Flock Internet Browser does what you want, not just what you need.

It was the name of this software that first caught my attention, but after trying it out for a couple of weeks, the name is probably the least interesting thing about Flock. Actually, this browser is one of the best new applications I’ve tried in a while.
Flock is an open-source Web browser released last year based on Mozilla Firefox. It has all of the features I’ve come to expect in a browser, including tabbed browsing, a download manager, add-ons and extensions and RSS reader, and it’s cross-platform.If those were all of the features of this browser, it would still be worth a look, but Flock offers so much more.
To start with, Flock is designed to work seamlessly with the Web-based photo albums Flickr and Photobucket. It notifies you when your friends have posted new pictures and lets you view them directly in the photobar.You also can upload your own photos by dragging them to the photo icon in the tool bar.
Another handy feature on the tool bar is the My News icon. When you click on this button, Flock opens a window that shows the latest headlines from whatever news sites you have selected.The really cool thing about the My News feature is that you can subscribe to any Web site that has an RSS feed such as cnn.com, dailytimes.com or foxnews.com. Also, the feeds can be listed by category on the My News front page, making it easier to find what you’re interested in.
Flock also is perfect for any one who keeps a blog. Using this Web browser, when you see something you want to add to your blog, all you have to do is highlight the text and right-click with the mouse.Flock does the rest by posting the text along with a link to the blog you have selected. Flock works with a number of popular blogging sites, including Blogger, WordPress and LiveJournal.While these features are all worthy of attention, my favorite feature of Flock is one that at first seemed just like any other browser. Like most browsers, Flock has a built-in search box and like most browsers you can pick from a variety of browser engines, but Flock does much more. As you start typing into the Flock search box it shows you results from your favorites, your browsing history and the to five Web results from Yahoo in a drop-down menu.
If you see a match, you don’t even have to go to the search engine, you can just click on it in the menu. If you don’t see what you’re looking for there, the menu also gives you the option of picking another search engine there.
This is the third Internet browser we’ve looked at for Bits & Bytes, but unlike the previous two we looked at — Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 and Mozilla’s Firefox — the first and second most popular browsers according to usage worldwide, Flock doesn’t even make the top five.Of course, it is still relatively new, and I wouldn’t count it out of the race.The third most used browser, by the way, is Apple’s Safari. In the latest survey, Safari accounts for 2 percent of the browser usage worldwide and 3.7 percent of the usage in the United States.Those numbers pale compared with Internet Explorer and Firefox, 85 percent and 12 percent respectively, but Safari’s share is growing. By the way, we didn’t skip a review of Safari because of its low usage. We skipped it because every new Mac comes with Safari and Mac users are familar with this browser, and if you’ve got a PC you can’t get Safari.
We hope you’ll take at look at Flock, along with Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox, and let us know what you think. Also, if you’ve got a browser you think people should know about, send us a link to it at bitsandbytes@dailytimes.com.

Kerrville Daily Times