April 16, 2011
Eulogy for Flock
Flock sent me an e-mail today, telling me of it’s death.
Right around the time I fell in love with having two monitors, I heard about Flock. Originally a fork of Firefox, and eventually a fork of Chrome (and changing right around the time I changed over myself, like it loved me), Flock was supposed to be a “social web browser.” It originally drew me in with its interesting bookmark integration and built-in blogging software, and soon became my main browser, with Firefox, and eventually Chrome, sitting on my second monitor for opening links people sent me in chat and whatnot. It was built upon the solid innards of the more popular browsers, but it was something unique, and something mine. It worked well, and I enjoyed it. Even after Chrome appeared as a fantastic second browser to Firefox, I found myself ending up booting Firefox 3 to the curb instead, and sticking with Flock.
Alas, I should have guessed this day would come. As much as I loved Flock, it really didn’t offer anything that Firefox with three or four plugins didn’t have. Nobody was going to pile onto it. It couldn’t be worth the money to keep developing and updating. I’m not surprised they’re closing up shop, but I am sad to lose it.
I guess I have a little Indie Rock Pete in me, as I really did enjoy using a browser that was capable, but unknown. It was my special portal to the internet, that only I used. I don’t think I ever met anyone else that knew about it. It didn’t have the stigma of something like Opera, and it was not as complete bullshit as Safari or IE. It was totally mine. It has a special place in my heart because of that.
I installed Firefox 4 today to replace it. It looks a lot better than 3 was, and once I installed a plugin to make the address bar like Chrome (I can’t live without searching in the address bar anymore. It immediately pissed me off and I immediately started searching for plugins.), it seems like it will serve me well. Still, I already miss the way Flock would, very slightly, misrender my website, and the way it would fake out not saving my open tabs on a crash, then suddenly restore them. God speed, little browser. Rest in peace.