Originally published December 3 2005
New browser named Flock enhances online creativity
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Flock is an enhanced version of the Firefox browser. A shared-bookmarking service called Del.icio.us allows members with the same sites listed in their collections to swap sites they like.
It's a souped-up version of the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser, with features added to help users create Web journal entries and share favorite Web sites.
Although Flock is still in an early preview mode, meaning it is crash-prone among other problems, it offers a good sense of what to expect.
With Flock, traditional bookmarks, also known as favorites, are out the window.
Instead, you "star" a page, and by doing so, you can automatically send the link to an online account you create at shared-bookmarking service Del.icio.us.
That means, in theory, you can easily access your favorite sites from any computer, not just the one where all your bookmarks are stored.
(In practice, because it's still in preview, the synchronization is far from perfect).
The thinking is that if two people have the same bookmarks they are likely to have similar interests and would want to discover similar sites.
Flock also gives you a way to easily tag the online bookmarks to help with sorting and discovery.
Instead of placing a link for a site on "Lost" in an arbitrary folder, you can tag it "television," "Lost," and even "ABC."
You can use Flock's "favorites" manager to see only links carrying a certain tag, or you can search through other people's Del.icio.us collections by tag.
Flock also has a number of features meant to help people post to their Web journals, or blogs.
A built-in word processor lets you submit entries directly to some of the leading blog services, including Six Apart Ltd.'s TypePad and Google Inc.'s Blogger.
Developers say many more features are to come, including ways to seamlessly upload photos to your Flickr account and better integrate with social-networking services.
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