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."

Comments

Browser UI

[afree87]

Hmm... it has gradients... it has shadows... why, this must be Web 2.0!

Re:Browser UI

[geminidomino]

Yep. How dare those people use the internet for Communicating! Everyone knows it was created with the sole purpose of COMMERCE!

The greatest feature...

[brian0918]

The "Go back" and "Go forward" buttons have merged into an all powerful "stay here" button.

Re:The greatest feature...

[CyricZ]

To me it looks like a pair of breasts. A pair of breasts with pointy nipples. Pointy nipples pointing sideways.

Re:The greatest feature...

[brian0918]

" To me it looks like a pair of breasts. A pair of breasts with pointy nipples."

So is the refresh button a titty twister?

Social Browser?

[connah0047]

A social browser is what you contract from visiting too many websites.

cutting edge?

[dioscaido]

Web 2.0? It's just firefox with a few extensions and a different skin...

Re:cutting edge?

[TeacherOfHeroes]

Every once in a while someone makes a +5 Insightful comment about how there should be a version of Firefox with the more popular extentions built in so that the average user gets more functionality and doesn't have to do all the work themselves.

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.....

[Anonymous Coward]

...is an anti-social browser.

Re:What I need.....

[grasshoppa]

...is an anti-social browser.

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.

It usually helps...

[CanSpice]

...to link to the web browser in question.

The User-Agent string.

[CyricZ]

Just so web developers know, the User-Agent string of this browser (under Linux) is:

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

[nmb3000]

I'm going to predict this will pretty much get a bit of hype, then slowly (or not so slowly) fade away into the mists of the Interweb.

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

[jalefkowit]

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 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 or wBloggar 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

[nine-times]

I'm going to predict this will pretty much get a bit of hype, then slowly (or not so slowly) fade away into the mists of the Interweb.

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

[G4from128k]

Social bookmarking would seem to be an ideal target for spammers and other malefactors of the net. How do systems such as Flock keep spammers from touting commercial links?

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) 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

[raarky]

Thats where a homeostatic feedback system can really help.

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.

Well, browsers happen...

[zappepcs]

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!

Note to developers

[toupsie]

I want my web browser to browse the web. Quit trying to bloat it out with k-k00l web 2.0 features. Just make it stable, secure and fast. About the best thing you can do is add a spell checker to the TextArea and Input fields of forms like Safari. Plus if I want to flickr my firefox, I will hunt down an extension.

Have a nice day and enjoy the VC money. Foosball rox!

Re:Note to developers

[CyricZ]

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.

Re:Wonderful.

[raarky]

I was just having a lunch discussion about this sort of thing. One of our engineers was telling me how he couldn't care less about all this blogging social sharing fandangle.

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.

[MikeFM]

To me, sharing bookmarks with myself across multiple computers is the main attraction of Flock. It's favorites feature also is an improvement over Firefox's classic-style of bookmarks which is just impossible to use when you get into hundreds of bookmarks. I like being able to tag bookmarks and search/browse them by tags.

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.

Re:Wonderful.

[MikeFM]

Not 'getting' the Web 2.0 is dangerous for an engineer if they work in the web business or anything remotely related. It'd be like having been in the software business in 1994 and not seeing the big deal of that new thing called the web.

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.

My thoughts

[Chrax]

I got a copy of Flock, so here are my thoughts.

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.

13 new things in flock

[bartdecrem]

for those of you asking what the hype is all about. here's what we've got so far that's different in Flock:

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