Last week, I was writing a post about Flock when my computer crashed. As it was still in draft (and I was still in the actual process of writing), I hadn’t saved it yet. That post was awesome, and this one will probably not come close to matching it in wit and style, try as I might.

Flock, if you haven’t heard and live under a rock, is the underdog browser, built on the Firefox platform. A late-comer to the web browser scene, it was much talked about when the latest beta was released. Anyone who was anyone was writing posts about how awesome Flock was. I, however, was not one of them.

Of course, I downloaded Flock when everyone else did. I wanted to see what everyone was raving about. I opened it once, looked around, and promptly shut the window. After all, it didn’t offer me anything that Firefox didn’t. At that time, I was not a social person, and the much touted extras meant nothing to me. I already had an external blogging program, I used Bloglines, and while I had a Flickr account, I didn’t use it.

Eventually, though, things changed. I was testing alpha-version sites for people, and often took screenshots of what I managed to break, or how it looked on my system. One evening in IRC, they were talking about Flock again (it was a quite often occurrence) and they were talking about the built-in Flickr uploader. I figured I might as well try it, since I already had it downloaded.

Brilliant is the only word I have to describe it. The Flickr upload was so easy, and then having the the viewer at the top to quickly see the photos in the account was brilliant. However, it was all I used Flock for. I would open up to upload the photos, and close it down as soon as I was done.

The beginning of this month I went to WordCamp, and met Will Pate, the Community Ambassador for Flock. Coming home after hanging out with him and another Flock programer, I thought I should probably give Flock a real chance, and really use it. So the Monday afterwards, I opened Flock, and started using it in earnest.

I did complain about it. Loudly and often in IRC, really. I didn’t like Flock. It wasn’t Firefox, and I wasn’t used to it. I didn’t like the way it looked. I was irritated that certain things that I used often in Firefox were different in Flock, and I had to go looking for it. But I kept using it.

It grew on me, though, like a drug addiction. I kept using it, and over time I complained less. I found the built in feed reader, and I was a permanent convert. Using Flock as finally pushed me into the “social web.” Before, I couldn’t figure out why people would use Flickr. Now I can’t imagine not being able to check my friends pictures with a single click. I can’t imagine not pulling up all the updated feeds with one click.

This is the first time I’ve blogged with Flock though, and of course I’m doing it for a specific reason. I want a Flock shirt. I won’t lie. But if I wasn’t being forced to blog through Flock to get it, I wouldn’t have seen what a great asset to the browser it is. Able to blog in a single click has it’s own benefits aswell, and I’m sure this isn’t the last time.

So, Flock. Originally thought of as the ugly duckling, it’s come into its swan-like own. It’s true. Flock is now my default browser. And if you haven’t given it a real honest try, you should. You might shock yourself with how much you like it.

Blogged with Flock