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I just wished that the Firefox devs would just leave the Flock features concerning social network integration out of the FF Mainline -- If we want FF + Social, Flock exists already... Where will be my FF minus the pointless social tools? (And what about identi.ca?)

It's sort of like if Linux decided to incorporate a web browser into the kernel -- Bad Idea, Leave that to specialized projects / add-ons / apps, not everyone needs a browser on their Linux (not everyone needs social network integration in their Firefox).

All I saw on the damned website was a picture of two shoeless men who appear to be very happy to be sitting very close to eachother, enjoying a romantic sunset over the ocean together.

Call me jaded, but if I was looking for romantic encounters with men, I don't think I'd start by downloading a new browser.

Seriously, their website doesn't seem to include an overview of the browser's features. That's just stupidity.

You didn't look very hard. Check the top of the screen, Support -> User Guide.

Well, maybe it's because Flock doesn't actually say what it fucking well does on its damn website. People, when making software, try to say what it does on the front page, or with a prominent link. Screenshots are a must. It flabbergasts me that the people at Flock could get this so colossally wrong.

Maybe you missed the text "Built for Facebook and Twitter" under the giant Download button in the middle of the page or the "Watch the video to learn more" link right under that. Or are you still using Lynx?

Well, maybe it's because Flock doesn't actually say what it fucking well does on its damn website. People, when making software, try to say what it does on the front page, or with a prominent link. Screenshots are a must. It flabbergasts me that the people at Flock could get this so colossally wrong.

Of course they flock to Facebook. Doesn't everybody?

http://flock.com/faq/show/30#q_9069

they did, and it didn't get enough use,

for version 3 it is no longer a priority.

Exactly. (I'm one of the Flock devs.)

Chromium is much more than just WebKit, and Flock is reusing most of that. Their UI was very well thought-out, and their V8 JavaScript engine is incredibly fast -- making it a perfect platform for Flock's application layer code which is almost entirely JavaScript.

BTW, since the original article doesn't contain links, here's the site where you can grab the beta if you're so inclined:
beta.flock.com

Mac version is in the works.

Hmm. A social networking browser with ties to Mozilla. Wait a minute, how is this not Flock?

How about some individual projects? Amarok 2 came out in 2008. Other things that existed before but which improved mightily in '08 were:

Flock (released v2)
KDE Released 4x series, abysmal at first, but it's great now.
BasKet Probably doesn't belong on a Best Apps Ever list, but it is pretty useful. This existed before, but I just found it this year and it's great, and it has become a lot more stable for me through the year. Someone help get them to qt4!
There are lots of great apps out there that deserve some love this year.

Which brings up why I love the way things are today: choice. I remember the bad old days when it was either IE or if you wanted to suffer the really crappy Netscape edition(4 IIRC) and now we all have so many more choices. In my family alone we have Seamonkey for my mom(who refuses to surf without her "blue bird"), we have Kmeleon for my sister(who loves its layout and speed), we have Opera for my oldest boy (who says anything after version 5 sucks and refuses to update) and we have Flock for the youngest(who loves social sites) and finally Firefox for me,because of Adblock+ and Noscript,along with FEBE and iMacros.

So IMHO it doesn't really matter who is the "best" as long as we have plenty of others to choose from. Because I can tell you that the way it was before really sucked the big wet titty. But thanks to free software and plenty of choices my family can each have their own browser that suits their personality and can stay the hell out of mine, which is always a good thing. That and the fact that I can have IE removed from the program list and blocked at the firewall and nobody in my family seems to care. So if any of the designers of the above browsers read this: Thank you. You have made my family very happy and made it easier for me to keep the peace. So thanks.

Especially since one of the PC entries is Maxthon, which is just IE with a whole bunch of crap added to it. For those looking for alternatives in the Windows realm I would suggest Seamonkey for those who want an "all in one" complete with HTML editor, IRC client and Email client. For those looking for speed, especially with older hardware(works well on as little as 400MHz with 128Mb of RAM) or simply want a quick, no frills web browser I would suggest Kmeleon. For those who like social sites such as delicious and flickr I would recommend Flock. And finally for those that would like a tiny browser, one that takes up almost no space and can simply be dropped on a flash drive I would point out OffByOne.

