Mozilla Thunderbird 2 takes flight

Mozilla on Thursday launched Thunderbird 2, the latest version of its free, open-source e-mail client featuring message tagging and customization.

Thunderbird 2, with its enhanced features, is intended to ease the organization of e-mail via message tags, advanced folder viewing, and speedier inbox and message searching.

Under its message tagging feature, users can assign single or multiple custom tags to their e-mail, such as "from mom" or "weekend projects." Users would also be able to assign default tags, as well.

"In Thunderbird 2, we incorporated the proven benefits of tagging to e-mail," Scott MacGregor, Mozilla's lead engineer for Thunderbird, said in a statement. "Tagging initially gained popularity on blogs, photo and link-sharing sites as an intuitive way to organize online information."

Thunderbird 2's customization features are designed to allow users to create their own message template, or use any hundreds of free add-ons to change the appearance and functionality of their e-mail client.

Thunderbird 2 also includes a backward-forward function to browse messages, and allows users to save e-mail searches in folders for reuse.