by , 12:00 PM EST, February 10th, 2004

Mozilla.org has released updates to two of its so-called "Technology Preview" applications, Firefox and Thunderbird. Firebird, now known as Firefox, was renamed after a dispute involving an open-source database project by the same name. Firefox's new features include a download manager, improved bookmark management, an "offline" mode, and an installer for the Windows version.

From the Firefox release notes:

• Windows Installer

  Firefox now comes with an installer for Windows. Aside from making the installation process smoother, the installer also solves some common plug-in problems.

• Download Manager

  The new streamlined download manager keeps your downloads organized without getting in your way. Select Tools > Downloads or press Ctrl+E to see it or change its behavior.

• New Add Bookmark Dialog

  The Add Bookmark dialog has been enhanced and now allows the creation of new bookmark folders.

• Work Offline

  It's now possible to view Web pages you've previously visited without being connected to the Internet.

• Better Handling of File Types

  Binary files (e.g. .wma and .rar files) served by servers incorrectly sending text/plain should no longer be displayed as garbage in the browser, rather they should be appropriately handled.

• New XPInstall Frontend

  The dialog that appears when installing themes and extensions has been redesigned and is easier to use.

• New default theme for MacOS X

  The Pinstripe theme integrates better on MacOS X than the Qute theme, used on Windows and Linux.

• Lots of bug fixes and improvements

  Disabling of form auto-completion is now working, the address bar now remembers the edited text across tab switching, among many other bug fixes.

From the Thunderbird release notes:

• New Features

  We now support the notion of multiple identities per mail account. This makes it easy to have several email addresses which end up going into the same account. Read More about how to hook this up.

  Thunderbird 0.5 includes Secure Password Authentication using a new cross-platform NTLM authentication mechanism for POP3 and SMTP.

  Option to turn on the Mozilla 1.x style folder columns in Thunderbird (Tools / Options / Advanced / General Settings).

  A new Palm Sync Address book conduit is now available for 0.5. You can now do a one way sync, PC -> Palm or Palm -> PC, by changing the hot sync conduit setup. We now prevent duplicate cards in Thunderbird address books when syncing with Palm categories. Numerous improvements with the initial sync.

  A new, improved version of the offline extension is now available for 0.5. Please read the installation notes in this document about how to first uninstall old extensions.

  Improved Spell Checker including a new US dictionary.

  Ability to paste names or addresses from a spreadsheet directly into the addressing widget of a new compose window.

  Improved profile migration from Netscape 4.x.

• Recently Fixed Bugs

  If a new message arrives while you are reading a message, we no longer scroll the message body back to the top.

  When saving an IMAP attachment, we no longer re-download the attachment from the server.

  Saving an attachment now brings up a standalone progress window.

  Copying a message to a Sent Folder now shows progress in the progress window.

  When saving or opening an attachment, the progress dialog now reports accurate progress information.

  We now mark IMAP messages read in a folder if they are deleted or moved to another folder. This fixes incorrect unread counts when checking folders other than the Inbox for new messages.

  LDAP searches now honor the directory search filter property.

  Ability to paste a single cell of data from Microsoft Excel into the compose window body.

  Problems with IMAP folders three levels deep not showing up when you are not using the IMAP subscription model.

  Tools / Options / Attachments / Attachment Folder setting is now remembered.

  Linux builds no longer crash when viewing HTML messages requiring a JAVA plugin.

  Improved handling of apple double encoded attachments from OSX clients.

  No more new mail alert notifications when all incoming messages are Junk.

  "Remove from server after x days" has been implemented for POP3 mail accounts.

• Performance Improvements

  Faster folder loading.

• Improved Stability and Polish

  This release is based on the Mozilla App-Suite 1.6 final branch and includes all of the stability work that went into Mozilla 1.6.

Downloads for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows can be found at the Firefox and Thunderbird home pages. A list of mirrors is also available.

Mozilla.org