George Files

Flock - Firefox with inbuilt blogging, photo uploading and more

I was going through another browser fight article which detailed why one browser was better than the other and stuff like that, when I came across a link to Flock. Since the beginning of time I’ve tried many Mozilla-based different browsers including the original Mozilla, the now-transmogrified Firebird and the spin-off Seamonkey, and though they were nice, they were basically improved version of one basic idea, simply, browse the web. Firefox later got the WebDeveloper’s extension and some nice things. Yet, in essence, it’s still just a browser.

Flock, on the other hand, seems to be designed with interactivity in mind (probably keeping in mind the new buzzword, Web 2.0).

So what’s Flock got that Firefox doesn’t?

• A lovely blue theme as default
• Right click on a page and Click “Blog This” and you can blog to your Wordpress, LiveJournal, Typepad, Drupal, and many others.
• Upload photos directly from your browser. (I like this very much, would love it if it allowed Imageshack)
• A very pretty newsreader, which is very functional
• You can automatically share your favourites on certain pages
• Search as you type in the Search box (I wish it would use Google, but Yahoo is ok)
• Comes default with a one-click “add favourite” button that fits in nicely
• I can testify to it working on FC4 and Ubuntu (not quite a feature, eh?)

So what’s wrong with it? Why not just use it instead of Firefox, it has all of Firefox’s features too, right?
Well, the biggest problem with flock now is, most extensions and themes from Firefox are incompatible with Flock, they just don’t work or cause problems. That’s a biggie and I don’t see it becoming big until that’s solved.

Still, I’ll be watching Flock, it is a good idea, I like it, and maybe I’ll get it when it reaches 1.0

Posted by roshan.george under Internet |