Emailing is the most popular way of sending messages via corporate email accounts. Definitely better than relying on Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Zoho Mail, ProtonMail and similar services. If you want to use a secure way of sending, and if you are dealing primarily with messages of a business nature, the most recommended way is to use business software. This will prevent spam from reaching your mailbox and the software will also warn you of unsafe messages before you open them.

There are several different mail clients available, and this time we are comparing Mozilla Thunderbird and Outlook, which are by far the most popular programmes for sending and receiving e-mail.

Outlook

Outlook is Microsoft’s personal data manager, available as a standalone app or as part of Office 2019 or Office 365. The latest version is Outlook 2019, but many people still use some of the older versions of Outlook.

The main feature is the email client, which includes a task manager, calendar, contact management, note-taking, diary and web search. Microsoft Outlook 2019 for Windows was released on 24 September 2018, at the same time as the version for Mac users.

Outlook works as a standalone application or in collaboration with Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SharePoint Server for larger organisations with multiple users sharing calendars and the like. You can also synchronise all features with Windows mobile phones.

Benefits of

• Supports POP, MSN, IMAP and Hotmail accounts;
• Microsoft Exchange Server;
• Integration of To-Do lists, email, calendar and updates from social networks;
• Microsoft SharePoint Server;
• Effective and powerful protection against spam and phishing attacks;
• Virtual folders, efficient search, mail groups and conversations for easier mail organisation.

Disadvantages of

• No useful sample or ready-made messages;
• Difficult to install Outlook;
• Does not allow the creation of folders, bookmarks or rulesby example;
• Not free as you have to buy the Microsoft Office suite.

Mozilla Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird is an open source e-mail platform created by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy grew out of the creation of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Thunderbird was released on 28 July 2003, in 53 languages. The operating system is a “cross-platform link wiki” with the C++ programming language. In the first three days, 500 000 downloads were recorded and in ten days 1 million downloads.

Thunderbird is a news, email and information utility. It can manage multiple e-mail accounts and supports multiple users within an account. It provides features such as search for saved (virtual) files, quick search, advanced mail filtering, mail group creation, tagging to help manage and search messages.

Thunderbird provides IMAP and POP and LDAP address termination. It supports standard S/MIME, OpenPGPG and extensions such as Enigmail. A list of supported IMAP extensions for Thunderbird can be found here.

Benefits

• Provides security firewalls, spam filters and antivirus features;
• More flexible than Outlook;
• Efficient removal of spam using Bayesian filtering;
• Thunderbird views, filters, quick search, tags and smart folders in help with email management;
• Mozilla is free on any operating system;
• Possible use for Windows and Mac users;
• Supports IMAP, POP and SMTP;
• RSS news feed.

Disadvantages

• Mozilla Thunderbird does not show related messages, documents, posts, etc;
• The RSS news reader could be better integrated to increase the power of Thunderbird;
• The application could be better at recommending tags and replying to emails.

In the end, more people usually choose Thunderbird – mainly because it offers more features (security protection, privacy, firewall) and it is free. It is also recommended by most web hosting providers.

Although Thunderbird and Outlook support several types of mail accounts, Thunderbird allows you to search faster and filter your mail by date or contact. In addition, Mozilla Thunderbird offers many more extensions than Outlook.