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Firefox-based Social Browser Flock Launches
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Oct 20, 2005 09:32 PM
from the hitting-the-streets dept.
from the hitting-the-streets dept.
daria42 writes "The much-hyped Flock, a new browser based on Mozilla Firefox and integrating features like RSS feeds, blogging tools, the del.icio.us social bookmarking and Flickr photo sharing services has just launched a public developer preview to the world. Flock is being driven by a team of developers being led by Bart Decrem, a well-known open source developer who co-founded the ill-fated Eazel project back in 1999 and has been involved with both the Mozilla and GNOME foundations. On his blog this week he says Flock won't be forking the Firefox codebase."
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Flock, the Web 2.0 Browser? 263 comments
escay writes "Cardinal, the Beta 1 version of Firefox-based browser Flock, was released Tuesday with many polished features. Some of the features include drag-and-drop photo uploading for Flickr and Photobucket, an in-built RSS aggregator, direct blogging tool, and shared favorites/bookmarks. In step with Web 2.0 philosophy, Flock provides a rich user-centric experience, making it easier to bring information to the user and vice versa. It is available for Linux/Mac/Windows, and you can download it here. (And for those of you trying to get Flash working in Firefox on an AMD64 Linux machine, try this and be pleasantly surprised!)"
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Firefox-based Social Browser Flock Launches
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Browser UI (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.sethf.com...ut.you.should.visit. | Last Journal: Saturday March 09 2002, @09:41PM)
Re:Browser UI (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Browser UI (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.mangaschool.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday January 03 2006, @07:51AM)
Re:Browser UI (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.pctools.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday June 09 2005, @06:08PM)
The greatest feature... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The greatest feature... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The greatest feature... (Score:5, Funny)
So is the refresh button a titty twister?
Social Browser? (Score:5, Funny)
Extra! Extra! (Score:2, Insightful)
cutting edge? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:cutting edge? (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally someone does it, and people are quick to start belittling it for not being something fantastic and earth shattering. It said straight up that it was based on Firefox.
It's not doing anything nasty like Netscape did, so this just means that there are more alternatives out there. Last time I checked, that was considered to be good around here.
What I need..... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What I need..... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://tpno-co.org/)
So a browser that hates you enough to try to kill you, or failing that, your computer at every turn? One that does it's own thing, regardless of what you tell it to do, and when you finally manage to get it to do what you want, it does it half assed?
Wait...I think I just described IE.
Re:What I need..... (Score:4, Funny)
It usually helps... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.canspice.org/)
The User-Agent string. (Score:5, Informative)
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8b5) Gecko/20051019 Flock/0.4 Firefox/1.0+
So if you see it in your server logs, it's because the user is using Flock. If you do see it, please post here so we can gauge the spread of this browser.
Prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.underachievement.org/ | Last Journal: Sunday January 21 2007, @10:58PM)
Seriously. If there's one thing I think most people can agree on, it's that the number of successful web browsers seems bounded pretty low. You've pretty much got IE, Firefox/Mozilla, Opera, and Safari. I imagine that those are the only browsers showing up with at least 5% in server logs, but in the past there have been many more, some getting more attention than others.
People want to use mainstream browsers. Giving me quick access to something like a blog or Flickr isn't "innovative". A bookmark/favorite does the same thing with less overhead. I can get all sorts of functionality with Firefox and IE using extensions and ActiveX. If Flock is based on Firefox, but they don't plan to fork the codebase or do anything more than GUI changes and extension-cabable add-ons, then what's the point?
The Internet public has a way of weeding out browsers. The mainstream ones stay put (unless they get screwed by major corporations, *cough* Netscape 6 *cough*) and these amazing "new" ones go the way of the dodo. This one will be no different.
Re:Prediction (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.jasonlefkowitz.net/)
I thought the same thing until I actually tried the Flock Developer Preview that was just released. (I'm posting this from it now.)
I was all set to be unimpressed but I have to tell you, it's pretty impressive if you have a blog how easy they have made posting Web content to it. There's a "shelf" tool, for starters, that you use by just highlighting any text on a page and dragging-and-dropping it into the Shelf. Then, when you want to post about that text, you just click the "Blog this" button on the toolbar; this opens a new post (Flock autodetects the settings for your blog, so there's no configuration if you use most popular packages) in a WYSIWYG editor. Drag the text from the shelf into the editor and it pops the text in, encloses it in BLOCKQUOTE tags, and adds the cite="" attribute with the URL from the original page.
