Flock, Firefox and Sporks
November 3, 2009
Certain inventions should be forgotten and placed in the trash heaps of history. The spork is one of those inventions. Whoever decided that combining a fork and a spoon, two very useful eating utensils, into one mutated hybrid would have been told “I’m out” by every one of the Sharks in the Shark Tank had they appeared on the show to ask for money as they pursued their dream of cutlery perfection. The fork serves a great purpose, to pick up your food in a secure manner as you transfer that food from your plate to your mouth. It was a huge improvement on other such instruments like the chop sticks. The spoon enabled us to move from slurping liquids from a bowl to using proper eating etiquette at fancy gatherings. The spork, however, is a spoon with slots on the end that allow liquids to spill out or a fork with stubby prongs that let the food drop back to the plate before it reaches your mouth.
Forks and spoons serve two very important yet unique purposes. Web browsers are similar in their uniqueness and the audience they serve. My two favorite browsers are Firefox and Flock. They both use the same search technology since Flock is built on top of the Firefox code but they serve two entirely different groups of people. Lately, I have been using Flock exclusively.
The Flock toolbar will look familiar to Firefox users with a few exceptions. Right away you will notice the extra buttons on the URL window, the big star button, and the extra icons where you would normally expect to see bookmark favicons. Flock’s signature button is their “Flockstar” button which acts the same as the bookmarks button in the Firefox URL window. Instead of “bookmarks”, Flock uses “favorites” and the “Flockstar” button allows you to bookmark, make that, favorite sites that you visit. The rest of the URL bar adds to the functionality of Flock. Next to the Flockstar are the Media Stream and RSS buttons. When a media stream is available on the site you are visiting, the button will change colors and alert you that there is a stream you can add to your media toolbar. In the same way, the RSS button will alert you when you visit a site with an RSS feed that you can subscribe to. This feed will be added to your RSS sidebar but that will be discussed later. At the other end of the URL window is the Go button and the Mail button. There is a third button for Digg users that can be added but that has been removed as a default for Flock 2.5. The Mail button is a useful tool if you like to share sites with your friends. This button allows you to easily mail the link to the current page you are on.
Below the main toolbar is the Flock toolbar. This is where Flock truly sets itself apart from Firefox and integrates all your social networking needs. Many users are intimidated by the toolbar because, at first glance, those buttons don’t clearly explain what they are there for and how to use them. If you aren’t the type that likes to start poking around and clicking on stuff to see how it works, it’s easy to just think those buttons take up precious window space and need to be removed. Each of them serves a key role in the functionality of Flock so I will take them on at a time.
A. The “My World” button is your control center of account activity. From your My World page, you can monitor status updates for your facebook and twitter friends, do a twitter search, monitor your RSS feeds, view your media feeds, and so on. It is not like an iGoogle page where you can customize your page content and move things around but it does place all your content in one place to get a quick view of what is going on.
B. The “People Sidebar” button opens up a sidebar where you can view your activity for various accounts. This is where your twitter stream, facebook status updates, myspace content, etc. can be viewed. Flocks affiliations continue to grow and currently include most of the major services. Myspace was added with Flock 2.0. Version 2.5 had major improvements to the usability of twitter and facebook. If you are a power tweeter with thousands and thousands of followers, Flock may not be the best tool for you. Instead you would want something like Tweetdeck but Flock handles twitter nicely for casual users. From the sidebar you can view your stream, your direct tweets and your direct messages. The integration of facebook received major improvements in 2.5. The most significant addition is the ability to view your alerts and IM’s when you leave the facebook.com page and visit other sites.
C. The “Media Bar” button opens up a horizontal toolbar below the bookmark toolbar where you can view photos and videos.
D. The “RSS” button opens your list of feeds in the sidebar where you can click and see the updated stories available for your reading pleasure.
E. The “Webmail” button keeps track of your gmail, yahoo! mail, and AOL mail accounts. It will glow when you have new messages and takes you right to your account when you click on an email or want to compose a new message. If you use any of these webmail accounts, this is a great tool because you only need to go to your inbox when there are new messages.
F. The “Favorites” button opens up the sidebar to show your history and your bookmarks.
G. The “Accounts and Services” button opens up the sidebar where you can view the settings for your accounts, set up preferences for new accounts, etc. It is broken up into different categories including People, Media Sharing, Blogging, Favorites, Webmail, and IM.
H. The “Clipboard” button is a place where you can store text, links, and images from the web that you want to save. All you have to do is drag and drop what it is you want to save into the clipboard and Flock keeps track of it for you for later use.
I. The “Blog Editor” button allows you to post to your blog without having to go to the actual site. Flock integrates with Blogger, Blogsome, LifeJournal, Typepad, Wordpress, and Xanga but you can also add a self-hosted blog by entering the proper info when you set up your account. You can add multiple blogs to the Editor. When you click the button, a pop-up window comes up where you can write your post. When you are done, you simply pick which blog you want to post to and you are done.
J. The “Photo Uploader” is a great feature. You can link it to any of your social sites or your media sharing sites and upload your photos. It is a very easy and convenient too if you like to share your pictures with friends and family.
If you just want a minimal browser to view websites, Flock may not be for you. If you use webmail, have a facebook or twitter or myspace account, upload a lot of photos, like to blog, or follow a lot of RSS feeds, Flock is definitely worth checking out. Firefox is capable of doing all of these things but you must download and install dozens of third party extensions and add-ons. This will work but there is a downside. Since all of these add-ons are developed by different parties, they will not look consistent and created a jumbled look of random colors and buttons. Flock’s integration of all of these features keeps your browser looking consistent and clean as you surf the web.
One feature that has been missing for Flock users is the availability of themes to fit the look of your browser to your style and tastes. That, until now. I am working on converting my Firefox theme collection into available Flock themes so users can have a choice in how their browser looks. I have a couple of them ready now and can be downloaded here.
Flock is worth trying out if you haven’t already done so. Give it a try. Just like with search engines, people can be very particular and loyal to their browser but you never know, unless you try it out you won’t know if there is something better suited out there for you.
What was up with the spork intro you might ask? Firefox and Flock serve two different purposes. Firefox is packaged as a minimal browser with speed in mind. There are tons of extensions available but Firefox can quickly become bogged down and overloaded with add-ons slowing down the browser and defeating the original intent of the browser. It is great for people who want to change the look of their browser often and those who just want to add a couple of extensions.
Flock is designed with all of these features built in and performance is maximized to work with those features. Since they are all built by the same developers they work together without fighting each other and they keep a consistent look across the UI. So many Firefox users want Flock but are dead set on sticking with Firefox. Rather than switching and using a browser better suited to their needs, they try to turn their spoon into a spork by dumping a bunch of extension and add-ons into Firefox. Rather than getting the perfect browser they get a spork, a browser that is bogged down and cluttered with extensions that may or may not play nicely together. Download today, give it a try and see what you think.
Comments
Got something to say?
