Starting with Thunderbird 9.0 Beta 3 (released November 25, 2011) hardware acceleration is now turned off by default. While the premise was good to allow Thunderbird 5.0 and newer to utilize video hardware acceleration, for many user it caused issues including blurry fonts. Thunderbird 9 Beta can be downloaded from the Mozilla Thunderbird builds page.
Thunderbird 7
Read More
Much like Firefox, there are some unofficial 64-Bit builds for Thunderbird. They can be found here. However, at this time the most latest version is Thunderbird 7.0.0 (release is 8.0.0). As with any other developmental build, use at your own risk and ideally with a separate profile (this where ProfileMaanger can come in handy). Thanks to Bob Slim for the tip.
Bug 701875 was created a few days ago to address a major issue with Windows and Gecko 2.0 (Firefox 4.0+/Thunderbird 5.0+). omni.jar is a core file for Gecko 2.0 versions of Firefox and Thunderbird. From MDN: Firefox 4 and Thunderbird 3.3 achieve performance improvements by moving many of their internal parts from being standalone files or sets of JAR files into just one JAR file called omni.jar; this reduces the amount of I/O needed to load the application. This issue is no fault of Mozilla’s rather Microsoft Windows. It seems the Window’s System Restore does not backup .jar files. Trying…
Thunderbird 8 has been released on November 8th, 2011. Current Thunderbird 7.0.1 users can update via Help > About Thunderbird. Lightning users, after you have updated to Thunderbird 8.0, your calendars will be broken. To fix this go Tools > Add-ons and then in your add-ons list, find and right-click on Lightning, selecting Find Updates. Lightning will update to version 1.0 and once you restart Thunderbird, your calendars will be working again. Users can also manually download Thunderbird 8.0 via getthunderbird.com and then install over your existing Thunderbird 7.0.x install. For more information as to what’s new in Thunderbird 8.0,…
With the recent releases of Thunderbird to the Daily, Earlybird and Beta channels, there are updates for both Lightning and Provider for Google Calendar (gdata-provider) add-ons. You can not at this time update via the Thunderbird add-ons manager, you will need to manually download and install the correct version for both add-ons in order to get your calendar working again in your developmental version of Thunderbird. Thunderbird 7 users are able to use the most up to date version of these add-ons which should have already been updated. For those using Thunderbird 8 Beta, Thunderbird 9 Earlybird or Thunderbird 10…
Mozilla has released to Beta Channel Thunderbird 8 on October 4, 2011. What’s new in Thunderbird 8 Beta includes: Add-ons installed by third party programs are now disabled by default Added a one-time add-on selection dialog to manage previously installed add-ons Improved accessibilty of the attachment lists Several user interface fixes and improvements and numerous other platform fixes Thunderbird Beta 7 users should be able to update via Help > About Thunderbird or may download and install Thunderbird 8 Beta manually here. Source: Mozilla Developer’s Center
Just Released Thunderbird 3.1.15 - September 27th Thunderbird 7.0 - September 27th Thunderbird 7.0.1 -September 30th Thunderbird 9 Earlybird - September 30th Coming Soon Thunderbird 3.1.16 - TBA Thunderbird 8 Beta - Early October 2011 Thunderbird 9 Beta - November 8th* Thunderbird 10 Earlybird - November 8th* Future Releases Thunderbird 9 Final Release - December 20th Thunderbird 10 Beta - December 20th* Thunderbird 11 Earlybird - December 20th* * As part of the new Rapid Release Schedule, dates listed for Earlybird and Beta builds reflect when the code merge is to begin. The actual release to that particular channel may…
Mozilla has release an emergency update for Thunderbird 7.0 on September 30th. This release addressed issues with some add-ons disappearing when users updated to Thunderbird 7.0 release. This is the same issue that also affected the Firefox 7.0 release earlier this week which was addressed with the Firefox 7.0.1 update on September 29th.
Mozilla Messaging has released Thunderbird 7.0 to all users on September 27th, 2011. New stuff in Thunderbird 7.0 include: Thunderbird is based on the new Mozilla Gecko 7 engine Several user interface fixes and improvements Several fixes to attachment handling Ability to print a summary of selected email messages Platform improvements to Address Book Fixed several security issues Numerous platform fixes that improve speed, performance and stability Thunderbird 6.0.x users can update via Help > About Thunderbird or can download Thunderbird 7.0 here. The next major release will be in another six-weeks on November 8, 2011 with Thunderbird 8.0 which…
Mozilla has released an update version of Thunderbird 7 on the Beta channel today. Existing Thunderbird 7 users can update via Help > About Thunderbird or download directly here. Unless anything major happens before the end of the week, this build will likely end up being the released version of Thunderbird 7 on September 27th.