Beside Firefox, Mozilla has another great product, a real competitor to Microsoft’s Outlook e-mail client. If you didn’t tried already Thunderbird, may the time has come, because Mozilla has launched the version 1.5 of Thunderbird.

Renowned for its intelligent spam filters and customizable views, Thunderbird has attracted more than 18 million downloads since its launch in December 2004. Thunderbird 1.5 is the culmination of a year’s worth of feedback from its users and delivers a safe, fast and easy-to-use email solution.

According to Mozilla, Thunderbird 1.5 features several enhancements, including:

Streamlined and Automated Updates: Thunderbird 1.5’s new software update mechanism streamlines product upgrades, making it easier for users to get the latest security and feature updates to Thunderbird. Thunderbird automatically downloads these small updates in the background and prompts users when they are ready for installation.

Greater Spam Control and Security: Thunderbird 1.5’s refined spam filtering helps users block out unwanted junk email. Its new built-in “phishing” detector helps protect users against email scams by flagging suspicious email messages.

Enhanced Support for RSS and Podcasting: Thunderbird’s support for RSS allows users to receive feed updates as email messages, filtering and organizing these updates as they would ordinary email. Thunderbird 1.5 also allows users to access podcasts via a dialog box that provides access to a “helper” application such as a Web browser or audio player.