Any one of these IMHO would be better choices than the ones given for Windows in this article. And Maxthon is IMHO just too dangerous due to the fact that IE is still the #1 target out there for malware writers and in XP and below IE is too easy to hit to make it a safe browser for everyday use. But if anyone here hasn't tried the above browsers, give them a go. I have used all of them at one time or another and they each have their uses.

Have you tried Download Statusbar? I have mine set to clear the bar after 5 seconds, but you can probably set it to 0 if you just want them to go poof.

And as for the above poster who wonders why I don't just give the old folks a shortcut? Because with Seamonkey it really makes it easy to copy/paste that recipe they are sure that Mabel will like,LOL! But that is what I love about Firefox,all the diversity. I give Seamonkey to the older folks, Kmeleon to those with older PCs or who only care about speed,and Flock to those that are into the social sites. With the FF codebase I can give everyone something for them and still not have to worry about the latest IE bug. Oh and those who haven't given it a shot should try Songbird. I have been using it myself as well as handing it out to my customers and it is really gotten quite nice.

Well,I don't know about him but I prefer the versatility of Gecko myself. When a customer comes in with older hardware or they only care about speed I can give them Kmeleon,if they are into the social sites I can give them Flock,the old folks that still like to download their mail I give Seamonkey,and for the everyday Joes I give Firefox. I have also started giving out Songbird,which is also based on FF,thus the Gecko engine,and so far folks are really liking it. If Firefox wants to know where the next "Firefox killer" is going to come from,IMHO they just need to look in the mirror. Their engine is so easy to customize that I wouldn't be surprised if the next big thing ran Gecko under the hood.

It is also quite easy to customize,both with extensions and full bore rebuilds. Firefox by itself is okay, but with Noscript,Adblock Plus,Forecastfox,and FEBE to ensure backups it makes Firefox a must have in my book,even so far as keeping a copy of Firefox Portable(another nice customization) on my flash for out in the field.

And then if Firefox isn't to your liking there is always Flock,and Kmeleon for older Windows machines(also works with Noscript and Adblock with a little tinkering) and of course there is Songbird which is going for an Open Source iTunes kind of thing and is actually a pretty nice media player IMHO. To me that is what is nice about Gecko,it has enough features built in that a good coder can use it as the basis for all sorts of applications and it is trivial to add functionality through extensions to make the browser YOUR way,instead of what some company thinks is best. This is why despite the buzz around Chrome I'll still be installing Gecko based browsers(Firefox,Seamonkey,or Kmeleon depending on the client/machine) on every machine I service or sell. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

Sounds like what you want is Songbird,which,hey what do ya know,it's built from Firefox. And if you want social browsing you have Flock,which,hey what do ya know again,is ALSO built on Firefox. If Mozilla wants to know where the "Firefox killer" is coming from,just look in the mirror. Somebody will take the FF code,add their own killer features and there you go. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

It's time the free software world merged PIM with social networking.

Meet Flock, which integrates with most popular webmail systems and most popular social networks.

It's time the free software world merged PIM with social networking.

Meet Flock, which integrates with most popular webmail systems and most popular social networks.

It's time the free software world merged PIM with social networking.

Meet Flock, which integrates with most popular webmail systems and most popular social networks.

I think a link to the actual Flock website would have been appropiate in the summary: http://flock.com/ This is not my kind of toy, but it will be interesting so see if this will take of in the mainstream.

I have the good fortune to be on the team building the Flock Browser. I get paid, you get to use it for free.

Also: It doesn't work for everyone, but sharing the load of software creation can be a motive. We both need software that does A and B; you build A at your expense, I'll build B at mine (and programmers get paid to do this); then we share the result. And now that it's built, let's share it with others, too.

Die Regeln in Mail.app? Keine Ahnung, ich verwende nicht Mail.app :-) Aber bei mir ist das Fenster für die Regeln scheinbar nicht sehr gross...

Ich verwende Flickr, da gibts verschiedene Plug-ins. Scheinbar ist aber Flock gut, und PictureSync sollte auch funktionieren.

Das verstehe ich nicht. Um spezifische Fotos zu exportieren, kannst du sie einfach auswählen, bevor du "Export" wählst.

Ja, ich dachte mir, wenn sich jemand schon die Mühe macht und auf Deutsch schreibt, kann er nicht so schlimm sein :-)

Wo hast du so gut Deutsch gelernt?

Would I ever use Netscape over Firefox or Camino? Probably not. Does it seem like some queer throwback to days gone by? Yes. Does it, on some level, seem kind of pathetic in the same way when A Flock of Seagulls shows up at some local bar/theater for a concert? Yes.

