14 DAY TRIAL // What do you use to browse the Internet? My guess is it definitely must be one of these: Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Netscape or Apple Safari. Am I right? Personally, I use two browsers at home (Firefox and Maxthon) and one at the office (Maxthon). Maxthon is based on the IE browser engine and gives you the possibility of opening the pages in tabs.
The browser in question today is called Flock for Windows, the version is beta (still has some problems) and is a free product from Flock Project. According to BusinessWeek, this software "aims to beat the big guys" - the above mentioned web browsing popular products.
What could Flock have that other browsers don't? If you think of it, all browsers have similar features and do not stray too much from the mold. They allow you to interact with a whole new society that is based on action. Ross Mayfield, CEO of Palo Alto-based startup Socialtext Inc. says the following: "The Web isn't so much a place anymore, it's more of a doorway into services, from the user-written reference site Wikipedia to the community organizing service Meetup to the folksy classifieds site Craigslist."
Flock is a web browser heavily based on Mozilla Firefox and other Mozilla technologies. So when you open it the resemblance is amazing. This happened because one of Flock's co-founders and Chief Executive, Bart Decrem, and some of his engineers also helped create and popularize Mozilla Firefox.
The interface of the software is not too different from other tabbed browsing Internet applications. It has a location bar for typing in or pasting the address, the navigation buttons (back, forward, home, stop and reload button), search bar (with search engines) and the menu bar.
I almost never used the menu bar of a web browser and I imagine that not too many people do, so I won't go in there too deep. Except for some of the options like New Blog Post and Open Blog Post, which are some of the features of the software that make it a little different from the others.
The General sub menu in Tools>Options sets the Home page when opening the browser and sets Flock as your default web browser (only if you want it).
The most important settings in the Privacy section are History (set the memory of the history) and Passwords (you can set a master password and the browser will remember all the passwords in the web pages for you.)
In Content you can define the sites for which you allow pop-up windows (and the exceptions), and the default font and size. Downloads sets the download folder and you also have an option to close the download manager when all downloads are complete.
The Advanced menu has sub menus like General (accessibility, browsing and language options), Update (settings for updating the browser, extensions and themes and the search engines) and Security (protocols and certificates).
Flock gives the opportunity of creating folders defining categories of interest where the user can save favorite web pages.
The new features of Flock reside in the fact that the user can set up blog accounts and write and edit blog posts directly from the browser. This way you can publish a new blog on your blog page in just a few clicks.
Another great feature of Flock that makes the difference is the photo bar, which lets the user post pictures with friends (you need a Photobucket Flickr account). All you have to do is press the photo button (right after the Home button) and log in with a user name. If you do not have an account, you can set up one for free.
The Good
The software is free and easy to use. Flock offers new possibilities for its users and saves a lot of time (online photo service and blog posting.)
The Bad
This is a beta version. I had no problems with it, but you should be careful as some passwords may not be saved by the browser and some of the data may be lost.
The Truth
I can't wait for the final version. Until then, I'll just keep it as my second browser. It takes only 7.68 MB of my disk space.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