Revolutionary? Maybe not. But it's so damn slick! Currently when I blog something I copy it from Firefox into an HTML editor (Movable Type's built in editor sucks), mark it up there, log into the admin screen for my blog, then paste the marked-up text into a new post. Oh, and then I have to go back and find the original URL, copy it, and paste it in the appropriate pages. That's a lot of back and forth that Flock eliminates.
Some people use a tool like MarsEdit [ranchero.com] or wBloggar [wbloggar.com] to combine the "markup" and "posting" steps together in one place. But Flock puts all the features of those products right in my browser -- no switching between programs, no copy/paste gymnastics. There's a market for those products, so it's not a big leap to imagine a market for Flock, either (albeit a small one).
It'll be interesting to see how well Flock holds up to ongoing use over time. But my first impressions are better than I expected them to be. You might want to try it too before you pass judgement...
(Random other observation: Flock changes the default engine for the Firefox search box from Google to Yahoo! A political statement? Is Yahoo! connected to Flock somehow? Veeery interesting...)
Re:Prediction (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.nine-times.org/)
Seriously. If there's one thing I think most people can agree on, it's that the number of successful web browsers seems bounded pretty low. You've pretty much got IE, Firefox/Mozilla, Opera, and Safari. I imagine that those are the only browsers showing up with at least 5% in server logs, but in the past there have been many more, some getting more attention than others.
I don't think it's just a problem of, we have too many browsers, or that this new browser doesn't add any nice features. I think the real question is, is it clear enough what the benefit of using "Flock" is?
I think most people right now think of there being two kinds of browsers: IE, that feature-poor default browser that gets blamed for all the security problems-- and then just "everything else". Firefox, Safari, Camino, and Opera all fit into the "everything else" category, and though they may be different from each other, they all offer the advantages of tabs, pop-up blocking, RSS feeds, and not-being-IE. Everyone has their favorite, but I don't think, for the most part, any of them distinguish themselves greatly enough to be much more than a matter of preference. None of them quite make it to be THE browser to use.
So I think the question might be something like: Are the benefits of Flock clear enough to distinguish itself as THE browser to use, or will Flock become just another on the list of maybes. I think if it sticks on the list of maybes, inertia alone will keep it from displacing any of the other bigger browsers very much.
I'm not talking about whether Flock is good or not, but are the benefits going to be clear to joe-schmoe. With tabs and pop-up blockers, it's rather easy to show those things to my parents and explain, this is why you want this browser. Are the benefits that clear with Flock? I'll tell you, I'm not even sure I understand what's supposed to be good about this new browser yet.
If they can't answer that question, I'd say they'll be trapped with a bit of a marketing problem. There's the niche of technical people who use flickr and blog alot who might appreciate the features, but they can be a tough crowd to hold on to en masse. Without capturing the imagination of a larger audience, I don't know if they'll be able to reach critical mass.
New spam and phishing grounds (Score:5, Insightful)
These systems would also make ideal phishing grounds. Posting a fake "eBay" link ("look at this cool auction!!!") would take the target person to a faked eBay auction page (e.g with an IDN exploit [shmoo.com]) or just a scam domain (ebbay.com, etc.) that then asks for a eBay or Paypal password. Since many of the people that would follow a socially bookmarked eBay link are eBay/Paypal users the phisher would get a high hit rate.
Even if the system relies on some form of accumulated reputation or trust networks, its still possible for someone to cultivate a great reputation before abusing the system with spam or phishing.
Re:New spam and phishing grounds (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.diffused.co.nz/raarky)
Currently the web is a sort of one way medium. With flock, it can help it to become a 2 way medium much easier.
Agents in this sort of system (People will then be able to filter out the data for the masses to consume.
Have a look at reddit.com
Its a great example of how the wider community filters out the bad stuff.
Another is to take a look a slashdot.
Its a two way system. You post, someone moderates.
Overall it creates a collective emergent intelligence which filters out the bad stuff and leaves in information you desire.