But I quickly realize that, as a web developer I can only stand behind them and cheer them on as a great alternative to IE. There's nothing wrong with another standards-compliant, Gecko-based browser on the market.

I just realized the irony that there is a Gecko broswer called Flock.

I had a Dell 1705 come into my work area, the owner wanting the XP partition formatted, and started over clean.
Was too slow due to all the programs that Dell preinstalls, according to the owner of the laptop.
I did not touch the restoration partitions, they have the OEM Dell drivers, some of them, at least.
Dell does have all of the necessary drivers online, so you can use a livecd linux to download them, and install until you get your wireless card working, and can boot into XP, and finish the setup.
These laptops are very nice, only complaint is the driver for the ATI video card, it wants you to use the maximum resolution to get top performance, if you back down to 1024x768, so you can see the text better, the driver says you are not getting the most out of the card. This is XP, not Vista, and the entire put-back-together is doable with XP. When I got finished with the laptop, it was very nice indeed. On that hardware, XP beats my live cd linux, in that I don't have a wireless card driver, for one thing. Printer support is another, XP wins there also.
Downside with XP is security, that OS is probably a disaster waiting to happen in the security area.
Rapidweather Remaster (see screenshots, below) wins there.
Glad to hear that Dell still offers XP for these fine machines, running a dual core with 2 GB of RAM is a good match for XP, and way more than enough with Rapidweather Remaster. The Remaster can do well with 256 MB of RAM.
I have heard complaints about the battery life going down within a few months with XP on these laptops, surely Vista would be worse, so the Upgrade to Vista is not being done, owners getting chicken about the new OS fowling up their nice XP installation. With the re-partition of the hard drive on this particular laptop, I can accommodate a livecd linux, with a "persistent home" partition, and a "tohd", "fromhd" partition for the /KNOPPIX folder.
Still has to boot into these hard drive setups with the CD, however. Since we were to keep XP, I couldn't do a loadlin batch file setup to get Linux booted up off the hard drive, without using the CD.
I do that on dual hard drive machines, a small MSDOS drive (2GB)with the files, and a big drive (160GB) for Linux.
You may use these batch files as a guide, just copy them to your MSDOS hard drive partition, and customize.
Should work with an OEM Knoppix 3.4 CD, or with a Rapidweather Remaster CD, (see screenshots below).
I am currently working from a HP Pavilion 8250 with this setup, this machine dates back to the Windows 95 days, but has a fairly decent Celeron processor that gives me good performance as I run Flock 0.7.12 today.
This machine is very quiet, does not beat up the hard drive like Windows 98 would do. Right now I am able to run Amarok and Flock at the same time.

"Pick up where Flock left off"? That implies that Flock development is over. It sure doesn't look that way from their Web site or their blog... if they're dead, someone might want to tell them ;-)

"Pick up where Flock left off"? That implies that Flock development is over. It sure doesn't look that way from their Web site or their blog... if they're dead, someone might want to tell them ;-)

I've posted my list back about a year ago, and I still use every single one of them every day... (I also describe how to get around a "bug" in FF that forbids non-standard port connections). Check it out here. I also spoke at my local LUG about the same thing in January.

Here's a list of the extensions I'm currently using in my Firefox build (you can see how I have it tricked out with all of my theming and extensions over here):

