Many users of the free email application, Thunderbird, have been waiting for the release of version 3.0. Well the wait is over. Thunderbird 3.0 is released and boasting some cool new features.

Thunderbird is a powerful email client. However, like it's brother Firefox, Thunderbird has a user community creating tons of great add-ons to enhance Thunderbird's functionality. Doc shows us where to

find add-ons for Thunderbird

and how to install them.

E-mail privacy is important to you... and if it's not, it probably should be. Think about all the private and personal information that's sent through email. Think too that an email is considered to be as good as a signature in an increasing number of situations and jurisdictions and email security becomes that much more important. Thunderbird protects your email security and privacy by putting you in control.

Spam or other junk mail

is the bane of e-mail users everywhere. It seems that spammers never tire of trying to find new ways to infiltrate your inbox. Thunderbird quickly learns what is and what is not spam to make sure you're not bothered by as much of this email annoyance.

The Thunderbird address book is where you'll keep all your online and offline contacts organized. If you're making the

switch to Thunderbird

from Outlook, Eudora or another email client you can easily

import your contacts and even your mail and settings

from said email client.

Even when you keep your inbox organized with folders, things sometimes go missing. You know you got an email about an upcoming project, but you can't seem to find it.

Searching email in Thunderbird

is a quick way to

recover a lost email

; if you remember a few words, you can punch them into the search box and quickly

find that missing email

.

Folders are a simple way to

organize your inbox

. You can keep all your work emails straight, your personal emails sorted and your other emails organized. Thunderbird offers a variety of folder options that make it easy to

take control of your inbox

and

keep your email inbox organized

.

Whether you get a little bit of email or a lot it helps to have it organized using a good system. Thunderbird makes it easy to tag and filter your email. This way, you can

keep your inbox organized

and

filter email in Thunderbird

.

Cheryl Poirier, AKA Miss Download, takes a close look at Mozilla's Thunderbird 2, from the same people that brought us the Firefox browser. She's loving the email labeling and foldering system as well as the search field and the Thunderbird add-ons that power up your email experience.

Chances are, you have

multiple email addresses

. One for personal, one given to you by the office, one for social networking, perhaps one that's just for family and close friends. Thunderbird makes it easy to set up and manage multiple email accounts. You can even easily set up your free email accounts like Hotmail, Yahoo! and

Gmail in Thunderbird

. Here's how.

Whether you get a little bit of email or a lot it helps to have it organized using a good system. Thunderbird is an email client from the Mozilla Foundation, the same folks that produce Firefox. It's loaded with cool features to help you do email with as little fuss as possible. This 10-part series will cover some of the basics.

In this week's

The Sweet Stuff: Software

, Doc Callahan wages his own

browser war

and takes a look at

five free Web browsers

. Sometimes the lowly

Web browser

is taken for granted, but for most of us, the the browser is the program we interact with most on our computers.

Our ten-part series on the Firefox browser gets in-depth, up close and personal with Mozilla's browser. This browser is available on Windows and Mac platforms as well as Linux and has gained significant market share in the past couple of years. It's time to figure out what the fuss is about!

Our ten-part series on the Firefox browser gets in-depth, up close and personal with Mozilla's browser. This browser is available on Windows and Mac platforms as well as Linux and has gained significant market share in the past couple of years. It's time to figure out what the fuss is about!

In this

10 part video tutorial on setting up and using Thunderbird as your email client

, Michael "Doctor File Finder" Callahan runs us through the basics of getting started with

Mozilla's email client

. We look at

how to add email accounts to Thunderbird

, including

how to add a Gmail account to Thunderbird

, dealing with

email privacy

,

managing spam in Thunderbird

and much more.