The higher the score, the better this system works.
The key part is of course the identity of an agent.
I'm pretty sure someone isn't going to spend lots of time manually building up their karma just to get banned in one fell swoop by posting up a few ads. Its simply not cost effective.
Re:New spam and phishing grounds (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Saturday September 20 2003, @01:55PM)
Large masses with moderation powers leads to centerist bullshit that tries to please everyone rather than being factually accurate. You post what everyone can easily agree with (We need to protect our children, microsoft is bad, firefly is good, apple and google are gods who can do no evil, etc) and you get modded up. You post something accurate that pisses people off, and you get modded down.
Re:New spam and phishing grounds (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.chriscanfield.net/)
Moderators on Slashdot have gotten a lot better about modding down opinions they disagree with, and instead have taken to just posting disagreements. You'll notice the number of pro-Microsoft comments that get modded up in any Microsoft-is-evil story.
As one guy who posts more than he probably should, Modders seem to respond these days to forcefully held opinions part of which they personally, individually agree with. Therefore the best way to get modded up is to agressively defend a lot of little positions that will appeal to several subgroups, especially underrepresented ones. For example, "It is clear that the furry community of Canada have become THE mainstream SkyOS users of choice, but not all of the time." Don't do it all in one sentence, of course, and don't get fur into your keyboard. Defending two fundamentally opposite but technically non-conflicting viewpoints also helps get mod points. If the "Microsoft is a convicted monopolist" half of your post doesn't get a particular moderator, the "but Microsoft has done a lot of good things" half will.
Changing your subject line seems to reduce your chances of getting modded up, strangely enough. Also swear once, and only once. This proves just how muck you fucking believe what you're posting. Real people swear.
All of that is only if you don't have anything to say. These days, the other good way to get modded up is to know your stuff and have something to actually say. If it is an article about Unix Microsoft, and you happened to sit in on a few dozen meetings with MS about it, post. It will be moderated up. If it is about the Free Software Federation of Florence, and you happen to be a member of Love, Linux, and Linguine, post.
While it can be gamed, the Slashdot moderating system seems to work. I hardly ever see posts modded to 0 which don't deserve it, or posts at +5 which really, really shouldn't be. Really, the only major problem is that there aren't enough genuinely good posts. But that's not a fault of the moderation system, just a sign that people have things to do with their lives.
As someone that has worked with user-created content professionally, I'd have to say that Slashdot is a shining example of what's possible. You have hundreds of comments on a story, 10 of which are worth reading. But those 10 are of the quality of journalism you would find at News.com, the Register.co.uk, and the New York Times... You know, the "I'm professional, really" rags. And there are whole threads of interesting discussions that haven't degraded to usenet-level postings. All of this by volunteers who probably should be doing something else.
And if you want to see what's possible, try browsing with everything turned down except "funny" mods up +5.
I'm really looking forward to Flickr. Collaborative content, collaborative filtering, and multi-direction communication seems to be driving the internet forward these days. And it's about time... TNINTV.
Well, browsers happen... (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Friday May 18 2007, @11:07AM)
Let's all Flock away (Score:2, Interesting)
Note to developers (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://127.0.0.1/)
Have a nice day and enjoy the VC money. Foosball rox!
Re:Note to developers (Score:5, Interesting)
For our Arabic friends (Score:2, Funny)
That should be Badr Decrem.
some cool features for bloggers (Score:2)
(http://fak3r.com/)
A new record.... (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, I've already got a browser that works for me. Thanks anyway flockers...
Social Bookmarking (Score:1, Interesting)
Adding better built in features is the way to go to beat internet explorer.
Wow. It renders faster on OS X (Score:2)
Much-hyped indeed (Score:1)
(http://john.carney.id.au/)
As if... (Score:2, Funny)
Flock'd! (Score:3, Funny)
That, or when you're playing football and you get cleats square in your gonads. You're flock'd then, too.
My thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
(http://effigies.ath.cx:85/)
What I like:
The default theme is much prettier than any Firefox theme I've seen. Not a big deal, but it is nice to not have to search through a ton of themes to get one that's aesthetically pleasing.
