Flock 1.0 Review

After reading a review at TechCrunch I recently decided to give the Flock browser a try again (I had tried it way back in the early beta testing). As with any major software changes, I think you simply need to cut off usage of the alternative (in this case Firefox) for a week or two to force changes in your workflow and see how well a piece of software accomodates your needs. So, I went ahead and made Flock my default browser for the past two weeks and so far I would call it a mixed bag. There are a number of features I like and quite a few I don't, though overall I would say there is neither anything overly compelling to sway me in favor or against the browser. Part of this may have to do with the type of user the browser is targeting; let me explain.Why Flock?
First, let's start with the point of Flock. As anyone knows, social networks are the hottest area on the web right now. Flock tries to build upon your social networking experience within the browser by integrating a number of the most popular social networks directly into the browser, including sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and del.icio.us. Most of these work nicely enough, even though many of the features simply function as "enhanced" links to the actual sites. Still, how much this is worth to you depends on 1) how many of these social networking sites you use and 2) how seriously you use them. For me, I am on most of them and don't use any of them too much (with perhaps the exception of del.icio.us), so both my usage of these features and their value to me overall is limited.

There are a couple of places, like the blog integration, that could be compelling if it worked with my current blog, but to no fault of the browser that isn't the case. Other features like the Flickr uploader replace existing applications on my desktop, which is a plus, but they were not applications I used frequently. I am on sites like Facebook and Twitter, but as any of you who are my friends on these networks will know, I rarely use them (in fact, I must admit to still not knowing what the heck I am supposed to *use* Facebook for). Anyway, my point is that this review is colored by my own view of social networking sites. It is entirely possible that, if you are an avid user of these sites, Flock is just the right browser for you. As for me, there is nothing dramatically negative about it that is forcing me back to Firefox, but the overall value the browser adds for me is minimal.

Here's some of the features I liked and others I disliked:

The Positives

• del.icio.us integration with favorites - within your favorites you have a section called "online favorites" which lists all your links from sites like del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia. When saving a favorite, you can save it to your browser favorites, your online favorites or both at the same time , all while adding the appropriate tags.
• Blog integration - If your blog supports it (and many if not most do), setup is easy as Flock auto-detects the settings once you provide a URL. I was able to get my Mango blog working with this, but there are known issues with the support that prevented me from using it. The blog editor itself is decent enough, and even integrates nicely with the built-in web clipboard, which works similarly to plugins like the Google Notebook.
• Uploader for Flickr - this feature is nice as it replaces a separate Flickr uploader program I had installed, and actually works better with the ability to modify pictures being uploaded.
• One-click actions for sites like Facebook - if I could find a use for Facebook, the integration here is nice. For instance you can do things like update your status, post a link or upload photos through built-in interfaces. Its too bad I don't actually do any of these things on Facebook. In fact, about all I ever do is approve friend requests.
• Most of your Firefox plugins will work - if the lack of plugin support holds you back from switching browsers, then you may like Flock. Since it is based upon the same engine as Firefox, most of the plugins you may be used to using should work. Yes, Firebug does indeed appear to work fine.

The Negatives

• Twitter integration - what good is twitter integration when you can't read the tweets? There just simply isn't enough room in the sidebar to read most full tweets meaning you end up at the site which simply defeats the purpose of the integration in my opinion.
• Integrated RSS reader - I thought this would be great, getting rid of my need to use a site like Bloglines for my blog reading. However, the current implementation of the integrated blog reader was tedious. For instance, you can put items in folders but the folders always open back up when the sidebar opens meaning I need to minimize them every time I check, which I find simply annoying. Also, you need to manually click items as read. In the end, it was just a lot of little annoyances that led this feature to be not worth the effort.
• Searches always open in current window - this seems like a simple feature to implement and has been an option in Firefox for some time. I want my search from the search bar to open in a new window rather than have to manually open a tab, which ends up negating the convenience of the search bar in the first place.
• Caching of RSS - I like ot use the live bookmarks on my favorites toolbar to check things like MXNA every so often. In Firefox, when the feed was refreshing it was obvious but here it isn't because the old feed items still show. This makes it hard to tell when or if the feed is updating or has been updated when you open the browser or when you right-click and request it to refresh.
• Some internal Flex applications seem to fail - I have no idea why this happened but there was at least one case of an internal Flex application that didn't work in Flock but did in IE and Firefox.
• Certain sites didn't work - ...well, at least in one significant case that I also cannot explain. I absolutely could not get the login on Adobe.com to work even though I confirmed that I was using the correct login (and could log in fine on Firefox).
• A few crashes - it's not like Firefox doesn't have this problem on a semi-regular basis, but despite the TechCrunch review, Flock did indeed crash on me a number of times.