Over the last few days I have been bumping into a number of different blog posts from the various folks I follow in my feed reader, who have been trying out the first publicly available beta client from one of my favourite Web browsers: Flock v1.0 RC3, and I thought it was about time that I should a comment or two on what my own experience with it has been thus far. If you have been reading my blog for a little while now you have probably noticed already what a big fan I have become of such particular browser and it seems it is not over any time soon! Yes, that is right, folks, Flock v1.0 Beta just rocks!
I am not going to mention all of the different nifty social software features that have been put together for this particular beta release. For that I am just going to point you to the superb blog post that Harry McCracken has put together over at PCWorld where you would be able to read one of the best, and most thorough, reviews put together so far on this very same subject.
However, I am surely going to be sharing this with you. Flock still is my default Web browser for all of my Web 2.0 activities, like the previous versions have been all along. But here is the new thing. Flock in combination with the MacBook Pro I am currently using as my work machine just takes things into a whole new experience! Flock on the Mac rocks! And rock solid! Incredibly stable, hasn’t crashed a single time yet, very intuitive to navigate and make use of the various different features, all of the different social software capabilities are very nicely integrated (Much better than in Windows) to the point that I am really enjoying the integration with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Ma.gnolia etc. etc. and overall I can certainly comment on the fact that over the last few days I have been trying it out it has enhanced my exposure to Web 2.0 quite a bit. For the better.
And I am surely glad it has, because I was starting to get tired with how poor that same experience is with my Windows machine. Up until now I have been enjoying Flock quite a bit in the Windows notebook, but as soon as you try it out on the Mac you surely know what you have been missing all along, or, what I have been missing all along. It just feels smoother, more natural, just like a lifestyle. Exactly how social software has been envisioned from the start.
Yes, I know that most people are enjoying FireFox quite a bit, but to me it lacks some serious functionality as a Web 2.0 browser, along with some stability and memory footprint issues. Plus rather simplistic. Oh, yes, I know about the extensions, but let me tell you something. Those very same extensions work as well with Flock and don’t need to carry them with me. They are already there. At least, the ones I am interested in from day one.
I know that people may have different issues with a couple of the components that may need some work, like the integrated feed reader or the blog editor and I am sure, while those capabilities get to be improved as time goes by, I will still be making use of them in between my default options at the moment: Vienna and Qumana. So I can surely wait till they are finally done. But still the overall experience from a Mac is just so much more compelling than everything else that I may have been exposed to in the past, including Flock itself in Windows.
I know that this may sound rare, but contrary to what I thought was going to happen with this new MacBook Pro I am finding out that I spend less and less time working in it, but instead hang out more on the Web 2.0 apps. out there helping me enjoy that exposure quite a bit and making it much more integrated with my daily workflow. And Flock 1.0 is doing a superb job at it, too!
Ok, ok, I realise that it is not as fast as Opera is. In fact, Opera beats them all in that particular respect, including Safari, and that is why for my straight up front reading of Web sites Opera is my default browser, but for all of my social software tools Flock 1.0 on the Mac rules. Now and for quite some more time to come! Thus there you have it, some of the main reasons why I am sticking with Flock and why I am still enjoying the overall MacBook Pro experience… Oh and the empowering Leopard will be installed over here very soon, too! But that would be another story for another blog post…
(Keep up the superb piece of work, Flock developers!! And thanks ever so much for making our Web 2.0 experience much more enjoyable and resourceful. We would never probably be grateful enough for what you have been doing all this time — quoting Harry’s post shared above: "Two years ago, when the Flock people started talking about the notion of a social browser, they might have been a little ahead of their time.")
Tags: Flock, Web Browsers, Browsers, FireFox, Opera, PCWorld, Harry McCracken, Reviews, Social Browser, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Software, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Communities, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Ma.gnolia, Vienna, Qumana, Mac, MacBook Pro, Apple, Windows, Lenovo 3000 N100, Speed, Security, Safari, Browser Wars, Innovation