At the right side of the bookmark toolbar is a drop down menu, where you select don't make me weak at the kneesthe folder to view, and that folder's contents show up in the bar. Sure not one of the great innovations of our time, but I love it. Already I use it more than I ever used the bookmark menu. I would be delighted if Mozilla merged this into Firefox.
Another thing that Firefox has been missing is searchbar history. It's one of those small things that can really make the difference in your user experience.
They also have the option to bring back the find as you type bit, and I've only had one instance where it tries to start searching when I'm typing in a textbox.
Things that I'm neutral towards or dislike:
I'm not a big blogger or del.icio.us user, so those features don't excite me overmuch.
That said, the built-in interface to Blogger simply doesn't work. You try to open an old post and supposedly all the text in it is "2005".
When playing with the blogging applet, at times I would get CPU usage of ~98%.
Beyond the bookmark toolbar, the rest of the favorites interface is cluttered and stuff that I would never use.
The CSS implementation is a bit sketchy (though still better than IE, in my opinion).
But hey, they gave fair warning that there are some major bugs. Hopefully most of these will be fixed up by 1.0.
Flock Hype (Score:2)
Some gems embedded in poo. (Score:4, Insightful)
And all of it could be done in FF extensions in just a few weeks (and hopefully will).
The rest of it is just a huge mess of poo with a few good ideas plopped into it. I think everyone should try it out, see what they did right and what they did wrong, and write some FF extensions for the rest of us to use. I can't beleive they got VC money for this, sorry guys. PS- I love the ability to switch collections on the toolbar, but can't figure out for the life of me why I cant open multiple tabs by middle clicking.
for me, 'tis useful (Score:2, Interesting)
(http://kevinosborne.googlepages.com/)
I also have a flickr account - hey look flock just got more useful for me.
I need to start a weblog as well; I'm an uncommunicative bastard who doesn't call his family so it should be an easy (i.e. one button) way to keep people up to date. and yes, I have issues with the blog concept as much as the next guy but I need to get over it and join the 21st century. A few blogs (kottke,waxy,idlewords,girlyounasty) are a genuine source of goodness for me. that and the technical blogs which are more necessary than even now that google has butchered usenet.
I'm also a news junkie, and my google.com.ig page is packed with feeds. one more tick for the flockster
flock should hopefully make all this easier... and if not what did I lose apart from the oppurtunity to whine like a bitch about how I'm incapable of embracing technological progress?
My Flock Preview Release Review (Score:2)
Flock had me skeptical from the screenshots (ugly and useless), but having actually used it, it's pretty gosh darn neat. The Shelf is an incredible killer feature. I've tried out a few similar extensions for Firefox, but none did it as smoothly and intuitively as Flock has. All it needs is a few hardcore snippet-management-tools, and it'll be my new favorite research program.
Likewise, the blog editor falls under the "pretty neat" status. The formatting gets eaten by Wordpress.com's post-parser (to filter out nasty javascript and other malicious evil), but that isn't a major downer, as it does tend to exhibit some weirdness like underline remaining after deleting a link. The WYSIWYG-editor part of it definately needs some work to be up to par with the rest of the browser.
Overall, I've been seriously impressed. For being a the first public release of a browser, it's feature-filled and non-crashy. This must be attributed to it being based on Firefox. All it needs is a few months of polish and I can unconditionally accept it as my new primary browser. As is, I'm giving the idea serious thought.
P.S.: I didn't use the del.icio.us integration, as I didn't really use the service much before. But now that it's seamlessly integrated into the browser, I'll try it out again.
PREDICTION! (Score:2)
(http://obnoxio.us/)
This is ridiculous (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://effigies.ath.cx:85/)
Someone went and turned a browser from a window through which you can view the web to an application where you interact with parts of it (among the most popular parts these days) more intuitively. And you look beyond how neat that is because you want to look down your noses at the emo teens. Fucking class act.
13 new things in flock (Score:5, Informative)
1. replaces old-school bookmarks with one-click social bookmarking to Del.icio.us
2. tagging is there if you want to do two-click bookmarking and tag
3. a new bookmarks manager with an integrated rss reader
4. built in search engine that indexes every page you visit and has a Spotlight-style as-you-type UI
5. keeps a list of the sites you visit most frequently
6. multiple bookmarks toolbar (one for work, one for play etc.)
