Flock Browser – The Social Web Browser

Why does it have to come SOOOO close and then fail? I’m talking, of course, about Flock, the Firefox-derived “social web browser”.

The principle behind it is pretty nifty: a browser based around the idea of social networks being center stage. Thus, rather than local bookmarks, it’d use del.icio.us, or you could upload things to your photobucket with just a click. Whatever you think of certian things, such as del.icio.us, alot of the features would be pretty cool and well used.

But, the problem creeps in between theory and usage. In theory, the browser’s integration is a great feature, but in practice, it ends up falling a bit flat. The actual apps supported are minimal and arbitrary. (For example, it supports updating Twitter, but not Pownce, despite the fact that both have an open API, and Pownce has been pretty damn popular lately. Secondly, it’s so slllllooooowwwwwwww. Using Flock is like cutting my bandwidth in half. Granted, I am used to the fairly fast speed of Firefox 3b3, but still. The thing felt like I stepped back into the Internet Explorer era. Thirdly, the damn things more of a RAMwhore than Firefox 2.o.12. With only two tabs open, it reported well over 80 megs of ram reserved, whereas Firefox (even 2.0.12) used that much for 5 or 6 tabs.

Lastly, and most importantly, the thing seems incomplete. Flock is stuck in that weird neatherzone between what should be a Firefox extension and what should be a browser. It could be both, but the way it is now seems like you could easily emulate this functionality using a Firefox extension and get much more usage.