Why I switched from Thunderbird to The Bat!

[th3rEsa]

Maybe anyone here cares. I usually would blog things like this, but as most of my regular readers stick to webmail services nowadays, I would receive a ****storm and destructive comments at best. So I'll just put it into a BBS where no one would ever flame me. This here. :D

(Preliminary note: I mainly work with Windows. On other platforms I might probably come to a different conclusion.)

My first half-decent mail client was Mozilla Thunderbird version 0.something. (Early adopters, anyone?) Before they came up with it, I had been using Outlook Express and similar clients. I just did not really use e-mail back in the days. I was rather contented with Mozilla Thunderbird, it did what it should, it was free, it was convenient and it did not even stumble about my preference for weird server configurations. (Don't ask me why. I seem to have no luck with my chosen hosters.) Moreover it allowed my to use GnuPG and NNTP which went very well with my commitment to the German Pirate Party and similar occasions.

Then the problems began.

Suddenly Thunderbird turned out to be fractious about IMAP management. The faster update cycle bothered Enigmail so it broke every few weeks. Also the application felt quite sedate at times. Previously appreciated features - e.g. the possibility to show/hide e-mail headers dynamically - disappeared from the core application and had to be added via third-party extensions. The fact that now and then there were essential improvements among the changes, like the new user interface of Thunderbird 17, did not compensate that for me.

One fine day after Thunderbird 11 or something I accepted that a replacement was needed. However, to find a decent one proved to be very difficult. The first result, due to convenience reasons, was to drop web mail services off my list of potential replacements. I have to manage more than ten separate IMAP accounts by now - try to manage them per web mail clients. (And don't even dare to throw in Google Mail, that ads-partner-polluted piece of something. Aside from my sane paranoia about Google's evilness: I would really miss the convenience of a decent desktop mail client. Again: A certain number of IMAP accounts with very different configurations are soliciting my more or less regular attention.)

My list of requirements for a decent replacement was rather short: GnuPG 2 support and a threaded view (for my subscribed mailing lists) were quite the only needed features. NNTP was optional, I could as well use Opera, still Thunderbird, SeaMonkey or the like for that. (I don't know whether SeaMonkey can handle GnuPG 2 or not - on the other hand I never really was into the Mozilla Suite either. I considered it - and Opera - too hard to use because of the different moduses - mail, browser, ... - when I only need one.)

The choice (this is a good moment to remind you that I primarily use Windows) was appropriately complicated:

• I generally like Pegasus Mail but it crashes reproducably - I had reported the issue, but AFAICS it has not been fixed for months. Also the handling needs getting used to for a while.
  
• Outlook has an awful user interface. No-go: No support for OpenPGP/GnuPG available (or would it require obscure plug-ins or something?), so it's out.
  
• Claws Mail seems to be something like Thunderbird in hideous clothes. Also it can't work with HTML mails. ;-) (Don't take this too seriously.)
  

The consequence was my union with a good old friend, enter The Bat!. It can do anything I need and had been developed continuously for years now. Using the trial version was - apart from initial weirdness about using CA certificates which are monitored internally by The Bat! - almost fun to me, GnuPG 2 works out of the box and the templating system (you can define complete templates for new e-mails, replies et al.) are for power mailers like me a must-have. You know you need it when you use it for the first time. :D

The Bat! was well worth the (reduced) ~ 20 ? for a full-featured Professional license (valid until version 6.0.99). I also get a Voyager (portable The Bat!) with the license, the very helpful and kind German community is one more reason to like it. The developers (RITLabs, a Moldovan company) replies to bug reports quite fast and fixes severe bugs in one of the following beta versions if possible. Also included: Profile encryption, schedulable backups of the complete application with all accounts, import from Thunderbird.

Of course The Bat! is mainly a mailing application. No NNTP, no RSS, only a rudimentary calendar without cloud synchronization. - Anyway, if you are a power user of RSS and/or calendars, you probably already use (like me) dedicated solutions. Compared to FeedDemon/RSSOwl and Rainlendar, Thunderbird's provided functions are sort of a joke.

As a side note here's some screenshot after having moved all mail accounts from Thunderbird into The Bat!:

Je ne regrette rien.

You are kindly allowed to make fun of me now.

