Flock, the Web 2.0 Browser?

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!)"

Re:Get the Flock out of here!

[CSZeus]

There are conversion utilities (Flocker and Flockd) that will convert Firefox extensions for you - I can't say they always work, but it's converted all the extensions I've wanted to try.

Flash works on AMD54/Firefox

[Paralizer]

And for those of you trying to get Flash working in Firefox on an AMD64 linux machine, try this and be pleasantly surprised!

I'm not surprised at all, the downloadable binary is 32-bit.

flock-bin: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.2.0, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

The problem with AMD64 Linux, Firefox, and Flash, was that Firefox was compiled in 64-bit. The only available Flash plugin is only built in 32-bit mode, so the browser can not use it. You could then just use a 32-bit Firefox version to be able to use the Flash plugin. That's what I do on my 64-bit Linux system. So this "feature" offers nothing more than was already available.

Flash for Linux can be downloaded at http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.c gi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash [adobe.com].

Re:Get the Flock out of here!

[christopherfinke]

For the most part, yes. There is not much difference (that I've seen, anyway), behind the scenes of Flock and Firefox. Most of the extensions that I've written work in Flock without modification, but they would need to have Flock listed in their install.rdf file for Flock to allow you to install it.

So, developers, check your extensions in Flock and once you have them working, add this to your install.rdf:

<!-- Flock -->

<em:targetApplication>
        <Description>
                <em:id>{a463f10c-3994-11da-9945-000d60ca027b}</em: id>
                <em:minVersion>0.5.13.2</em:minVersion>
                <em:maxVersion>1.0</em:maxVersion>
        </Description>
</em:targetApplication>

Additionally, this site: http://outraged-artists.com/flockd/list.php converts FF extensions to work in Flock, which usually probably just consists of adding the above code to install.rdf.

Re:flash???

[Anonymous Coward]

try the flashblock extension

i thought this was hype too

[DigDuality]

and then i used it. I am really not a "Web 2.0" person. I have photobucket and flickr accounts, have a de.licio.us acct i never use. I do have an abandonned blogger site and i have a site on wordpress. So i use the stuff, i'm just not a fanatic and not a fan of buzzwords.

I will say this though, i used it in alpha. I used it in linux (Ubuntu 6.06, Fedora Core 5) and i used it on XP. And after applying all the same tweaks in about:config that i do to Firefox, it ran faster than Firefox. I got a good many of my favorite extensions to work (though not all, and hence why i'm back to FF as it is now).

The only thing i did learn to love though, is that not a single firefox skin actually feels natural at all. Flock is slick as hell and without being an eyesore. The blog publishing was very useful, i didn't like the bookmarking at all, but the photouploading was nice too. And frankly, no extensions really pulled off what flock has, at the quality that flock has.

So i really don't get the complaints, i found it useful, i found it faster than firefox. I just value all my FF extensions more than speed, otherwise i'd be using Opera. But what Flock did, it did very well and i intend to check out the beta.

Screenshots on Flickr

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite Flickr's new policy on screenshots you can find screenshots of flock fairly easily. http://flickr.com/photos/factoryjoe/sets/1082355/ [flickr.com]

Mac version???

[ZerocarboN]

For a windows only release, there sure are a lot of mac based screenshots on the Tour.

Re:How much of these features...

[ubernostrum]

Well, del.icio.us, Flickr and blogging have all been going strong for longer than 12 months already, so... odds might not be so great that they'll just be "passing fads".

Re:i thought this was hype too

[DigDuality]

actually from page load, to start up of the app, to mem usage, Flock's beta, is still beating FF 1.5.0.4

Re:Flash works on AMD54/Firefox

[texroot]

You can use nspluginwrapper to run 32 bit flash inside 64 bit Firefox. Home page here - http://www.gibix.net/dokuwiki/en:projects:nsplugin wrapper [gibix.net].