Take Your Tagging, Blogging, Networking and Browsing to a New LevelFlock was released as a developer's beta weeks ago, and apparently I'm one of the few people who appreciate it. I've blogged on it several times on gamingandtech.com (my technology blog) and have just enjoyed the potential behind it. Of course, like any beta you have to agree the software is bound to crash some, and while I have seen several crashes thus far, I've really put the browser through its paces. All-in-all it doesn't crash much more than the latest stable release of Firefox, and this thing is not even a public beta yet.

For those of you who don't know, Flock is an uber-extension of Firefox. Well, that's almost true. Flock is a new browser, but it uses the Firefox browser as its base, allowing it to work as a sort-of souped-up Firefox browser with some appealing extras.
It's super social, here's what I mean:

1-Blog integration is high. Notice the Blog Button on the menu bar, right next to the Refresh Page button. The first time you push the button it asks for your blog's url. After it searches and configures your blog (automatically) you're all set. It pops up a post editor and you're good-to-go. Flock gives you serious blog integration.

Plus, you have The Shelf. You can put things here to blog about later. Just highlight and drag to the shelf. When you drag text snippets, The Shelf items are automatically formatted as block quotes and citations are added. 


2-Del.icio.us Button on the menu bar, right next to the url window. It asks for your username/password once, then you get a pop-up to enter in your del.icio.us tags. *Note: Beta has a bug concerning del.icio.us. You'll get repeated requests for your del.icio.us login. If you ever choose to skip this step the browser will lock-up.

3-Post to Flickr from within the blog option and see your pictures along the top of the post editor.

4-RSS is highly visible. There is a large RSS chicklet in every url box for a page that offers a feed. I know Firefox already puts a small chicklet in the url bar too, but this graphic RSS button is 3/4" long. You really can't miss it.

5-History sidebar reminds you where you've been. What if it crashes or you accidentally close a tab? Just open the history sidebar and choose the most recently visited url. Much easier interface than other history methods ::cough:: IE ::cough::

5-Tags are integrated into the browser. You can add tags to your favorites, and it has the cool little tag icons that Zimbra uses. You can see all that in the favorites manager (another favorite of mine).

6-Search history is indexed and searchable. You can search your history and Flock stores your viewed pages, indexes them, and then allows for search of visited pages, with auto suggest.

What's my favorite thing about Flock?

You can have multiple Favorites Toolbars. Yep, you can have one toolbar for work, one for playing while at work, one for school, etc.

For more info and to get way too excited about a browser, visit Flock.</>