• Sage, a really slick and fast rss aggregator/reader for Firefox. It docks on the sidebar and is visible with a simple Alt-S keystroke. Very nice, and easy for me to catch up on some quick headlines when I need to.
• AdBlock Plus with the AdBlock Filterset G Updater to stop the flood of useless ads from coming at me. I did have to add one small rule for Google's ads, because I do actually like the recommendations they provide from time to time, and it helps out sites I visit with a little revenue. That regex looks like this: @@*.googlesyndication.com/*
• Web Developer, a very useful and slick toolbar/menu driven suite that allows me to do all kinds of things to websites I'm viewing, including validation, showing where their css classes are, manipulating forms, cookies, images, and dozens of other features. Hands-down, the most-useful extension I have as a developer/tweaker of web content.
• PrefBar, another powerful extension I use every single day. This one allows me to change the capabilities of my browser with a simple click of a checkbox. Want Java enabled? Click. Sick of popups? Click. I have Colors, Images, Javascript, Java, Flash, Popups, Proxies, Pipelining, Referers, Cache on my bar. Its completely customizable, and very well-done.
• SwitchProxy lets me manage and switch between multiple proxy configurations quickly and easily. I can also use it as an anonymizer to protect my system from prying eyes. I have Squid, Squid + Privoxy, Privoxy + Tor and i2p enabled in my configuration at the moment. Quick and easy, and one status-bar dropdown lets me change from one to another.
• FasterFox gives me a little boost by auto-configuring some parameters for faster browsing, such as link prefetching, pipelining, DNS cache, paint delay, and others.
• ForecastFox, weather.. in my status bar. I've changed the icons a bit with a separate icon pack called Lansing, which is nice adn small and out of the way. Minimal is the way to go on my toolbars and status bars.
• Linky lets me open or download all or selected links in a page, image links and even web addresses found in the text in separate or different tabs or windows. A simple right-click on any link or web address, and away I go.
• Google PageRank Status gives me a quick overview of the PR of a site in the current view. This is useful as I do a lot of web work, and knowing what kind of sites get a decent or poor PR is useful information.
• SearchStatus is another SEO toolbar fo

Online bookmarking, live rss feeds, the built-in spell-checking... these have all helped my productivity. Finding stuff is easier, reading stuff is easier, my internet experience is more pleasant.

Please just go use Flock (p.s welcome to the social).

In the 90's, the idea that scared Microsoft into creating a web browser in the first place was that the web browser could be a platform that made the underlying operating system irrelevant. In the Browser Wars 2.0, it seems like that idea has been put on the backburner so far. There are very few third party developers who create applications on the Mozilla platform. The notable ones that come to mind are Flock and Songbird. Firefox is one of, if not the most popular cross platform applications existing today, so it makes sense that people would want to build on top of its success. However, the developer interest in XUL doesn't seem to be that high. As someone who is looking to create a cross-platform application in the near future, why should I pick XUL, and what are you doing to make it a more attractive platform?

Why doesn't debian just distribute Flock instead of forking Firefox?
Flock states on their wiki --> http://wiki.flock.com/index.php?title=Licensing_FA Q

That...

"Files that are original or modified versions of Mozilla source code are distributed under the MPL.

For files that are original creations of and for Flock Inc., Flock Inc. is the sole copyright holder, and these files are distributed to the public under the GPL (GNU Public License) (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html) version 2."

Sounds like it pretty much solves the issue, not to mention the fact that Flock has a lot of features that, IMHO, pretty much deprecate firefox anyway, or at the very least require far fewer plugins :-)

I don't work for flock or anything. I just like the browser. I use it on Mac and Linux, and all's well for about a year now.

It sounds like you would like Flock.

Seth Godin, author of several books on the Internet, including Small Is the New Big, says Mozilla needs to incorporate tools like tagging or building tools like a link to eBay's Skype calling service that will help keep friends connected.

Is Seth unfamiliar with Flock, I wonder? It's exactly what he's asking for. And I haven't exactly noticed it threatening to swamp Firefox in terms of popularity (though in fairness it hasn't reached 1.0 yet -- but I really doubt it will blow FF away even then, except maybe among some niche audiences).

I suggest using the Flock web browser + the mapper extension for geotagging in flick: it uses google map, which is way better than yahoo's http://www.flock.com/node/7035

Britz, this is not meant to be an insult. Your English is really quite good, but it's "safer" not "saver." Example: That is safe, but this is safer. But you make a good point. Many end users that I deal with rarely see any inheret benefit with Firefox if I didn't drill it into their heads that, for the time being, there's less of a chance of having their browsers hijaxed. It's a lose-lose situation: the nice thing about Firefox is that it doesn't have a lot of additional crap and eyecandy; but often that's what attracts the average user. Maybe someone can package Firefox with extensions that can win over typical IE users. I think that's what Flock is attempting to do. It might make a better introductory browser for them.

1) the ability to drag a number of files/folders onto a spot and facilitate transfer via method specified by the web page: one file at a time, all files in parallel up to X simultaneous uploads, or the whole shebang as a single tar file (filenames in UTF8 or MIME encoded). All those cool photo sites and people still have to upload one photo at a time, that's dumb.

This seems like something that would be better suited for Flock rather then Firefox. Wouldnt it make more sense for You to be able to see who was on and then be able to call them for free. Im guessing that someone will do this.

