AskLG

Well according to Chris Null and AT&T, the internet will hit “full capacity” in the year 2010.  Read more about the doomsday for the internet here.

When my new MacBook Pro came in December, I decided to try something new. In this case, it was Flock. I have tried it out in its wee-bit early stages, but it wasn’t yet stable enough for daily use. Now that a few revisions have come down the pipe and I have used it for a few months, I can officially endorse its awesomeness. Well, granted awesomeness is even a word.

What is Flock?

For those not quite savvy on the what Flock is, lets talk about it. First and foremost, Flock is an internet browser. So it competes with Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari/Webkit. It is actually based on the same code Firefox is which means everything Firefox can do, so can Flock. So what’s the big deal? Flock takes a different angle on the web market scheme rather than just delivering you the internet page you oh so love. It wants you to be a social butterfly.  While it won’t completely help your unsocial self, It does have tools that link your browser quite conveniently with social services you might use already. These services are places such as: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Flickr, Magnolia, Delicious, and so forth.

So, Here’s what I like:

1. Its just Firefox, but with a sexy face lift.

Generally speaking, anything you can do in Firefox can also be achieved in Flock. That includes Extensions/Add-Ons, live bookmarking, and whatever else you do. Tapping into all those Firefox Extensions was huge for Flock.  The Flock community also builds other extensions just for Flock so it has two sources of add-on glory.  Here’s a look at the user interface:

2. Its really easy to Get Started

You have all this stuff setup on you old browser and you’re too lazy to set it up again. Thats OK, Flock imports all that junk on installation. At least it does Firefox (haven’t tried any others).  Yes, Flock does import all extensions as well.  See:

3. Its social!

You can easily hook up with most social sites. They are introduced in an unobtrusive manner so its not annoying/counter productive. I’ve actually found myself spending less time on these sites since Flock makes using these quite efficient. Supported Services are: Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Photobucket, Piczo, Blogger, Blogsome, LiveJournal, Typepad, Wordpress, Xanga, Delicious, and Magnolia. MySpace support is in the works for all those wondering. Setting up these services involves (in most cases) just visiting the website and logging in.  Once logged in, Flock recognizes the site and asks permission to link the browser with that account.  When you log out and log back in once more, it is completely setup.  Simple, indeed.

4. Searching made easy.

Just like most browsers these days, Flock has a miniature search box to the right of the address box. It also allows you to search from any site that has a search box. For example, I visited YouTube and clicked on the “Add Search” button. Now anytime I want to search for a Video instead of going to Google/Yahoo, I can use YouTube. I also setup Wikipedia about a month ago. Pretty much any search box can be used, so Flock is quite tailorable to your interests which makes finding what you want much quicker.  This is what was resulting when I searched for Flock.  Obviously, you can search any of search engine installed as well as view pages you have previously visited.

5. Flock handles media well. Very well.

I admit this probably goes under the 3rd point, but the media stuff is cool enough to have its own section. I can view any of my friends images from Facebook, Flickr and such without actually visiting those websites. It comes in a nice little banner across the top of the page which is scroll-able and search-able. This allows me to quickly find any image I’m looking for. Once found, I can click on it to visit the site hosting it. Flock also provides ways to upload your images. Its very easy to do, completely tag-able, and just plain nice.  Speaking of images, there is a built in web clipboard.  You can drag any image, text or link to the clipboard for convenient safekeeping or later use.  Here is the search-able, configurable media bar:

There must be a catch. What’s wrong with it?

Yes, Flock is very powerful indeed but it has some flaws. First, the blog writer doesn’t work well on AskLG. I have a self-hosted Wordpress blog. It does correctly post, but tags are improperly posted. This makes it unusable for my purposes. Sometimes, Flock alerts me up updates when those updates aren’t there. That isn’t a very big issue though, but I’m a perfectionist so I’ll complain about it. Finally, I loathe the RSS reader. Maybe I’m spoiled using Google Reader, but Flock’s RSS reader is out of date. It would be nice if Flock could link up with some popular readers to provide content through them. That idea is probably out of the realm of Flock’s powers though, since most haven’t released an API as of yet.

But you still like it?

Overall I love Flock. I use it daily. I will continue to use it, and I recommend you start. Just visit Flock.com, download, and enjoy.  When you do, be sure to hit me up on Twitter or Flickr or something of that sort. Its time to be social people, join the community.