liked the article. I absolutely agree with you on your first point. I should perhaps have made it clearer that...

14 hours ago by TerryRK on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

If we allow corporate interest to dictate the way our government circumvents due process against foreign entities then we should accept the same...

16 hours ago by via Facebook on ACTA stumbles in Germany
GHar123

I totally dislike pirating of works, I fear that artists will be deterred from creating works if they think that they are going to get ripped off....

17 hours ago by GHar123 on ACTA stumbles in Germany
JCB33

How dare film makers, artists or anybody that invests in creativity stop us pirating their works for free. I want to be able to walk into my local...

23 hours ago by JCB33 on ACTA stumbles in Germany
Moley

@GrueMaster. I prefer horses for courses rather than one size fits all. I, and I suspect most other computer users, do not really wish to have...

1 day ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
greycynic

The product that scares me every time I have to use it is the Office 2007 version of Excel. The first bug that I found was applying the median...

1 day ago by greycynic on Ten flawed products that derail productivity
GrueMaster

Nice review and very informative. One thing I'd like to add (in reply to whs001's 1st question), the main reason to have the same interface from...

1 day ago by GrueMaster on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Frederick Wrigley

I'be been using Mint 12 since the RC came out, and I am far more happy with the Cinnamon, the Mate, and, yes (with extensions), theGnome 3...

1 day ago by Frederick Wrigley via Facebook on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
bdantas

Excellent article. One small correction, though--although a fresh installation of Linux Mint 12 will, indeed, provide the user with a version of...

1 day ago by bdantas on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Alan Ralph

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

1 day ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material
Alan Ralph

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

1 day ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material
Moley

For Gnome 2 die-hards, it is possible to add icons to the bottom panel (or top top panel, if you prefer) which provide the exact Gnome 2...

1 day ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint
ramwellian

Your comments would seem pretty naive and immature. Your 'solution' appears to be, "gee, let's all just give in to the hackers and give them...

1 day ago by ramwellian on Cloud computing security: no more oxymoron?