The problem is that there's no real, new, revolutionary development in browsers

I thought so until last week, when I downloaded the new Flock release. Still with it, and it IS revolutionary.

MPL and GPL according to the License FAQ.

What makes firefox work is that it's flexible. You chose to add a plugin or not. What does Flock provide? It forces you to accept its chosen plugins. That's bogus. I don't want any browser to chose my photo sharing community or be forced into using their web2.0 partners. Unlike firefox, the idea behind making this browser was funded from day 1 by a VC. You can bet Flock will sacrafice usability over turning a profit on their investment. I'm not a firefix expert but you can probably download firefox versions that come pre bundled with enough web2.0 extensions that it rivals Flock.

Read the flock blog entry about their business model. priceless. I wish they could film this company like they did in the movie startup.com...

I hardly ever bother using a browser's bookmarks these days - which tend to get lost anyway with changing computers, etc - but have the del.icio.us plugin on all my browsers. If I'm at a different computer, I can still get at, and search, all my bookmarks. Flock makes this even easier.

One of the selling points of Flock (which, incidentally, I first heard of through Slashdot) is that it has built-in blogging within your Web browser, which lets you write everything while you're reading another site. No need to log in or anything, you just configure it for your site and it runs.

As for spell checking, etc. – one of my all-time favorite things about Konqueror is that it's got more features than just about any other browser I can think of due to the heavily integrated nature of KDE. For example, the spell-checking example – every <textarea> in Konqueror has spell checking automatically enabled. And I think you can even run KOffice embedded into Konqueror – there's probably some way or other – although I'm not entirely sure on that one because I'm not that obsessive.

Oh, and horribly off-topic, but the best thing about it? The built-in terminal emulator lets you run a Web browser, eg. Lynx, within itself – you have two Web browsers in one! Now that's what I call a useful program.

http://www.flock.com/

There are already a few extensions on https://addons.mozilla.org/ that provide online bookmarks:
* Foxmarks, currently featured: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2410/
* del.icio.us: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1153/
* de.lirio.us: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1566/

Also, the Flock browser includes this functionality natively. http://flock.com/

The Flock web browser has a setup where you can share bookmarks. I don't use that feature, but I do use Flock, it is based on Firefox. I have it in my livecd linux, see signature, below for screenshots of Flock in action.

Firefox stores plugin information in memory long after the plugin is closed and done being used. Whether this problem can be attributed to Adobe's work or Mozilla's, it's still a problem.

Firefox keeps downloaded items in the download list, even when they're completed. Unfortunately, this can add up quick - so you should make sure you clear out that list frequently. I heard about this and discovered my list was hundreds of items long. It took nearly thirty seconds just to register the download.

There are also memory problems with using a lot of tabs. I used to restart Firefox five or six times a day because it was either crashing or moving so slowly that it wasn't usable.

Finally, I removed most of the extensions I had. The stuff I didn't use on a regular basis or that were further sources of my headaches (FoxyTunes is great except that it caused iTunes to open [and lock FF up)]any time I hit certain key combos).

My solution?

I use Flock and the only extensions I use are Web Developer, AdBlock, and IE View. There are plenty of others, but I decided I can afford to skip them. Also, I find it far prettier than Firefox and any of the skins I've tried.

Just my $0.02, of course, but it might work for you.

Meanwhile Flock keeps hiring and hasn't managed to produce anything beyond a second-rate wannabe Firefox extension of absolutely no utility.

How many people are on the Ruby on Rails team again?

Meanwhile Flock keeps hiring and hasn't managed to produce anything beyond a second-rate wannabe Firefox extension of absolutely no utility.

How many people are on the Ruby on Rails team again?

what will ever keep IE alive? all of the corporate customers that demand that not only their employees use it exclusively, but that all of their apps be developed to only support it. almost every company i've worked for over the past five years has coded their pages to the IE standard, and the rest be damned.

lately i've been using Flock. (http://flock.com/). based on firefox (as such, has the same memory leaks that firefox does) but provides a lot of gee-whiz features that i find myself missing when i go elsewhere. ties in with blog posting, remote bookmarks, flickr, and does it all pretty seamlessly. it's a browser i'd feel comfortable turning my mom loose on.

and my mom's a hairdresser. just sayin.

I see the designers of Flock are up to their old tricks again...

See the Flock browser: it works really well, faster than FF, and it's still Gecko-based. And it has a search-history feature that's quite nice. http://www.flock.com/