Flock, a Web browser with loads and loads of media sharing and social features baked inside it, announced today that it is shutting down. Flock went out with a sigh and the news of its closure has been greeted with a shrug.
Back in the old days, when Flock was born, things were very different. Five or six years ago when Flock was launching (it was a long, slow, hyped-up process), people loved it. Tech bloggers in particular loved it. It was, as PaidContent founder Rafat Ali said, "a new browser with a lot of geek-love." Top bloggers are so concerned these days with saving face by constraining their enthusiasm that I thought it would be fun to look back at what some tech stars said about Flock back then. Their early reviews are like a time machine that offers a ride into a simpler, perhaps happier time in the tech blogosphere. I miss that time and thought you'd enjoy reading some highlights.
A common complaint about Firefox is that it's just too slow, particularly upon launching. And after touting the speed and enhanced performance in the browser's most recent release, Mozilla wants to make it clear to users: if Firefox is slow, it's probably your add-ons.
Of course, the wide variety of add-ons and the ability to customize your browser to your liking is one of the things that has long made Firefox an appealing choice. But in a post on its blog, Mozilla reveals some stats from performance-testing. It found that for every add-on you install, you're adding about 10% to the amount of time it takes for Firefox to start-up.
Hot on the heels of a phenomenally successful release of the desktop version of Firefox 4, Mozilla has just launched an Android version of the browser.
If you're a Firefox user and an Android owner, then the browser's worth downloading as it brings the Firefox sync, giving you access to your bookmarks, open tabs, form data, and passwords across computers. Firefox 4 also has a nice feature that hides the browser controls when they're not in use, something that can take up the precious real estate on the smaller phone screen.
Web developers, designers and users rejoice: Internet Explorer 6 use is quickly on the decline. Even Microsoft, the company that released Internet Explorer 6 more than a decade ago, has joined in on the celebration.
"Its name was Internet Explorer 6. Now that we're in 2011, in an era of modern web standards, it's time to say goodbye," writes the company on a website it launched today to track the browser's demise.
Google released the latest beta version of its browser, Google Chrome, today and at least one of the changes is likely to make a lot of phone tech support folks very happy.
In addition to the standard fare updates of making things generally faster and better, the browser now opens all of its settings in a new browser tab, making them entirely searchable and reachable by URL.
Yesterday, Google released a Chrome browser extension that lets users block certain websites from showing up in their Google search results. That way, if you never want to see an eHow article again, you don't have to. Kynetx, a company that offers developers a single platform for building extensions for multiple browsers, saw the announcement and immediately offered $500 to the first person that could create an extension "with the same functionality for all 3 browsers and all 3 major search engines."
Less than a day later, the company has announced a winner and released the extensions.
Mike Beltzner, the man in charge of the development of open source browser Firefox, announced this morning that he'll be leaving Mozilla once the 4.0 version of the popular browser launches and he's helped transition the team towards developing 5.0 without him. You'll never guess where he's going next. Apparently he's joining a company called Dug Software, a 70 employee provider of geological exploration software.
Beltzner came from IBM Canada almost 6 years ago. At Mozilla, he helped build one of the most important pieces of software in the world. Firefox broke Internet Explorer's stranglehold over the browser market and forced Microsoft to support universal internet technical standards. Firefox has an estimated 30% world wide market share among browser users, a remarkable achievement.
If there was one thing that seemed clear from today's announcement of the Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate, it's that Microsoft is looking at Google's Chrome as its primary competitor in the browser market.
Did they come out and say this? Of course not, but it was more in what Microsoft didn't say today or at other recent IE9 events that really stood out. Not once did we hear the words "Mozilla" or "Firefox," but we surely heard "Chrome."
In September, Microsoft held a gala event to announce the beta release of Internet Explorer 9. There were bands, auditorium-size stage shows and hours on end of Internet Explorer goodness. Today, the company is holding a much more subdued event to announce the release of Internet Explorer 9's first release candidate and unveil many of the expected features.
In addition to the general announcement, we're expecting to see more in the way of IE9's hardware accelerated HTML5 graphics support, updates for developers and the much-discussed "Do Not Track" feature. We're live at the event so stay tuned and we'll bring you the news as it comes.
The mobile version of Firefox for Android and Maemo just hit a new milestone: Firefox 4 Beta, an update which delivers speed improvements, better panning and zooming, and faster startup time, says Mozilla. Like previous versions of the browser, it also includes standard Firefox features like support for add-ons, Firefox Sync for syncing bookmarks, tabs and browsing history across devices, and even support for Personas, also known as themes.
