Flock

Nowadays the internet is slowly becoming a larger part of our lives as each day passes. With us entering what is known as Web 2.0, webpages have long progressed past the point where they’re merely made up of text and images with a coloured background. Nowadays, with sites such as Youtube, Flickr, Livejournal, WordPress, etc, it has become all the more easier for web users to share digital content with one another. Flickr allows you to share digital photos with one another, Youtube goes one step further and allows you to share videos online while del.icio.us allows you to keep track of your bookmarks online so that you may access your favourite sites from any computer. Of course with this many sites all over the web that help you organise your digital content online, it’s still not easy to control all of them at once as they’re all seperate sites. Flock, a unique web browser that’s still in beta stages, aims to unite these sites under one browser so that you need not navigate from one site to another all the time.

Flock is based upon the Firefox browser and runs on Mac, Windows and Linux, thus you’ll be able to expect all the amazing features that Firefox 2.0 has, such as rearrangeable tabs, ad blocking, security, the great rendering engine, etc. no matter what operating system you are using. Unfortunately, Firefox plugins are not interchangeable with the Flock browser as they are totally different browsers. However, Flock itself has already a huge number of features built in and plugins are also being developed for it.

What sets Flock apart from the rest of the browsers out there? Well, it’s creators aptly call it a “social browser”. Basically, it is able to interact with a multitude of social networking services out there. For example Flickr, del.icio.us, Technorati, Photobucket and many others. Opening the “Accounts and Services” sidebar will show all the services available and also which services you own an account with. By logging into a social networking service and allowing Flock to keep a record of it, you’ll be able to make use of tefficient way. For example, if you have a blog set up with blogger, wordpress or any other blog hosting website, you are able to post to your blog through the browser itself without having to login to your dashboard by accessing the appropriate website. Furthermore, by right clicking on any image on the net, there’ll be an option to “Blog This” and the image will immediately open up in a “New Post” window which will then allow you to post the image to your blog instantaneously after you add some text if you want to. As you’re watching a video on Youtube, you can click on the video and embed it into a new blog post instantly as well. The possibilites are endless.

Furthermore, Flock also has something known as a “Media Bar”. It’s a scrolling bar at the top of your browser window. There, you’ll have the option of viewing all your favourite Youtube videos, your uploaded Flickr pictures, your Photobucket album or any other suitable media stream. This makes for a very interactive web browsing experience as you’re able to constantly view all sorts of digital content and easily share it with everyone through a blog. The possibilities are honestly endless as I’m far from done with listing all the features of Flock.

The default theme for Flock is also very eye catching and looks great, fitting in great with the style of being a “social browser”. Flock also has this homepage entitled “My World”. There you’ll be able to view all sorts of useful information, such as a few of your favourites, your recently visited sites, new articles from various RSS feeds, updates such as comments on your blogs, etc. My World is definitely a great starting place when you first fire up your web browser everyday, waiting to see what’s new on the web.

There are also many little useful features here and there that will undoubtedly make your web surfing experience all the more easier and fun. For example your recently searched terms and also suggested terms are listed nicely when you begin to type in the built-in search box. There is also a “Feeds” sidebar built into Flock, which already has a few default feeds in it. Obviously, you’ll be able to add your own feeds as you find those you like. In my opinion this is a much better way to read your RSS feeds since you’re able to do so in the sidebar itself, without having to open up an entire new window or tab just to go through your RSS feeds, just like what you would have to do with Firefox’s built-in RSS reader. Flock also has a special “Web Clipboard”, essentially, you’re able to easily drag and drop text or images to the clipboard anytime you’re surfing the web. When you feel the need to retrieve some of the content, you simply open up your web clipboard and drag out the text or image you need to a blog post or any other appropriate area. This makes it really easy to keep track of certain notes as you surf the web and you are also able to temporarily store images which you deem interesting for future use. All in all, a really great function that will ease the lives of many web surfers who are constantly having problems with organising random snippets of information which they gather as they surf around the massive world wide web.

While Flock is a relatively new browser, it is constantly being updated, and a version 1.0 release is not far away. Furthermore, extensions for Flock are also being developed. While Flock might never have the same number of extensions which Firefox does, it will still fulfill the needs of most people. Besides, those people who rely heavily on certain extensions in Firefox might as well stick to that browser, it’s probably the best browser there is now. However, for those of you who spend a lot of time on sites such as Youtube, Flickr, del.icio.us, etc. enjoying interesting digital content all the time, Flock might be a more useful browser for you rather than Firefox,

I haven’t been using Flock for very long, and I’m sure I’m far from discovering all the great features it has. Considering how it’s still in beta, I can only imagine what version 1.0 will be like. For those of you who are interested, you are able to find out more information about Flock at their official website. The latest version at the time of this writing is version 0.9.0.1 which contains all the features that I’ve talked about here and more. If you’re tired of Firefox’s endless extensions and simply need a browser that will help you easily organise your digital media online by integrating all the popular sites out there into one browser and thus allowing you to easily retrieve and share fun and exciting digital content with everyone else on the web, Flock is definitely the browser for you.