Flock Update

Just a quick word on my use of the web browser Flock.

On my desktop computer (a 3 year old G5 iMac) I really cannot use Flock (or Firefox2, upon which it is based). The memory leak “feature” simply bogs down a machine that is, otherwise, still incredibly fast. Flock seems to have the same problem still (version 1.0.5). On that computer, I use Safari for everything except WordPress and eBay, which seem to have issued with form entries.

Here on the MacBook (about a year and an half old), I use Safari and Flock. If I’m just going to be tooling around the net, I use Safari because it is a bit snappier. If I am checking Facebook or WordPress, or just feeling like something different, I use flock.

So Safari is still my primary browser, but I do like some of flock’s features. Here are the things that would easily make me switch entirely over to Flock:

1. Less resource hungry
(This may come when Firefox 3 is finalized and Flock switches codebases if it does).

2. Support for WordPress Tags
(I like the wordpress tags, and I find it annoying that the tagging in Flock goes through another site).

3. Support for Google bookmarks.
(One thing that keeps me in Safari is that it syncs bookmarks with my iTouch. Give me Google bookmarks in Flock, and I will be happy).

4. Google live search.
(One of the best features of Safari is a plug in called Inquisitor, which makes searching for anything online amazingly fast and simple.)

With those feature requests, I don’t know if I will ever be 100% Flock… but I do have some hope. Flock is a very good browser, especially for blogging, social, and media… it just still needs a bit of work.

Flocking

I have decided to try out Flock, a variant on Firefox that focuses on blogging and social networking.
Not sure about it yet… While I like the built-in blogging and think that the RSS support is equal to that in Safari (and far better than in Firefox), we’ll have to see if I stick with it.

Three things stand against Flock from the outset:

1. Built on Firefox.
   Now don’t get me wrong: I love Firefox. Back in the Beta and 1.5 days, Firefox was my favorite browser, mainly because it was so fast. Sadly, ever since Firefox2 came out the memory leak “feature” makes the whole browser run so darn slow and bog down the whole system after about 2 hours or when I have about a dozen tabs open.
2. Social Networking.
   Frankly, I don’t do much “social networking.” I do not like myspace at all, only use Facebook to track college friends, and don’t share photos or videos on public sites.
3. Not Safari.
   OK, this is both good and bad. I really like the speed of Safari, and with the Inquisitor
   plugin, it has the best search of all web browsers. That said, I am looking around because Safari and WordPress do not get along well.

I’ll let you know how things go.

EDIT: OK, issue number 1 found… the “tags” link to technorati, not the wordpress tagging system.