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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.

Flock, the "social" Web browser formerly built on top of Mozilla's Firefox, has just made a radical change. It's now powered by Chromium, the same technology found in the underpinnings of the speedy (and rapidly growing) Google Chrome.

Long decried among many early adopters as slow, busy and buggy, Flock today aims to change those former perceptions with the launch of its overhauled browser. The company describes the new Flock as "simple," "clutter-free" and "lightning fast."

As part of the European Union's antitrust agreement with Microsoft, the company will be required next year to show a list of alternatives to Internet Explorer to any Windows user with IE installed as their default browser.

Love or hate the government intervention, it's notable to see which browsers are about to get a big boost in user numbers. The EU says increased viability in the browser market will lead to more competition and more innovation. Here are the companies that will get a first crack at new levels of market viability in Europe.

Flock, the "social web browser" built on top of Mozilla's Firefox, has remained somewhat of a niche product despite its integrations with the most popular social networking sites on the web. Although its features should have made it a top product in our Facebook and Twitter-obsessed age, it has clearly remained on the sidelines of the web browser market.

Today, Flock is trying a new strategy. The company plans to extend itself beyond the "social" niche by trying to find a home in an entirely different one: the Hispanic web. To tap into this new audience, Flock is releasing a Spanish-language web browser in partnership with Univision Interactive Media, the top Spanish-language media company in the U.S.

A few days ago, the social web browser Flock released version 2.5 of their software, integrating Facebook Chat, improving Twitter functionality, and adding a new broadcasting feature called "Flockcast." As we evaluated the upgrade, a thought occurred to us: this browser should be the epitome of everything we love about the social web and yet the company has seen only moderate success. Flock has been downloaded 7.5 million times but has just 1.1 million active users. (Compare that to Firefox's 270 million). Is Flock doing something wrong here? Or is the product just too niche to ever see mainstream success?

Today we came across Visual Explorer, a new browser that wants to provide users with a better, more tightly integrated browsing experience. Similar to what Flock does with Firefox, Visual Explorer is built on top of Microsoft's Internet Explorer and provides users with a new user interface, as well as a number of new features. While Flock focuses on integrating lots of social media services, Visual Explorer tries to provide its users with a more extensive set of general browsing features such as live previews for tabs or an enhanced download manager.