[RadishTM]

Didn't have a look at Postbox?

[richardsim7]

Didn't have a look at Postbox?

I've been looking for a Thunderbird alternative (for email and RSS). I'll check these two out :)

[th3rEsa]

Postbox is Thunderbird with a bunch of plug-ins and a price tag added, right?

richardsim7: You should not use a mail client for RSS. Try RSSOwl. :)

[PNWDweller]

Postbox is Thunderbird with a bunch of plug-ins and a price tag added, right?

While I would say that Postbox is a glorified Thunderbird client with some plugins hard embedded into it, I would also say that now that Thunderbird has been shelved by Mozilla, Postbox will more than likely build upon the platform and enhance it far more or at least build a new base for their client.

[th3rEsa]

"Enhancing" does not always mean "improving".

[+warwagon]

I still use and LOVE thunderbird. I don't keep it open all the time. I just open it when trillian says I have new emails from GMail, 99% of which are emails from Neowin thread replies.Other than that I honesty don't get much email at all. If thunderbird sucked 300 megs of ram, I still wouldn't care. I have 12 gigs of the stuff.

[th3rEsa]

I have 8. Still, even Visual Studio takes less RAM than Thunderbird...

[richardsim7]

Postbox is Thunderbird with a bunch of plug-ins and a price tag added, right?

richardsim7: You should not use a mail client for RSS. Try RSSOwl. :)

But i like having both in one app ;)

[Packet1009]

th3rEsa, i do like your post - starting with 'Maybe anyone here cares' and ending with 'You are kindly allowed to make fun of me now'

just brilliant

[Southern Patriot]

Good lord, I didn't even know The Bat was still around. Haven't heard anything about it in over a decade. And what's this about Thunderbird being shelved? I haven't seen anything about that, and don't see anything on their web page about it.

[th3rEsa]

th3rEsa, i do like your post - starting with 'Maybe anyone here cares' and ending with 'You are kindly allowed to make fun of me now'

Thank you, Packet1009! I was serious.

Good lord, I didn't even know The Bat was still around. Haven't heard anything about it in over a decade.

Alive and kicking, the latest beta is from last week.

And what's this about Thunderbird being shelved?

https://blog.mozilla.org/beyond-the-code/2012/07/09/about-the-future-of-thunderbird/

[Southern Patriot]

Thank you, Packet1009! I was serious.

Alive and kicking, the latest beta is from last week.

https://blog.mozilla...of-thunderbird/

So, in other words, it isn't discontinued (i.e., shelved) at all, but just changing direction in development? Not really a big deal since Thunderbird has more features than most people even know what to do with as it is. They are continuing to release updates and bug fixes. Not exactly what I'd consider shelved at all.

[th3rEsa]

changing direction in development

In other terms: "Anyone who wants to take it may have it, we don't actively want it anymore."

Mozilla projects which are announced like this won't live much longer. We've had this a couple of times.

[Tuishimi]

Postbox (which I use) was originally based on thunderbird. The developers were thunderbird developers that left and decided to try and profit from their work.

It's pretty decent. Easier to look at and for the most part use. Plug ins are restricted.

I've looked at the Bat many times in the past (never installed, just studied the features and screen shots) but never really found a comprehensive review on it, or comparison to things like Thunderbird (mail aspect only). I'd like to hear/see more about your daily use of The Bat and the features you use most often (for example the templating you mentioned).

[th3rEsa]

Well, now you have a comparison. :D

My currently most-used other features are the very advanced filter manager (there's quite nothing it can't do, including regular expressions) and the seamless GnuPG 2 integration. In direct comparison to Thunderbird (without a dozen add-ons) it can do quite the same but with a better (from my POV) user interface. It all looks and feels more modern and more responsive. The one thing I still need to find out is the quality of The Bat!'s built-in junk filter. On the other hand, I can't really test that, can I?

My daily use of The Bat! is actually no real use. It sits in the notification area and gets an animated icon when there's new mail. (Sound notification is optional, I have not set it up yet.) :)

[+Gary7]

I am having no problems with Thunderbird 16.0.1 . It suits my needs. I was using Outlook 2010 but got tired of it.

[th3rEsa]

Thanks for the insight.