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Flock 1.0.3: Even wallflowers like social web browsers
Flock, the social web browser, recently passed its milestone 1.0 release. If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Why aren't more people using Flock?More importantly, why are we?
It's a good question. Strip Flock down and what you've got is a Firefox clone. You can do everything with Firefox that you can do with Flock, if you're inclined to add extension after extension. But when all is said and done, Flock is so much more than the sum of its parts.
Flock has two big draws. One, it's fast. Ever get that horrible lag in Firefox? You know the one... You've got six tabs open, and three are loading, and everything comes to a screeching halt trying to change tabs... You're just about to kill the Firefox instance and suddenly the tabs switch?
Okay, now try this. Add a bunch of extensions to Firefox, and see how the lag reacts. Once you've said your choice words, rebooted the computer, and have reconciled yourself to a life of pauses, fits and starts...
Try Flock. Most of the extensions you most likely added are integrated in the browser already. It's simply speedy.
The second big draw? Forget the "social browser" tag line. Sure, that's nice and all. But say we're geekily introverted, and we don't really care about that. The real selling point is that Flock is more like a "web desktop" than a "social web browser."
The most prominent example of this is the My World tab. Think of it as a uber-pumped aggregator. It's got your favorites, your RSS feeds, your media streams all on one page.
Flock has also rolled out native extensions. Are the days of downloading Firefox extensions and hoping they'll work in Flock gone? Not yet. The list of native Flock extensions is growing, however. It will be interesting to see which of the social networking extensions are integrated into the browser's next few releases.
Comments
5
Subscribe to commentsAndrewDec 13th 2007 9:00AM
Flock is awesome! It is a lot better than blogger's post editor.
Victor Agreda, Jr.Dec 13th 2007 9:13AM
the latest version of Flock also has the 1st default start page that I've ever not just removed-- it is, in fact, quite useful. As a browser, for doing research, Flock is a dream.
GeoffDec 13th 2007 9:59AM
I started using Flock back when it was a closed beta. I loved it, but it was really buggy. I wrote an app (Flocker) to convert Firefox extensions to Flock extensions. I haven't really touched Flock in a over a year and can't get over at how amazing it is now. They've done good work in the last year.
MatthewDec 13th 2007 2:17PM
I think the reason more people don't use Flock is because they don't use the features it focuses on. I know most of the readers here use Facebook, Flickr, and other social 2.0 apps, but most web users don't. As popular as Firefox is, it's still in a niche - and Flock has an even small subset of that niche. Flock's approach will always limit it's appeal to that sub-niche.
SJDec 13th 2007 4:14PM
I'd agree. While, I find does an amazing job for users involved with a myriad of social 2.0 apps/sites, beyond that, it's appeal is limited. That said, I love it when browsing Flickr with its media streamer.