The third early release of Thunderbird (code-named “Shredder”) is now available. This release is called “alpha 3″ to emphasize its early nature and that it is not suited to regular, daily use. The alpha is available for testers, extension developers, and other people who are curious to follow the development of the next release of Thunderbird. Shredder Alpha 3 includes initial versions of some new features, and you can find more details on the release page and notes.

Mozilla Messaging announced the release of Thunderbird “Shredder” Alpha 2 on August 12th. “Shredder Alpha 2 is a developer preview release for the next major version of Thunderbird that is built on top of the next generation of Mozilla’s layout engine, Gecko 1.9. Shredder Alpha 2 is being made available for testing purposes only and is intended for developers and our testing community. This release does not represent the final product. Some of the features are highly experimental and will likely change before final release. Please do not use Shredder Alpha 2 in a production environment.” For more information, including further release details, a list of features and enhancements, FAQs, and download links, please see the Shredder Alpha 2 Release Notes.