Mozilla Thunderbird UI Going Downhill

Although Mozilla announced they would no longer be supporting their Thunderbird mail client as of last summer, it remained in my mind a decent free client, especially for Windows where decent free mail clients seem hard to find.

This week when I had the opportunity to escape Microsoft Outlook I downloaded Thunderbird and discovered however that some sloppy, ugly UI has crept in. The worst of this is the new rounded tabs.

Yuk. Radius way to big for any tab of that size that jars with the hard cut-off on the far left. General inconsistent spacing and margins.

Perhaps someone drew inspiration from Google Chrome, if so it’s a poor imitation. Chrome seems to do it’s own thing no matter what platform it’s on which may not work well for some, but it’s undeniably neatly laid out. What’s worse is the previous simple tabs (similar if not the same as the ones on Firefox) did the job well, and looked tidy without drawing any negative attention.

I’m now giving PostBox a go. So far so good, I’m using it on a free trial. $9.95 seems reasonable for a quick Windows mail client without garish UI. Intend to upgrade towards the end of my 30 days unless I come across something better in the meantime.