When Netscape announced they were shuttering their iconic Internet browser last month, they recommended to users that they consider moving over to Firefox: “We recommend that you download Mozilla Firefox and give it a try. We know you’ll enjoy it!” (they also gave instructions for migrating from Netscape to Firefox). That makes sense, since Mozilla spun out of Netscape originally.
Today, however, they split their endorsement. In a blog post titled “Netscape Recommends Flock, Too,” Netscape’s Richard Klein describes Flock as “Firefox with social integration” and gives it his thumbs up.
The only problem is that Netscape has next to no actual users left to make these recommendations to – less than 1% market share. Flock must love the endorsement, but it isn’t going to make much of an impact on actual downloads.
We’re fans of Flock here, too (Duncan gushes, whereas I think its excellent but very slow sometimes). Personally, I’m finding Firefox 3 for the Mac the best, fastest and most stable browser I’ve ever used.
This is funny – last night I posted about this:
http://www.cent...ecommends-flock
I still think its a meaningful endorsement.
Allen, cool, added a link.
thanks – maybe i should give firefox 3 a try – im still on 2.x and i think 1.5x on the laptop!
Flock used to be really buggy and slow, but I have found with 1.0 that it’s much more stable.
On my mac Safari is the fastest, for some reason Firefox’s rendering of pages is slow.
I tried flock when it first came out in Alpha and found it too unstable, maybe I should give it a test ride now to see how it is.
It’ll probably help out a lot more now that the endorsement was mentioned on TechCrunch!
For raw browsing performance you still can’t beat iRider (http://www.irider.com). Plus it’s IE7 compatible.
Firefox, as a development tool (with Firebug and WebDeveloper plugin’s) is great! But for day-to-day browsing it’s a pig.
Flock’s lovely… I like how it works. I don’t need all of its features, but the ones I use, I use. Mostly all the social networks, the RSS, the favorites… It’s even nicer that most FF extensions work on it (It’s based off of FF2, right?)
Though yeah, before Flock got to 1, it sucked. It crashed on me a lot; but now it’s nice and stable. Been using it for a month or two now.
Michael, I’m sure you’re not in the business of officially endorsing things, but do you think Firefox 3 is stable enough to start using as my primary browser?
and this is news why? C’mon Michael, we want actual real NEWS.
I totally agree with every point you make. I too have installed the latest BETA of FF on one of my Macs – works super.
Regrading “resources” – for fun look at FF (Beta 3) and Flock side by side on a MAC. Guess which one uses more resources…..
I like Firefox 3 a lot. It actually seems pretty fast, more so that Flock (my #2) and Safari (opening multiple tabs sucks and is the deal breaker). BUT version 3 has some bugs, so depends on ones patience of a few quirks such as back button (or key) not working vs. speed and a very polished feel for Firefox.
Opera FTW. It’s where all the innovation is
I tend to keep going back and forth between Flock, FireFox 3 and Opera, I just wish there is a real innovative way to mesh them into a new super browser. I Used to get tired from Flock but now it is much better, Flock is amazing out of the box, with Firefox its like continuous work of refining & retuning. I just wish Flock has more support.
ie is better than all these crap browsers
Opera FTW indeed!
Yes Opera is by far the best browser for windows… It is the only browser that can handle truly major loads of data for input forums.
More Extensions
Sure, there are a lot of Firefox extensions out there. Most of them do work with Flock, but some don’t. If you have a favorite extension, go ahead and try to load it in Flock. If a warning dialog pops up, we can’t guarantee it will work with Flock (but it still might – it just wasn’t designed for Flock, and probably wasn’t tested with Flock either). If nothing pops up, you can be sure you’re set.
You should also keep in mind that some extensions affect the performance of Firefox and Flock. We cannot guarantee speedy Flock performance if you have extensions installed, so we suggest choosing your extensions wisely.
I found I didn’t need my previous plugins when using flock. They had taken care of my clipping and blogging for me. (Of course I still put in stumble and whatnot).
I’m trying flock for 30 days and honestly, I was convinced before reading these comments. I have yet to try FF3 and opera FTW so I cant make a real judgement call.
I just hope they can be as fast as safari on my mac.. its lightning speed.