RSSSocial types Flock to Firefox-based browser
By Angela Gunn | Published October 20, 2008, 2:37 PM
It lacks access to Firefox's vast collection of add-ons, but if your time online centers around social networking, Flock's browser may already have precisely the features you need.
The Flock browser is designed to manage one's ever-expanding presence on social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and Twitter, along with more traditional online conduits such as Yahoo Mail and Gmail. The software's available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux; for now only English users have a 2.0 version available for download, but there are currently 15 international versions of the previous 1.2.6 edition.
Our installation experience was normative. On first startup, the software requests sign-on information for whichever of over 20 services you choose to manage through the browser. Once that information's in place, the browser automatically queries each service and keeps you abreast of mail, messages, all your friends' status updates, photos, the Digg cavalcade, and so on.
Since it's built on Firefox, it shares the important Firefox key combinations, and import of Firefox bookmarks, cookies and passwords was seamless. (Import support for IE is also available.) But if you're attached to various Firefox add-ons and themes or even those for the older version of Flock, the new version's going to hurt your feelings. Earlier versions of Flock themes aren't yet available for the 2.0 version; the site says that they'll be updated eventually. At press time, meanwhile, just two extensions were available -- Me.dium, a friend-tracking application, and the self-explanatory Screenshot.
Our testing was delayed for several days while the world waited for a Twitter-related fix to the browser; Flock's support staff did a decent job of keeping users posted on the support forums, which appear to be well-monitored. We tested the browser's ability to track Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Myspace, as well as Twitter, plus e-mail accounts on Google and Yahoo. Flock juggled our feeds gracefully; we saw no evidence that messages weren't reaching us even via the notoriously flaky Twitter, and our options for updating our own accounts were straightforward, since as a last resort the sites for the various systems are just a click and a tab away. We experienced one (deliberate) crash, and the browser recovered all our tabs and settings perfectly.
If there's any problem with Flock, it's that it doesn't take into account that some of us still use the Web for tasks other than social networking. Tabs are clear enough, but a plug-in allowing multicolored tabs (a la Firefox's ColorfulTabs) would make them easier to keep organized; same goes for multiple rows of tabs a la the indispensable Tab Mix Plus. Users can currently scroll their open tabs from side to side, but frankly it's not the same.
More significantly, the social-network monitoring mojo in Flock is so central to its appeal that having an important network missing is annoying. The option to monitor my BetaNews e-mail account would have been nice, but it's the absence of LinkedIn support that really got on our nerves. But the version is young, and it's no small thing to stand just a few add-ons away from social networking nirvana.
Can we possibly '' have few'er contractions in our ar'ticles when they aren'''''''t necessary? It is very d'isconcer'ting to read a news article' with so 'many.
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Just installed it. Folder's there...but no "Flock.exe" and a lot of broken shortcuts to it.
Neat-o.
Maybe I should try the "Custom" install....is there an option for including the actual application executable?
Nope. (During "Launch Flock"...it deletes "Flock.exe")
How cute...
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?! Can't wait to hear what that's about; both my PC and Mac installations were smooth as could be. Mac smoother than PC, yes, but like I said, normative. Well, good luck and report back if you choose to try again; I'd certainly be curious to hear if you can replicate the problem...
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Did the install 3 times. Even showed a co-worker.
Same thing every time. Did manage to copy the "Flock.exe" file out of the folder before it got deleted prior to launching it. Copied it back in, and it seems to work fine.
This is in a VM, used for messing around online. Not much installed other than a dozen or so browsers. :p (Virtualbox 1.5.2...networking seems to be slightly hosed in later versions)
I'll have to download FRAPS and install it. It's quite amusing to watch. Youtube posting, perhaps?
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Actually, Tab Mix Plus will work with it. I have the newest version of the extension (0.3.7.3) installed right now and am not having any problems at all. ^__^
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Are you?! I will try again; I had trouble when I tried it for myself, but I did have some things running that might have interfered. (Trouble with a TMP installation is not, alas, unheard of in this office. And yet one cannot live without it; wish Firefox itself would decide to build in that functionality...) (ETA: Working! And that's a nice fresh build, too; Sunday was a good day.)
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Glad to hear that it is working for you. ^__^
Tab Mix Plus is a thing of beauty for any Firefox/Flock installation. ^__^
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