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Firefox-based Social Browser Flock Launches
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."
Despite the dour response that will happen on /., I believe that it is necessary that such things as this happen. Forget your toolbar crap, get an entire browser based on the things that you want to do on the web. This is just the other side of the coin when you look at web based software business... a web browser that completes your business needs.. look for more of the same, and some of them actually being exciting!
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IMO there's no reason to make another fork of firefox especially when all this functionality can easily be accomplished with _plugins_.
If you want a lightweight browser, then you could always use Konqueror or Opera. They have nowhere near the bloat of Mozilla-based browsers, yet still offer all of the features expected from a modern browser.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I remember someone giving a presentation on social bookmarking at my school. It seemed like it might be pretty useful - like bittorrent, it gets more useful the more people use it.
Adding better built in features is the way to go to beat internet explorer.
agreed.
I just tested it out myself and nothing major or life changing in it.
what it will be good for is getting firefox to the masses of people who ARE NOT computer geeks and know all about which plugins are what and how to go about installing these things.
Users in the end want simplicity. An analogy would be that I would consider this browser like a holiday package.
Sure you can go out and buy a plane ticket, sort out the best value hotel, fix up transfers etc etc but for the 90% of the people who simply want a "holiday", the package is a great option. Its a no brainer to simply buy it.
Flock to me, is simply that. Everything you need to have a "social networking" expereince all rolled up into a good browser that so many zealots here promote.
Are you sure they built in some of the more popular extensions? The impression I got was that they added new stuff but didn't bundle anything. I thought that was why they had a bunch of links to popular extensions on their site.
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.
I have a del.icio.us account, which I use so I can see my bookmarks on each of the four boxen (work, laptop, games, web) I work with. I _need_ my bookmarks; my memory is shite and I'm programming 10 different things every week so I need an easy way to access my knowlegdebase. Before that I was moving around a huge bookmarks toolbar folder from fox to fox, which sucked. I also run dual/triple boot on pretty each machine, so suddenly that's 10 installs I have to sync bookmarks to. So del.icio.us rocks, right? And I've never gotten foxylicious to work successfully (i.e. at all) so after flock _just worked_ I'm pretty happy.
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?
Fucking christ. Most of the posts are just smug tech elitists whining about how it caters to "emo teens" or saying something like "Just what we need, more bloggers". The web is fucking huge, and I'd be surprised if there are twenty Slashdotters that haven't developed excellent crapflood filters by now. You don't read the Xangas and LiveJournals and Bloggers, so why are you complaining?
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.
Thats a matter of opinion and subject.
:)
In the arena of slashdot, sure its a sort of democratic system that brings out a specific view point or weighs in heavily of a specific subject matter but thats what this system is about. Finding out what the masses are in favour for. Yes is tramples all over minorities which means there is a gap left that could be exploited if someone can come up with a system that fixes it.
Also, remember that all these opinions are of ONE demographic. I bet you slashdot would start leaning in a different direction if the target market wasnt linux zealot ms bashing computer geeks
remember, this is a comments system made specifically for bringing one persons viewpoint across. Sadly the masses want to hear ms bashing.
If you wanted to hear it from a different angle, try another site.
In the end, the world is what you perceive it to be. If you get stuck in one corner with only certain feedback getting to you, you perceive it to be a place entirely different than someone who manages to roam around and process feedback from a multitude of sources.
I for one have stopped turning on the 6 o'clock news. Suddenly my world has become less depressing and my perception of how much violence is around is at an all time low
Forget your toolbar crap, get an entire browser based on the things that you want to do on the web.
Are we going full circle and just reinventing AOL or other online services applications? We're coming back to the "online service application" -- the one program used for email, viewing information, "everything" you can do online....
Flock will encourage people to create more blogs... and this is a good thing?
There is already a social bookmarking/site rating system for Firefox. It is called Outfoxed . Definitely worth a try.
The RSS pane is almost one third of the whole browser. I can imagine that in the version 4.0 the classical browsing window will be removed and all we will ever need is the SUPERHEAVY support for RSS and shopping cart + one input field for your favorite RSS search engine :-)
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...)
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
Well this is a good start in creating a customised version of FIrefox.
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.
although I doubted the usefullness of this browser at first, I have to say the search functions, bookmarking methods, tags etc are very nicely intergrated.
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.
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
Oddly enough, I'd have to disagree.
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.
The ______ Agenda
That is exactly what this is, Firefox with a bunch of extensions and plugins packaged together. I am using it now and while there is nothing mind-blowing, (although the on the fly history search is pretty F'ng sweet) it also doesn't have anything that would make me get rid of it right away. I think they have a decent idea of "Here is a version of Firefox that we prettied up and threw in some features." Even if you never use any of the other features, you still have a pleasant looking Firefox, so what is the harm in that?
And, while it's totally 100% Firefox, it's not compatible with AdBlock... sneaky.