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!)"

Get the Flock out of here!

[Photar]

Does it support all of Firefox's extensions?

Re:Flash on AMD64

[martinultima]

Honestly, the only reason Flash on AMD64 is so amazing to most people is because most of the other distributions are based on "pure AMD64" code and don't include 32-bit packages and compatibility code by default. And why I can understand why they'd want to do that – considerably cleaner system, etc. – I personally don't like it at all. I've been porting a distribution to AMD64 myself, and the first thing I decided was that packages like Firefox and MPlayer would keep using the 32-bit versions, because honestly, I'd rather a convenient system than a pure 64-bit one.

Speaking of Flock, that reminds me – have to update to the latest version sometime, because it would be kind of stupid if the first distribution to feature Flock as a standard package (mine) wasn't up to date :-)

How much of these features...

[rob1980]

Are fads that are going to disappear inside of 12 months?

Re:another

[Hairball6494]

"Another wholesome product from a good company. Oh yeah, and it's free. Hey Microsoft, take IE and shove it :D"

I use firefox myself. But, IE is free also. And Firefox is funded by AOL. So take your pick.

Needs Feeds

[sockonafish]

If it aggregated all my subscribed RSS feeds on a single page, with full text, I'd probably switch, as those photo and blogging tools look great.

It nearly does, but falls short. I can view full-text articles when viewing a single feed, but there's no way to view whole articles when looking at the complete list of subscribed feeds.

Why have only Safari's developers figured this one out?

Re:Hype, hype, hype and even more hype

[escay]

I honestly apologize to the hardworking devs at Flock for instigating such a nasty anti-Web 2.0 mudslinging in the name of your browser. I (erroneously) expected people to at least visit the site and see for themselves why this is an interesting app, instead of picking up on buzzwords. On hindsight, it was a pretty bad summary for a /. crowd - i should've stuck to saying how the Flock code was completely Open Source and totally developed with doses of caffeine and creativity.

Also, to clarify a couple of comments:
1. Yes, Flock is Firefox with some of the good plugins/extensions built-in - even some of the Flock team say it themselves. The reason why this is good (but maybe not necessarily better than Firefox) is that these extensions are much more tightly/cleanly integrated into the browser, and are already in there to start using.
2. Yes I believe it uses 32-bit Flash in a 32-bit browser, but it is a breeze to install/run Flock in a 64-bit env. And when you visit a flash site using Flock the first time, it will automatically download and install Flash for you - this is what I meant by pleasantly surprised. Last i checked it's quite a process to install 32-bit FF in a 64-bit env., and then to get Flash actually working in it.

I request readers to excuse my abuse of buzzwords and hype - but do check out Flock for what it's worth!

Re:Hmm, Sounds Like a Browsers...

[PFI_Optix]

I never said it was bad or useless...in fact, I said I thought it was a good idea, just not the browser for me.

Honestly, I don't see Flock as being a particularly good browser for Joe Sixpack. I'd have to spend more time playing with it than I care to invest to be sure of that, but from what I read it strikes me as being a niche browser that will primarily appeal to those people who read the specs, understand them, and think "I could use this!".

Why not a new distro approach instead?

[carpeweb]

From TFA:

If you are a power user (hint: if you use del.icio.us or a news reader or if you visit Digg, that probably means you) and if you have decorated your browser with, oh, say, 20 extensions or more, Flock may not be for you. We like these services as much as you do, and we share the basic values of transparency and control that are an essential component of the participatory web. We are trying to bring these services to mere mortals.

It's all good, but why not just create a Firefox distribution package with the best of Firefox + Extensions, and just write extensions for the things that aren't yet available from others?

I know this sounds too simplistic. That's why I like the Colbert Report. It doesn't matter if I'm right (because I'm sure the experts will show me many ways in which my take isn't feasible, isn't the way development "actually" happens, etc.); but my way seems like it would be easier.

Re:i thought this was hype too

[Reverend528]

And after applying all the same tweaks in about:config that i do to Firefox, it ran faster than Firefox.

It's also a lot better about memory usage. I've found that you can utilize these advantages in firefox just by overwriting firefox's .so files with flock's. So far I've yet to run into any problems. I'm currently calling the combination "fireflox".

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Hmm, Sounds Like a Browsers...

[azuretek]

I tried out flock but I need my firefox extensions and they don't seem to work with flock. (even after being converted to work with flock)

I really wish I could use it, the interface is so slick, I just want to have a sexy skin like that. Does anyone know where I can find an up to date flock skin? The ones I've seen are all old and don't look too great.

Re:Hmm, Sounds Like a Browsers...

[Amalas]

You may say, "How is that different?", but I would much rather have a browser that is ready to go out of the box instead of downloading the app, then hunting through a ton of extensions to find the ones I like and installing them individually. It would definitely ease the install process if it was all there to start with. Sure, it's not different, but it's faster.

Much better (future) way to do flash...

[DrYak]

Just to mention that there's another way to get flash working on AMD64 (or PPC, or SPARC, or whatever else) :
using an opensource plug-in [gnu.org] (and recompiling it for your platfrom).

GNASH uses openGL and Cairo for rendering, and it looks like it has recently started making alpha releases (0.7.1).
Right now, it doesn't support streaming and thus doesn't work with google video and youtube, but works already with most animations...

A wish to say a big thank you to the team working behind this.
In a couple of months, maybe we'll enjoy something that's compatible enough and will be considered as a viable alternative to flashplayer.