7. finds feeds, lets you view them
8. caches the feeds so you can read them on the train
9. aggregated RSS view for all of your bookmarks folders
10. integrated blog editor (support wordpress, movable type, blogger)
11. one click 'blog this' feature (it does the blockquotes, citations and all that stuff for you)
12. Flickr integration (drag and drop pix into blogs)
13. shelf: a web scrapbook that helps you organizae stuff you want to blog
and of course it's open source and cross platform.
details at http://www.flock.com/fiveways/togetstarted/13.php [flock.com]
in Soviet Russia... (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Thursday October 06 2005, @01:38PM)
For geeks and nerds only (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.davidmcmanus.com/)
One of the biggest traps I have ever seen a geeky developer (and I use the term endearingly) fall into is that the whole world is going to love your product as much as you do.
It just doesn't happen that way unfortunately.
Firefox is probably close to market saturation because anyone who actually cares about their computer and likes to tinker with extension and RSS feeds is using it, but everyone else *just isn't concerned* and it totally passes them by.
Flock is just several orders of magnitude higher up the 'niche' market than that. By reading /. and similar boards all day, it may seem that the world is occupied by similarly minded geeks, but the sad truth is that it isn't.
The vast, vast, VAST majority of people are happy to buy a computer, turn it on and then double-click the icon on the desktop that mentions 'internet' and that is all they will ever do.
Saying that, I probably assume that the Flock developers don't realise that. Maybe they do and yet they still wish to develop a niche product. If that's the case then all power to them!
using it now (Score:2)
(http://tumbleweed.smugmug.com/)
Is it just me, or is this thing noticeably faster than Firefox 1.0.7? Can anyone comment on how the speed compares to FF 1.5 beta?
Outfoxed (Score:3, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Wednesday January 08 2003, @09:48AM)
For Everybody's Information: (Score:2)
(http://www.penguinpetes.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 14 2006, @03:38AM)
"Users want simplicity", well, I'm aghast. Firefox has the link to the Mozilla extensions/plug-in site right in the toolbar, you go there and browse the page and when you find what you want, it is literally a one-click download-and-install. In a single step. If that's too complicated for somebody, how are they using a web browser at all? Seriously, I've taken people who can do *nothing* else with a computer and shown them how to do extensions and they learned it in one shot.
I'm not knocking Flocker (I wouldn't want to be labeled a Flocker-knocker!). But I'm going to wait until there's a few more feature anouncements before *I* go to the (oh! soooo complicated! ah, the drudgery!!!) trouble of downloading and unzipping and configuring and makeing and suing and make installing the source tarball.
Firefox + skin + RSS ext+pupular Blogs ext = Flock (Score:2, Interesting)
(http://www.webdevelopers.cz/)
Is the time of "death of classical web pages" near? Will everything in the future be just the XML/RSSv8.1/XMLShopping Protocol/... resources and the rest (displaying, stylizing, aggregating) is left up to your browser?
Maybe. We'll see.
(But I still and always will love to design my own unique webs no matter what...)
Why an additional browser? (Score:2)
D.
Wordpress Account? (Score:1)
Why not just extensions? (Score:2)
Does anybody know any technical reason why this needs to be a new browser, instead of being Firefox shipped with a bunch of pre-installed add-ons?
Huh...? (Score:1)
(http://asolis.net/)
Successful business model (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Good start but... (Score:1, Interesting)
But what I'd like to see is a version of Firefox where I don't have to see that irritating little yellow bar every time I go to a website that has Flash on it. Especially since after doing my last upgrade to version 1.0.7 on my Linux box the "about:config" "plugin.default_plugin_disabled=True" no longer works.
Fuck me that's one annoying "feature". So big note to the Firefox devs:
NO I DO NOT WANT TO FUCKING INSTALL FUCKING FLASH SO STOP FUCKING NAGGING ME ABOUT IT.
Your popup blocker works as it should, your plugin manager is a retard that thinks it's been incorporated into Microsoft code.
The internet... slowly being ruined by popups, spam, crappy flashvertising, nagging browsers...
At least there's still links.
Who give a Flock (Score:1)
iMac (Score:2, Interesting)
The browser has a clear purpose. If you are merely interested in aggregating information from sites, than this might well be your browser.
