Today saw the official launch of Flock 1.0 (downloadable here), the web browser based on Mozilla’s Firefox, and to be fair on them…they’ve have done a fantastic job and for the foreseeable future, I’m sticking with these guys. The interface hasn’t changed all that much in comparison to other recent versions but in terms of features, bugs & overall social enjoyment…they’ve really upped the ante and built a great browser.

I’ll run through a few of the features which has converted me away from firefox (& safari).

Favorite Features:

1. People: Currently allows you to view your ‘friend’ updates a la facebook & twitter. Yes, there are firefox addons that do this but none with quite as integrated a feel as this. I’ll be saying this a few times during this post, but original integration i.e. the fact that these features are built into flock, really do make a difference in comparison to the pretty unstable addons firefox allows you.
With the facebook inclusion, you can do virtually every action you please from pokes to giving gifts within one click. You can also have one click access to your messages, pokes, friend requests and sharing anything with facebook friends is easier than ever (you can simply drag & drop the image, video, link onto their profile pic in your sidebar…this works for both facebook & twitter).

Another great feature their facebook integration allows is the ability to view the media (videos & pics) from your friends facebook profiles and store them within your browser in your ‘media bar’. I’ll come back to this in just a moment & explain in better detail what i’m talking about.
With regards to twitter, you can do the basics (message, nudge & view profile), but let’s face it… twitter is basic, but lucky for them that’s what everyone loves about it!

The Media Bar:
This bar sits underneath your tabs essentially & should you reach a page (usually a facebook profile or youtube page for example) you are able to extract the media stream & view the stream from within your browser. So, let’s say i’m on a friends facebook profile, I click on the orange little media button to the left of the address bar and I then have the option of viewing the media stream clearly arranged above my tabs. This has to be seen really, so here we are:

You then have the option of saving this stream to your ‘favorite stream” section and therefore having easy access to it as & when you please as well being kept notified once new pictures or videos have been added. It’s a fantastic little feature & really great way to stay in touch with your friends recent additions. I should also mention that you are able to drag & drop images from the streams onto your facebook / twitter friends - very handy if you spot something a friend might want to see.

Bookmarking
Flock has now attempted to combine online & offline bookmarking like never before. They have integrated both delicious & magnolia favorites into the browser allowing you to immediately post to both when bookmarking. Not a new feature, but again - a great one.

Media Sharing
Apart from the ability to simply drag & drop links & media from the web onto your facebook & twitter friends. Flock makes uploading photos, whether from your hard drive or a webpage a piece of cake. You simply click upload on the flock toolbar and you can click & drag your images for upload.

Web Clipboard
Another feature that makes flock for me is the web clipboard. Allowing users to drag and drop anything except food into the sidebar. The idea is that they can then be used when needed on other sites by drag and drop again, or via image upload as required. Again, you could find a firefox plugin to do the same but as they say…”integration integration integration” or is that “location…
Extensions & Other Features
As most of you will know, flock does accept a number of firefox extensions but unfortunately not all. I personally recommend permatab, faviconize tab & google browser sync (which seems to work for this version). Everyone has their own selection of favorite addons though & it’s worth trying each one of them to see if they work. However, flock offers a few of their own selection on their extensions page - I highly recommend installing screenshot by the way. Flock also has it’s own built in rss reader, if you prefer that to an online reader.

DOWNFALLS:
Blogging Client
All in all solid reliable tool but unfortunately, like most desktop blog publishing tools, it does have it’s drawbacks…namely, images. Uploading an image to your hosted or non-hosted blog simply isn’t possible and you are left with the option of either uploading to flickr and inserting the image from there or simply using another sites bandwidth and embedding from their site. Frankly, this isn’t ideal & definitely needs improvement.

Memory
Some people do seem to notice the amount of memory flock can take up. I personally don’t seem to notice a problem with it but I have a pretty powerful computer sat in front of me…but i’m not going to brag : ) . What I will say though is, I highly recommend using it all the same and ensuring as many other not-in-use programs are closed. The browser + any other extensions does allow you to do a fair bit very well which should allow you to keep the number of open programs to a minimum and conserve that precision memory of yours.

Interface
I felt the same way when I opened the newer versions of Flock, and although there is definitely room for improvement - you do start to adjust to the fact that nearly everything is required and there for a reason. You can however, customize toolbars without any hassle and if you really want to go for the minimilist route - hide the toolbars!