"If you're a Mozilla Firefox user, you will probably notice the close resemblance Flock has with Firefox. Though the browser is in fact based on Firefox, Bart Decrem, the team leader of the project, says Flock won't be forking the Firefox codebase. Still this Flock preview on the outside looks like Firefox but with a different theme. So would a Firefox user be missing anything by sticking with Firefox? Let's explore some of the features that makes Flock different from the rest."
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Member since:2005-10-19
"If you're a blogger and news addict, I think it's better than Firefox."
I am a blogger and a news addict....I just question the size of the niche.
The number of blog junkies and news freaks who will latch onto Flocker might surprise everyone including the folks at Flocker......
No doubt in my mind Flocker is going to swipe a good deal of the media hype away for Firefox.....
Member since:
2005-07-06
...it looks like a good browser to me. Unfortunately, on some forums some people are already up in arms about Flock. Concerns range from "duplication of work" to "forking" and everything in between. To them I say: as long as we manage to steal more marketshare from Internet Explorer, right? ;-)
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Member since:2005-07-08
Excellent question. I wonder that too... part of what has made FireFox such an excellent and popular product is the modularity of it with extensions. This enabled the user to install and remove features, which was a big change from the other more 'bloated' Mozilla browsers, think Netscape. Once upon a time Netscape was just a browser, and then it got stuffed with features that some say over complicated simple browsing... which paved way for FireFox.
So why go and do that all over again?
A built in blogging tool, RSS, and 'search' functionality of the history on top of a new theme seems all stuff that coulda been simply extensions... but hey that's just me.
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There is one problem with the review. The reviewer seems completely unaware of the modifications and capabilities of the 1.5 beta of Firefox. The current incarnation of Flock is obviously based on the 1.5 beta. So, there are features that the reviewer attributes to Flock development that are really just along for the ride from the next version of Firefox.
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2005-07-08
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Member since:2005-06-30
The point of Gecko (at least what I remember reading some five years ago or so) was so that several browsers could have the same engine but have entirely different user interfaces. Right now that vision is starting to become reality as we have several browsers based on the Gecko engine, and I think the word "fork" would be a misleading, and in some cases insulting, description of each project (Epiphany notwithstanding). I can't believe people are getting upset about Flock. It is simply a repackaged browser targeted at a different audience than those that Firefox caters to. Such is the beauty of what Gecko has become. What reason is there to get upset? The only reasons I can think of are people with a superiority complex who don't want others using "their" web browser, and people whose ego is inflated by the number of downloads reported by spreadfirefox.com.
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There seem to be about four, maybe five or six, features that Firefox 1.5 beta2 doesn't have built in compared to Flock, but that's how things stand at the moment. That's also not including thousands of extensions that Flock isn't compatible with.
I don't see the value in Flock at all. It just seems like some developers wanted to grab some attention by forking (if it walks like a duck...) Firefox rather than creating an extension like most people do.
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As far as I understand English, the author clearly says that this project is NOT fork because they do not modify the source code of Firefox but only add some additional stuff like blog service/local indexing etc. And they will always pack this additional stuff with the latest Firefox release as soon as possible. The only reason they didn't produce Firefox extention they want to simplify configuration and deliver ready-to-use product. Sure, it's not fork, it's just packaging and configuration...
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The only reason they didn't produce Firefox extention they want to simplify configuration and deliver ready-to-use product. Sure, it's not fork, it's just packaging and configuration...
That's funny, cos I couldn't find an obvious download link on their website which makes their desire to simplify configuration and delivery redundant.
If they built Flock as an extension and it was good enough to warrant word of mouth (which is what they are relying on anyway), people would have found it in the same way that they are going to find it anyway.
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2005-07-06
Member since:
2005-08-29
Rather than browser variants or plugins I'd love to be using more websites that use modern web tech (like Ajax) for those features. Of course the ability to have small javascript buttons to call websites like del.icio.us is useful. But what is more useful is del.icio.us itself.
But for example I hate to depend on Safari to read RSS feeds. It's the easiest thing I have found so far but I hate not having access to my feeds when browsing from another machine. I still need to fina web RSS reader that can build grouped feeds in a nice way.
Would be great to have an Ajax website that you could use as your top 32 pixels frame from anywhere. Just install the functionality up there and access it with a simple login from anywhere. Hm.. I need to code this some day :-)
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You mean like the new Google Reader?
http://www.google.com/reader/things/intro
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2005-06-29
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I think this will fit a niche. I think that's what it was intended to do.
I personally don't blog, nor do I want to share my bookmarks so I find it uninteresting. I hope some good ideas get thrown around and get integrated into Firefox and/or SeaMonkey, though (speaking of which they really need to rethink that SeaMonkey name...)
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>> cos I couldn't find an obvious download link on their website
"...head over to our Developer page now."
http://www.flock.com/developer/
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Member since:2005-07-06
Because they want to keep things simple, and that includes installation. They want a single package for users to install and start using right away, and not having to customize things for themselves.
I won't use it, but it's not a bad idea and I think some will enjoy it if they do it right.
Member since:
2005-09-08
I might switch in the future, when the browsers really get lots of differences, but for now I don't need that RSS extension. Besides, firefox might as well implement this functionality in their next release. However, I do welcome the project, in some time we'll find out which turns out the superior.
