Preview: Flock Social Web Browser Beta 1.0

Not too long ago, I wrote about Microsoft's legal troubles regarding their continuous dominance of the Web Browser market. It seems that Internet Explorer is still used by more than 70% of the market. While I understand having to keep IE around for a few random sites, personally, I just can't understand why people are still using it for everyday browsing. Maybe it's a lack of knowledge. Maybe the general population thinks all browsers are the same. Maybe it's that people don't realize that there are browsers out there that are built to help them surf the web easier, faster, and in ways that are more stream-lined to their browsing habits. So, I figured it to be my duty to spread the word about variant browsers as I find them.

Enter Flock, the Social Web Browser. In its official 1.0 Beta release, Flock aims to provide a web browser squarely targeted to the avid web 2.0-er. Flock was designed to help the user blog faster, stay updated with their Facebook and Twitter friends, and find and share media fast and efficiently.

Based on the open-source code of Mozilla's Fire Fox, Flock builds on that foundation and adds some other pretty innovative functions. While the picture here looks crowded, rest assured that the additional items on the screen can be closed to provide a full window for surfing. But these additional features are what give Flock it's charm. The left-hand side can open up to any of your People Bar or the built-in RSS reader. The People features a great Facebook app that allows you to browse your friends quickly, a good Twitter app that keeps you updated with your friends latest tweets, a Flickr app and a You Tube app. The top of the browser can open up any media stream found on the net, including your friends’ pictures and your favorite You Tube channels, and let you know anytime those feeds have been updated. You can set up the browser to publish pages you've marked as favorites directly to your Del.icio.us profile, and easily lets you know when there is a media stream or rss feed available on the page your viewing. You can also drag and drop any media or page link directly to your friends pics in your People window to quickly share what you've found on your adventures. To top it all off, there is a blog tool that can sync up with most major blogging services. Just click the blog button in the browser, and a new, smaller window will pop up allowing you to start writing immediately without surfing away from the page you've found. Once you’re done writing, it will publish the piece for you and let you continue on your surfing journey.

Flock browser is still technically a Beta build, so I would be remiss to publish an actual review of the browser. However, I will say that I've been using it for a few weeks now and absolutely love it. I would like to see integration with a few more social networks and a few minor speed tweeks, but in general this browser fits exactly what I need. Swing over to Flock's website to download the browser and give it a shot. It's definitely a good step forward in the diversification of the browser market, and I'm really looking forward to seeing more advancement like this in the future.