14 DAY TRIAL // Along with Firefox 10, Mozilla has also released Thunderbird 10, as always. Apart from the improvements to Gecko 10, which benefit both Thunderbird and Firefox, the email client comes with several specific new features.
The most touted addition is the ability to search the web within Thunderbird if you so desire. The idea seems to be to make it easier to search for something, maybe some background info, without having to open the browser to do so.
The email search has also gotten some improvements. Thunderbird 10 comes with some fixes to the draft feature and, of course, the usual number of stability and security fixes.
"The new Thunderbird, available in 52 different languages, is based on the Mozilla Gecko 10 engine and includes improvements to searching your emails and a new ability to search the Web directly within Thunderbird," Mozilla explained.
"Users can simply type whatever comes to mind in Thunderbird’s search box and choose from several different search engines such as Google, Bing, Twitter, and Wikipedia. Search results will conveniently be displayed in a new tab in Thunderbird.
"Users can also select terms in their email and then right click to initiate a web search on those terms," it added.
Apart from this, there aren't that many changes in the latest Thunderbird, to be expected given the short release cycle.
Mozilla also released a security update Thunderbird 3.1.18 for users still running the old version. This is the last such update though, Thunderbird 3.1 will no longer be supported after April 24. After that, users either have to update or continue to use the old and unsecure version.
A better alternative is Mozilla Thunderbird ESR, which receives security fixes for a full year. Similar to the Firefox ESR, this build was created to help enterprises and organizations that use open source software, but can't upgrade every six weeks.