It kinda feels like an iMac among browsers...in alpha stage then... but a step in the right direction nonetheless.
Torrent available at torrent.ibiblio.org (Score:2)
(http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/)
Enjoy and enjoy faster legal, authoratative, reliable and persistant torrents.
Mozilla Foundation for profit?!?! (Score:2)
(http://tinyurl.com/6q4x4)
It's a slipery slope:
-Create Mozilla Corporation (Check)
-Taste flavour of profits
-do evil things (adware/spyware)
-Get more profits
-become really evil (??)
? (i dunno, I've already used Profit twice)
I'm stuck (Score:2)
I "imported" my IE bookmarks. But I can't find them. NONE of them. Where did they go? I imported my Firefox bookmarks (had to export to Opera, then import from Opera, I can't import direct from Firefox?). But again, I can't find them.
So far, not terribly impressed simply because I can't find the stuff I just imported.
THE Killer Feature (Score:1)
When I Ctrl+N (open a new window), it would duplicate the page I was at before, AND copy over the Next / Previous histories. Flock currently does the standard firefox thing of opening the default home with no back/forward histor
Does anyone know a browser other than IE that does this? It cant be that hard, really. Even if it was just a preference to turn on and off.
I really hate IE, but keep on using it for this feature alone since it matches my browsing style.
Geez, don't be so harsh (Score:2)
Also the search box in the top right, it searches your history and your favorites a la "google suggest" and find-as-you-type. And if you want to actually search the internet, then you just hit return and it takes you to google or whatever. I thought it was well done and creative.
As I saw someone else said also, the default theme is pretty nice, which is saying something considering how god awful most themes are. I didnt like the look of the buttons so much but the tabs were sexy and the gradient was subtle enough to actually be good. I would probably prefer just the default Firefox look over it but all things considered they did a good job.
Like I said a lot of the other features don't really appeal to me, but MAN OH MAN do we need an overhaul of the bookmarking system, and I think Flock is on the right track. I will definitely check it out again once it hits 1.0.
A required feature of web 2.0: hype? (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.beelerspace.com/)
I've been following Flock ever since the site launched. I read preview after preview from web 2.0 people who claimed Flock would be God's gift to the modern age, better than parasols or flying airships or rockets to the moon. So, of course, I downloaded it with great haste yesterday only to discover . .
. . . that it is little more than an AJAX-esque skin for Firefox with some "fancy" extensions, fancy meaning slow and unworkable. Marshall McLuhan, media genius and internet saint, said that hot media burns fast and clear, shining for only a moment and then gone. Well, friends, Flock is hot in the McLuhan sense. It was best experienced as an anticipation, not as something that has actually arrived. The reality is that Flock is flying lame.
What the Flock people should have done is release it quietly to a few developers, let them test it under promise of silence, and then when they had something worth screaming about - screamed then, and only then. Instead, they screamed before they had anything, in the sense that they posted flickr screenshots, and whipped up the blogosphere in orgasmic anticipation.
I felt cheated trying Flock, and vindicated when I uninstalled it. I've been very impressed with Web 2.0 so far, or whatever it is they're calling webpages on the internet that are well coded, but if Flock is the future I want out.
Have any of you even tried this browser? (Score:1)
It's about choice, you fools. You are bitching and whining about people being given another browser choice. It's hypocritical and ironic that nearly every post in this article is full of some weird blind rage about people blogging, or using other community services. What in the hell do you think slashdot is? Sure, it's fun to ridicule the emo crowd, but just because they blog, it doesn't make the rest of the bloggers useless.
That said, *GASP*, I actually gave Flock a try and you know what, it's a nice browser. A few more point releases and this might be my main browser at home. I fondly remember when FF
Some of the good stuff:
Bookmark synchronization across browsers: This completely rocks. I can easily keep my bookmarks up to date in all my flock browsers, home, work, wherever I am. There is only one FF extension that I know of that does this and it does it poorly. The only caveat is that your bookmarks are public, so internal company bookmarks would be visible to the public, but to me the impact is minimal since my internal company bookmarks point to non-routable private ip addresses behind firewalls.
