It has been my go-to email client since then. If you decide to try it know that the current release is rock solid and shouldn't provide any real challenges to set up and use.
When you set it up you'll have to enter your email address along with your how you want your name displayed and your password for your email account. Most popular email providers will be directly supported and the setup process will set everything up for you properly based on your email address in all likelihood. Once you get it set up then all existing email on the email server will automatically download to your computer. If you reply to any of the names or email addresses from those emails (or any future emails that you receive from people not already in your addressbook) then those names and addresses will be automatically added to an addressbook folder named "Collected Addresses". Any emails that you want to send out to new people who are not already in the addressbook will be added to another folder named "Personal addressbook". If you wish you can copy the collected addresses (one, multiple or all) to the personal addresses folder in order to keep them all in one location though it isn't necessary. And, like with web email when you compose a new email a list of anyone in your addressbook alphabetically similar will automatically pop up for alphabetical selection.
I find having a separate email client is more flexible for my use case so ymmv. I have 3 different email addresses and each of them can be set up in one single Thunderbird window where the 3 different webmail pages would require 3 different tabs in a web browser which sometimes could get confusing. But that is my use case and may not be applicable to you.
I use gmail as my primary email provider. One thing that the Chrome web interface for gmail does not do that I use a lot with Thunderbird involves writing emails. In the Chrome browser the compose window is "locked" to the gmail web page - I can't move it off or outside of the gmail webpage. With Thunderbird the compose window is separate window and it can be dragged to the side and outside of the Thunderbird application window. This allows me to compose an email while simultaneously referring to a webpage in my web browser that might be relaying useful information for use in the email that I'm composing or replying to. I'm using Thunderbird in my linux setup at the moment so I checked my wife's notebook with Windows 10 on it and the Chrome compose message window acts the same way in Windows 10 (bound to the gmail webpage). Maybe there's a way (a particular key combination maybe?) that allows you to detach the compose window in Chrome but I don't know if that is possible. It has been years since I've used a web browser to access my other two email providers so I don't know if the compose window in Chrome is locked to the browser window for them. For me, having that separate compose window in Thunderbird is essential and is definitely time saving.
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