Stay connected with a social web browser

Use an existing web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer to pay a visit to the Flock website at www.flock.com. Click the orange Get Flock Now button in the upper right-hand corner of the page and then opt to save the file to the Windows Desktop. Once the download is complete, double-click the file and click Next to start running through the installation process. When the program has been installed, ensure that the box on the final screen is ticked and click Finish to launch Flock.

Flock will immediately offer to import settings from any other currently installed web browser. So select the browser from which bookmarks, settings and browsing history should be imported and click Next. Flock can then be configured to automatically load the Flock website when it is launched, or the home page of the browser from which settings have been imported ­– this can be changed from within Flock later on if necessary. Click Next followed by Finish and the basic configuration of the program is complete.

The first time Flock is launched, a message will appear asking if it should be made the default browser. Flock can be used as an everyday web browser, or purely as a browser for social networking. Either way, it will happily live happily alongside any other installed browser. So tick or untick the box to indicate whether or not Flock should regularly check to see if it is the default web browser and then click either the Yes or No button as required.

Now pay a visit to a social-networking site such as Facebook (www.facebook.com) or Myspace (www.myspace.com) and log into your account. Providing that a supported social network has been visited, Flock will detect that the site is in fact a social network and any contacts which have been added will be displayed in a sidebar to the left of the screen. A yellow information bar at the top of the page offers to keep the contacts for this social network in the sidebar ­– just click Remember Account to do so.

As more supported sites are visited and the account settings remembered, different information will be displayed in the People sidebar. In the case of Digg (www.digg.com), links to messages from friends are displayed along with buttons that make it possible to view stories you have rated or submit the currently displayed page to Digg. Notice that the People sidebar starts to accumulate tabs at the top to allow for navigation between different online services and the information and options associated with them.

Many sites with social-networking elements, such as Youtube (www.youtube.com), include a search facility. This will be detected by Flock when such a site is visited and the browser will offer to add this search engine to the search box. To do this, click the orange icon featuring a magnifying glass that appears to the left of the address bar at the top of the screen and click the entry in the menu that appears. Use the search bar in the upper right of the screen to enter a search term and select a search site from the dropdown menu.

Social-networking sites which integrate with Flock provide a quick and easy way to send messages to contacts. Rather than having to copy and paste the address of a website that you’d like to share with someone, Flock provides a faster option. With the relevant tab of the People sidebar loaded, drag and drop the icon that appears immediately to the left of a site’s URL in the address bar on to one of the sidebar contacts. This will then open a message containing a link to the relevant site ­ all that’s left to do is click Send.

Many social-networking sites allow for the uploading of photos to a profile. Here again Flock can simplify the process. When the time comes to upload files, batch uploading proves much faster than uploading files individually. Click the Open Photo Uploader button (the final button featuring an upwards-pointing arrow in the toolbar immediately above the People sidebar) and use the dropdown menu at the bottom of the screen to select the social network to which the files are to be uploaded.

Now, either click the Choose Photos button and navigate to the folder containing the desired images, or open the relevant folder and drag and drop the images on to the Photo Uploader window. Once this has been done, the Batch tab can be used to add the same tags to all the images, while the Photo tab can be used to assign individual tags as well as performing basic edits such as cropping and rotating. Check the settings, which will vary by social network.

Flock can also be used to post to blogs hosted by services such as Wordpress, Blogger and Livejournal. Visit the site in question and opt to remember the account settings. Now click the Open Blog Editor button (the penultimate button in the toolbar immediately above the People sidebar) and use the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor to compose a new post. Text can be formatted and images added using the toolbar buttons. Once editing is complete, click the Publish button to add the post to your blog.

To make it easier to track down new media content online, Flock includes the Media Minibar. To display this, click the View menu and select Minibar followed by Media Bar. From the Media Streams dropdown menu, select the desired websites and indicate the type of content that should be displayed by clicking the relevant option in the submenu. Here we’re viewing photos from Flickr.com. Media thumbnails can be viewed in the top portion of the browser window. Clicking one of these will load the associated photo or video file.

To browse pictures and videos that have been uploaded by a particular user, click the orange icon that appears in the address bar –­ this indicates that a media stream is available. The stream can then be accessed from the Media Streams menu. The Media Minibar can also be used to search social media sites. Enter a search term in the box to the upper right of the minibar and use the dropdown menu to select which site to search before pressing Enter.

Many websites offer RSS feeds which can be used to keep up to date with the latest additions to the site. When a feed is detected, an orange RSS icon will appear to the left of Flock’s address bar. Click this icon followed by the name of the feed and then the Subscribe button. RSS feeds that have been subscribed to can be accessed by clicking the Open Feeds Sidebar button in the Flock toolbar. Individual stories can then be read by clicking one of the headlines.

A handy overview of the sites that are being tracked by Flock can be seen by visiting the My World page. This can be accessed by clicking the first button in the Flock toolbar. The page that loads will display a list of RSS feeds that have been subscribed to, media streams from selected sites and information about contacts on various social networking sites. With all these extra features, it is all too easy to forget that Flock can also be used as a standard web browser to visit any website or maintain a list of favourites –­ there is even support for Firefox add-ons.