Flock, the social browser based on Mozilla’s Firefox, has had its last security patch. As of April 26, the browser that has built in almost every major social network — including Twitter, Facebook and Digg — will no longer offer support to its users. Flock, founded in 2005, recommends that users make the switch to either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, as no further security updates will be provided.
The reason for this is that Flock was purchased by Zynga — the social gaming outfit most famous for its Farmville Facebook game — in January 2011. The purchase of Flock was a talent acquisition, and Zynga had no intention of continuing with the development of the browser from the very beginning.
I personally never used Flock, and didn’t have any great reason to ever try it out, although at this moment in time I would really like to have a play with it.
The Flock team will now be working directly for Zynga, creating more annoying games for the likes of me and you to play on Facebook when we should be doing work.
Did you use Flock? Which browser will you be switching to? Or will you just continue to use Flock at your own peril? Let us know in the comments.
Update: We got an email from Zynga, clarifying a few points. Zynga did not acquire Flock, but only some of its team. Therefore, Zynga has never actually owned Flock and is not responsible for Flock being shut down.
Article Via TechCrunch
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I've use IE, firefox, google chrome, opera, safari, seamonkey but I liked flock the most. In fact I was very much comfortable after using flock and was 100% stablized after using it. I was not satisfied with anyone of the browsers except flock. I never used its social networking capabilities, I liked its other general features of a web browsers. But very sadly after using it for almost 4 months now I came to know that it is being discontinued.
When I compare browsers I consider some points as below.
1. How Asian fonts are shown, specifically Hindi font.
2. How tabs open and look on the screen. Tab preferences, how tabs open in which order.
3. How does the Tabs, toolbars and menu look on the screen. How much space they consume. How much actual space is left for the website to be viewed.
4. How much they use CPU and memory when using multiple tabs. Browsers using too much CPU and memory tend to hang and slow down your computer.
5. How they present websites, GUI, there ratio, balance of a webpage being shown.
6. Any other problems if present.
IE = Very Slow, creepy, hangs.
Firefox = Eats up CPU, very raw look n feel. Almost dead or hangs if left idle for some time.
Chrome = Good GUI, Eats up CPU, almost hangs or becomes almost dead when too many tabs
are open.
Opera = Good GUI, but some asian fonts are not shown correctly/totally wrong, captcha image
not shown for many sites, irritates.
Safary = Very Good GUI, but asian fonts shown are wrong.Again captcha image problem with
some sites, Not very impressive when shows some site like google etc as it tends to
show Google image very large extended with space on the screen seems unbalanced
a lot.
Seamonkey = Raw look, less space on the screen
Maxthone etc. = Not good almost like IE in behaviour as they use IE's engine.
Flock = Initially takes time to load first time, after that it works like a breeze, Comfortable GUI,
No problem with asian fonts, many tabs open but still works very fine. tab preferences
are very good, no problem with captacha images etc. Couldn't find any problem with it.
Except I wanted it to provide some sort of option to hide main menu. Complete browser
for me. but sadly is being discontinued..
Initial load time for Google chrome, IE, Opera, Safari is good, that means they are fast to load initially.
For comparing web page balance, (a technical term discovered by myself just now) open www.google.com in all these web browsers, and u'll notice the difference, some browsers will show the characters Google which seems to occupy a lot of space, some seems to crumble it.
Google chrome takes too much memory and makes your system almost dead if you use too many tabs.
I found flock the best. But now again when flock is being discontinued, I'm again in a delima to look for some other browsers.
Satyendra Shah
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LikeRockmelt is a Chrome browser and so it is like Google Chrome but has a few extra features. But I have never tried Rockmelt as I already have Google Chrome. I know there was also a Chrome version of Flock but I did not use that either.Again because I am happy with Google Chrome. So I saw no need to use the Chrome version of Flock.So in my above comments I was referring to Mozilla Flock 2.6.1 which is the version I was using. Which is very much like Firefox. Andrea Borman.
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LikeI think its odd though, they offer both Firefox and Chrome as possible browsers former Flock users could use, while not acknowledging the social browsing competitor Rockmelt. Former Chrome Flock users could shift to Rockmelt I'm sure. I just use Firefox 4 as it is though.
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LikeIsn't Rockmelt a lot like Flock?
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LikeMozilla Flock was based on Firefox 3. Now Firefox 3 has been discontinued,replaced by Firefox 4 and soon Flock will be too. BUT there are many Firefox clones which is what Mozilla Flock was that are a good alternative. Both for anyone looking for a replacement for both Flock and Firefox 3- These browser are all based on Firefox 3 and are all for Windows-these are-Safefox,Wyzo,Pale Moon 3.6.15.Commet Bird 3.6.15. There are a few others but these ones work best. I hope this helps those who are looking for an alternative. Andrea Borman.
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