Mozilla Thunderbird Portable 3.1.10

From the makers of the popular web browser Firefox, Thunderbird is a powerful email program and this is the portable version that can be installed onto a USB key.

Installation is simple. You can either run this download to install Thunderbird Portable into a folder of your choice, or install it into the PortableApps launcher. The latter is slightly easier to use because it comes with a menu so you don't have to make your own shortcuts.

Adding email accounts is easy as Thunderbird Portable normally only requires your email address and password. It has presets for popular email providers so there's no need to know the name or settings of the server for accounts such as Gmail or Windows Live among others. These settings can be tweaked if necessary.Gmail defaults to IMAP access, which is the right choice over POP3 when available.

We were also very pleased to see that Thunderbird now leaves emails on the server by default. It can be disconcerting to have a webmail account emptied by setting it up in Thunderbird.

The email view is fairly standard with folders on the right, a list of emails and a preview at the bottom. Opening an email reveals the big difference of Thunderbird Portable 3, tabs. This helps reduce clutter on the desktop by keeping all your email work together in one place.

Thunderbird also has a search bar at the top of the window for quickly finding messages.

There is a spam filter and Thunderbird Portable automatically blocks images in emails, which is a useful form of privacy protection.

Thunderbird Portable isn't just for emails as it can also be used to keep up with news using RSS.

While Thunderbird Portable is very convenient, you should be aware of the information that could be found if you lose the USB key with it on. You should set a master password at the very least, if not actually decide not to save any passwords.