I finally decided to try out the new beta version of Flock. This is the first Flock version based on Firefox 2.0, so I was excited not only with all the improvements from the flock team, but also with the amazing work in the second version of the mozilla browser.

The installation went very smoothly and, although in the download website they warn users to backup the profile folder, during the process all data and preferences was kept and simply updated in the new version: configurations: Flickr profile, feeds, favorites and history. The add-ons I had on 0.7 were also update, at least those already with new version. Unfortunately FlockTails, an extension to capture microformats, stopped working properly. The other two, the GMail Notifier and Del.icio.us Complete were fine. I tried installing Operator, although there’s only a Firefox version, but didn’t work on Flock 0.9. I ended up using TailsExport which does mostly the same thing, although it isn’t so good looking and throws occasionally some javascript alerts on the export feature.

Now for the new features. A new homepage was created, for those who enjoy having all their accounts and services showing up on the same page. Personally I don’t use it, but is a pretty feature. Talking about accounts and services, now Flock some more accounts. From the blogging platform we still have Wordpress, Blogger and other mainstream blog systems. No Mephisto still so no use to me either. Now besides del.icio.us you can also add your Ma.gnolia.com account. This is useful specially due to the search favorites feature which integrates those services also.

The feature that always kept me from using other browser besides Flock, has been the feed reader. And I was happy to see that it has also been upgraded. It seems faster now, a bit better organized and with a more polished look. Other feature this browser was popular about was the media stream, an one line viewer of media content. Before it had only available photos from Flickr and Photobucket. Now it supports video from YouTube and Truveo. I use this feature mainly to keep me updated of updates from specific friends, when they upload new photos specially.

The hole browser also suffered a redesign. The icons are mostly the same but they have been reorganized. But if you don’t like the way their placed they are easily customized. The toolbars however were given more volume and a bit excessive use of gradients. I enjoyed better the previous version design and I still have to adapt to this new version scheme.

So far, the experience has been quite pleasurable. Although it is a beta version, it’s very stable and no bugs found yet. It seems that I won’t stop using Flock for a long time, as long as they keep releasing new versions like this one. I also encourage anyone to try it, specially if they like a browser more directed to the user experience.

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