Flock To The Social Browser

Flock is a free Web browser that makes it easier than ever to share photos, stay up-to-date with news from your favorite sites, and search the Web. Flock gives users control over their Web experience by integrating a variety of Web applications and services into its browser, and making participation online easy.

Version 1.0 beta includes the People sidebar for managing your friends’ lists, a media bar showing the latest uploads from you and your friends, several usability and stability fixes as well as the latest security patches from Mozilla.

I have a secret: I’m so impressed with this beta that I’ve done something I didn’t see myself anytime soon: I’ve dumped Opera as my primary gateway to the Web. I absolutely love this 1.0 beta. I have downloaded and used previous versions of Flock, only to be uninstalled the next day, but I am going to keep this one.

A few of the features that make Flock a different browser from IE, Firefox, or Opera include integration with Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube; a Web clipboard; blogging feature (That I have used to type this review); and better RSS and bookmarks.

If you are addicted to Facebook, like me, Flock’s Facebook-related features alone might make it worth switching from whatever browser you use. You get a sidebar with links to all your friends, messages, invites, your status, and other key Facebook stuff; it sites to the left of the main browser window and lets you monitor your Facebook life without having to go to Facebook. Using the horizontal Media Bar, you can also browse your friend’s Facebook photos. I can think of ways Flock’s Facebook integration could be even better, but it is good enough right now.

If you have a Flickr account (which I think everyone has except for myself), you can upload photos to Flickr on Flock and use the Media Bar to browse your Flickr friends’ streams using features built into the browser. One of the best things about Flock is that it is a souped-up variant of Firefox so it is full of familiar and useful features as well as new ones. Flock says that “most” Firefox extensions will work properly in Flock. I have only tried one extension (Meebo) and that worked well. Flock says you should receive a warning if you encounter a non Flock-friendly extension.

I must stress that Flock is a beta, so if you download it only to expect perfect browsing experience, you might be a little disappointed. I have run into a few problems of things not working, as they should; nothing to critical to stop me from using this well thought-out browser. Problems and all, this is an impressive update and look forward to further improvements and additional features as time progresses.