Flock 2.0 out of beta: Gets current Mozilla engine, MySpace support, more

Flock is the browser for people who love features but hate plug-ins and extensions. There's very little you can do in the product that you can't also do by layering extensions to your Firefox installation, but in Flock they're all preconfigured and integrated into the browsing experience. With the latest 2.0 release of the product, Flock now gets the current Mozilla engine (the same one in Firefox 3) as well as a few additional media and social net integration features.

Get Flock from Download.com: Windows | Mac

I was a big fan of Flock 1 before Firefox 3 and Chrome shipped. I found it more stable than my Firefox 2 installation, probably because I had Firefox loaded down with extensions. And it did more than IE 7. But with the speed and stability of Firefox 3, the decision to use Flock is now about the features.

Flock's social sidebar (left highlight) and media bar (top highlight) let you keep tabs on your social network.

Flock does a lot for a browser. It integrates social media feeds from MySpace (which is new to version 2), Twitter, Facebook, and other sites. You can see everything that is happening with your friends, across all your networks, in the sidebar. You can also view media (photos and videos) from media and social sites like Revver (new), YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and so on. The media view is entertaining if you set the filter to "my friends."

Like current browsers, Flock recognizes when a page you're on has an RSS feed, and gives you the capability to subscribe to it. New in version 2: It can also subscribe to media streams and display the items in the media bar.

If you close down the media and social sidebars, Flock feels a lot like Firefox 3, down to implementation of the "awesome bar" URL entry field. You can even add most Firefox extensions to Flock.

But the best way to use Flock is to immerse yourself in the river of social updates it will feed your way. New users will likely find it overwhelming at first, but the product really does give you a more comprehensive and real-time view into your social network than you can get otherwise.

See also:
Working Webware: Flock's future
Beta review: Flock 2
New Firefox beta even faster than FF3

[ecotony]

I switched to flock when Netscape stopped updating. Very happy with the use and stability. The updates happen a bit often, but each one adds something on the surface and seems to increase stability. Overall, glad Flock stepped up when it did.

[sythara]

Firefox is simple, and some people like that. I guess to each their own. The screen shot above looks too busy for me, and all the information will likely give me a headache, hehehe. But it does look very nice if you're into that sort of thing.

[ramazancinar]

I like firefox. I prefer using firefox. Thanks

http://www.mer-tek.com

[-Kao-]

Rafe,

You forgot to mention the great Blog Editor in Flock. It comes pre-configured for connecting to Blogger, Typepad, WordPress.com and LiveJournal. If you use Windows Live Spaces, you can also use the Blog Editor with it by following the instructions here:

http://mintalloy.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!622E0261A61EBF0B!137.entry

Kao

[tm_anon]

Flock only looks busy. The great thing about it is that it does so much on its own, all you have to do is respond when you feel like it. You can close off the people sidebar, you don't have to have the media bar open and it still performs all the functions. It's stable, it's fast, it's simple to use and it takes care of half of the menial tasks of surfing the web (ie, checking email, checking RSS feeds, checking Myspace, checking Facebook, going to your blog page to make posts, loading up the same photo 10 times to share on 10 different sites. Flock makes web browsing a pleasure because it takes the boring browsing and does it automatically in the background. It's like having a personal assistant telling you anything and everything you ask without ever getting in the way of the task at hand. It's great for job use, great for home use, great for home offices and great for internet playtime. With an economy the way this one is currently, I've even got Flock checking 7 different job search engines for me so I can spend my time elsewhere.