I thought this year I might finally change to Thunderbird, but a friend of mine said that it's being kinda phased out as now everything is moving online
Your friend smells of wee.
I use Thunderbird as my central email... er.. thingie, and get any webmails either checked via POP3 or forwarded to another one that is.
It's all good, I promise. Thumbs up for GoogleMail (if you're into that sorta thing).