Flock Browser Developer Preview

Published: October 20, 2005

Flock Developer Preview

I just received an e-mail from the developers of Flock giving me a link to download a developer preview of the browser. The browser is a Firefox based browser that adds social and blogging features. The interface is similar and it has all(mostly) the features Firefox does.

Flock Favorites

Instead of regular favorites, Flock has replaced it with social bookmarking using del.icio.us. To use this feature, you must sign up with del.icio.us. You can however choose not to share your bookmarks. It would be nice though if the user had a choice to use alternative social bookmarking features especially because I haven’t used del.icio.us and I have tons of bookmarks on Furl.

Blogging with Flock

Users can also post directly to their blog using the XMP-RPC API. The only problem is that it currently doesn’t support many of the popular blog software. It currently only supports Blogger, MetaWeblog, Moveable Type, and Atom API. I am expecting WordPress support in another more updated version. It’s weird that when when you download Flock, you get an invite to a WordPress.com blog, but WordPress itself isn’t in the dropdown list for supported software. Am I missing something here? There is no reason not to include WordPress support.

EDIT: I was missing something. WordPress is fully supported by selecting the MetaWeblog API when you configure.

I also didn’t like how not all Firefox extensions were supported. I expect better support in the future. After all this is just a developer preview. If you like Firefox, theres no reason not to like Flock. However, things are far from perfect and for now I will stick with Firefox. I can’t wait until Flock is released in a more mature and stable version. Props to the devs.

Links:
Flock
Firefox
del.icio.us

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  • Contrary to what I posted. I am now using Flock instead of Firefox. It'd be nice to get my extensions back though. :(

    Can't wait for furl support.

    I agree with Kunal, with this and the upcoming Opera 9, the browser space is becoming is once again interesting.
  • Agreed. Flock has some serious potential. After a dry spell in the Firefox release cycle (only bugfix releases lately), this brings in some really cool features and makes the browser space interesting again.

    Can't wait for a solid, stable release. :)
  • Glad you figured out the WordPress thing -- had me freaked for a second there!

    Also, we'll have Furl support in a future release for sure. We've already been talking with them, so you're covered. For now it's del.icio.us, but in the future, it'll be as easy to change your social bookmarking service as easy as you can blogging tools.
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