With the recent release of Flock 0.9, I decided it was time to update my Users Guide to Using Flock 0.7, which with this new release has become somewhat outdated. As a lot of the information from the previous users guide still applies, I have made a copy and updated it wherever it is needed to reflect information from the newly released Flock 0.9.

What is Flock? Flock is a social web browser based off Mozilla technologies. It was designed to have all the functionality of Mozilla’s popular Firefox web browser, while integrating itself with some of the most popular social services. These services include Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube, Ma.gnolia, and Del.icio.us. Because the Flock build is based on the Firefox web browser, this gives web surfers the added advantage of compatibility with anything Firefox is compatible with, which is pretty much everything.

How do I transfer to Flock? First thing you need to do is download the Flock web browser. After the initial download, you are prompted you to import your bookmarks and/or home page from Firefox or Internet Explorer, along with your cookies, passwords, and any other information that is being stored in your current browser. This will help you to make a virtually flawless transition to Flock.

What features does Flock have? Flock now offers all of the features that users of Firefox 2.0 have grown to love. In-line spell check, live searches, and advanced anti-phishing protection are all included, along with the ability to customize Flock to your specifications, including customizing the toolbars. Flock’s default search options include all the ones you expect, plus Technorati and Wikipedia (two I use a lot). On top of all of this goodness, Flock offers several features that are unique to its web browser.

MyWorld – MyWorld is a feature new to version 0.9 that serves as a homepage of sorts where you can access all of your information on one convenient page. It includes your choice of search engines, automatic updates of your favorite web site (via feeds), and convenient access to Flock’s Photo Uploader and Blog Editor. This is set up to work in a similar way to other popular startpages iGoogle, Netvibes, and PageFlakes, while giving you access to your favorite parts of Flock as well. The big problem with MyWorld so far is the lack of customizing options available. As this is a completely new feature to Flock as well as browsers all together, I expect this to continue to improve in future versions of Flock. It is, however, very usable in its current state.

Media Bar – If you’re a photo lover, you can integrate both Photobucket and Flickr into your Flock browser, which will allow you to store your photos online. Along the address bar at the top, you will find a photo icon called “Photos.” When you click it, your account and pictures will appear. You can click them to bring up your account in full view. If you use Photobucket, they allow you to batch upload pictures and will also notify you when one of your Photobucket buddies adds a picture to their Photobucket account. Flock also allows you to drag and drop photo comments on MySpace, eBay, LiveJournal and many other major sites. Photobucket has created a guide to setting up Flock for Photobucket integration. Version 0.9 now supports video streaming as well, allowing users to integrate YouTube into their browser as well.

Bookmarking/Favorites – One of the first things you will notice when you first load Flock is the big blue and white star to the left side of your address bar. This neat feature gives you a one click option to add it to your favorites. If you click and hold the star button, you can actually categorize and tag the site using your integrated Del.icio.us or Ma.gnolia account, saving you the time of ever visiting their website and making your bookmarks accessible from any computer. This is a nice feature for any Del.icio.us user, but particularly useful for bloggers who use the Daily Links feature on their blog or website. You can also go into the options and set the start to always add to your online bookmarking account, avoiding the use of the browsers bookmarking system all together. Version 0.9 now also has a nice search feature and builds local bookmarks into the sidebar, so you can keep them available within your browser, or online.

Accounts and Services – This area is where you can manage your various social accounts. Simply log in once, then they will be linked with your Flock browser going forward.

My News – My News is a feed sidebar that allows you to subscribe to feeds with one click (the same way you add a Live Bookmark in Firefox), drag and drop items into custom folders, and get notifications in one location. This feed reader is built right into the browser and is based on the Firefox Extension Sage – Feed Aggregator. Simply click the My News button next to your address bar and your feeds will appear in a sidebar on your left. Like any good feed reader, you can customize it to your preferences, seeing full, excerpts, and headlines only. You can also edit out previously viewed documents, and view in a single or double column (similar to newspaper view).

Blog Editor – Flock’s built-in blog editor works with most of the popular blogging services, including Typepad, Blogger, LiveJournal, Wordpress.com, Movable Type, MetaWeblog, and BlogSome. It now supports tags for posts, previews, image insertion, and allows you to add sites to “ping” into the settings anytime you post.

Flock Extensions – If you’ve ever been a Firefox user, you are already familiar with Extensions and Themes. As of the day of this post, there currently are not any themes available, and there is a reason for this. Where as Firefox goes for a simplistic approach, the first thing you will notice about Flock is the absolutely stunning appearance of the web browser. I can’t imagine any wanting a custom theme.

Flock also lets you use just about any Firefox extension you are looking for. Flock used to host the extensions on their site, but I noticed they have since been moved. I’ve managed to get most of my favorite Firefox extensions easily installed by simply going to the Firefox extension and installing it like you would in Firefox.

For a convenient list of Firefox extensions, you can check out my Best of: Firefox Extensions post, which breaks them into categories and includes direct links to downloading the extensions. I would recommend avoiding the bookmarks section, as the Flock team has completely redone how this browser handles bookmarks. Most of these extensions will not work with Flock. Also, some of the people that have created these extensions have not yet made them compatible with Flock 0.9.

Flock has made these developers tips available to anyone that is interested in making their own Flock extensions.

Are you a Flockstar? If you enjoy Flock as much as I do, and you run a website, you can help spread the word by putting a Flock promotional button on your website. You can also help Flock get to know their community a little better with Flock’s Roll Call. For those without a website, you can further the Flock project by easily referring-a-friend.

In conclusion, I have to say that my favorite part of Flock is the Flock community hands down. The Flock staff is second to none when it comes to participation with its users, and they have Forums setup for questions and discussions. This also do a great job communicating with the masses via their official blog.

In looking at the Flock project as a whole, it’s hard to believe Flock isn’t even to version 1.0 yet and it has already come this far. The one thing I’m truly waiting for is Digg integration, but for now I’m very happy with the browser as it stands. I can definitely see why it took almost a full year after Firefox 2.0 for this release to be available, because it was definitely worth the wait.