Flock web browser goes beta

Flock is a new web browser based on the Mozilla engine. So, it’s a lot like Firefox but also somewhat different. A lot of blog and picture integration is embedded within the base browser. It also features a wide library of extensions. Many of those share the exact name with extensions I use in Firefox everyday, so I’m betting that it’s not too hard to port them over. In fact, the Flock extension page states:

Very soon you will be able to add your favorite extensions and we’ll convert them on the fly for you.

update: they now have the page up for conversions: http://extensions.flock.com/extensions/convert

My initial goofing-off with Flock leaves me very impressed. In fact, I am posting this article from the built-in blog publisher. There are also nifty drag-and-drop abilities to post images on a forum or whatnot. It will automatically upload a picture to flicker for you while you are dragging the image onto a forum, and then paste the correct code there. I would love for the ability to customize that feature with the ability to upload to an FTP instead, but it’s definitely a great idea already. There is also a built-in spellchecker.

The import engine worked extremely well, it imported everything from Firefox in a snap, and my transition to using it was seamless. The extensions library is already impressive. I expected it to be sparse at the beta, but I was pleasantly surprised. Really there’s only a couple extensions that I would miss if I were to switch main browser, but I can’t check that “make this my default browser” box quite yet.