Bookmark tagging: As the mass of people who use Google mail know, tagging is far better than filing things in folders. I can now sort and group my bookmarks without having to deal with the tedious task of pouring through them, moving them to folders, etc.
Custom bookmark toolbars: This is one of my favorite features. Instead of the bookmark folders you have in Mozilla/Firefox, Flock uses what they call collections. Flat groups of bookmarks in the bookmark manager. The cool thing is that via a drop down menu, you can pick a collection to appear in the bookmark toolbar. Working? Reading the news, viewing porn? Just pick the collection you need to use.
User interface: The default skin is much nicer than FF. I know this is dependent on personal preference, but I think it has a nicer look. We need a Flock theme for FF. =)
Flickr integration: For those of us who use Flickr, the Flickr topbar is pretty slick and well done. My only wish is that you could pull up keywords instead of users.
Wikipedia search installed by default: This is also one of my favorites. Alongside Google, Yahoo and the other search engines in the url bar, Wikipedia is right there with them. This is easy to install in FF, but nice that it's included by default.
I think these guys have done a pretty decent job at integrating several widely used web services into the Firefox browser and have made damned good progress at enhancing and making the bookmark system usable again.
What exactly has happened here to cause all this outrage?
Re:Wonderful. (Score:1)
They're doing what Linux distros do. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Flock? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Flock? (Score:1)
Re:Wonderful. (Score:2, Funny)
peace out
Re:Wonderful. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.diffused.co.nz/raarky)
Which is fair enough.
This web 2.0 is rather new. It's still trying to be defined. What we are seeing at this stage is new technologies that allow for a greater social interaction. Meanwhile the underlying systems are creating an emergent intelligence that can provide you with a greater experience.
It's a new technology and who else is better than understanding new technology than youngsters?
I still recall the time when cellphones were starting to become the mainstream. The older folk kept on asking why anyone would want such a device. Turn the clock forward and pretty much the entire younger generation at that time now has a cellphone. They identified the capability and found new uses for the technology.
This web 2.0 buzz is simply that cycle repeating. No one has anything against you not giving a care about these new systems. but. what you should do is stand aside while the people that embrace that "moved cheese" start to live a better and fully life using the technologies designed specifically for this purpose
Re:Wonderful. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://kavlon.org/ | Last Journal: Friday March 21 2003, @02:10PM)
Enabling anyone to create, edit, and share is one of the defining premises of the web and it's only this premise that is deepening that really defines the new generation of web apps. I fully expect to see every kind of human-computer interaction pick up community features in the near future and become merged into the web browser.
A lot is made of the UI changes in the Web 2.0 (or AJAX, or whatever) and those are important but they are really only important so much as they improve the ability to communicate more complex things with more people quickly.
Not a good thing to ignore if you're job involves software, communications, or media.
Re:It makes me think of "frock". (Score:2)
And impressionable nuns - not all Catholic priests are perverts you know
Re:Wonderful. (Score:1, Funny)
(Seeing your flamebait and raising you one.
Re:Wonderful. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://kavlon.org/ | Last Journal: Friday March 21 2003, @02:10PM)
As for community features. I'm not sure they belong merged into the browser but I'm not sure they don't either so it's a worthy experiment. I'm sure the better parts will get merged backwards into Firefox. Community sites shouldn't be a replacement for a social life but they can provide an extension of a social life. Obviously you're using Slashdot so you have no room to make fun of users of community sites.
Wonderful.-Expert Witless. (Score:1, Insightful)
A Slashdotter defining a "real social life" is like putting square wheels on a car. It looks funny, and it goes nowhere.
Re:Wonderful. (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.mikey-san.net/ | Last Journal: Thursday March 04 2004, @06:23PM)
If the giggling teenage masses switch to better browsers, everyone prospers.
Re:Wonderful. (Score:3, Insightful)
Just thought I should point that out...
</off-topic>
Re:Wonderful. (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://noam.chigh.org/)
Besides, you obviously don't read many blogs. Many blogs, mine included, are for interesting stories, thoughts and ideas, as well as cool links and interesting net news. No real "depressing emo life". I keep my depresssion to myself, thank you very much.
Re:Wonderful. (Score:1)
Says the Anonymous Coward who thinks that posting on Slashdot is a substitute for having a real social life...