Flock 2 Beta, based off Firefox 3, was released. I’ve never really got the concept behind Flock. Why not just use Firefox? But, I thought that Flock was interesting, so it at least deserved a chance.

My conclusion? While Flock is totally cool, I still don’t get it. First, I’ll go over the brilliance of Firefox, and then write how Flock deviates from that.

See, the best thing about Firefox is that you have the basic features that can get you around the Internet easily, but if you are desiring more functionality, it’s most often only an extension away. You don’t have features that you aren’t going to use. The user interface isn’t filled with all sorts of complicated buttons unless you chose to add those buttons.

Flock includes a lot of functionality from the start. It integrates with many of the most popular web services, like Twitter and Digg, which I like. But there are services that I don’t use, like the blog editor. I prefer the WordPress 2.5 interface.

Now, remember how I mentioned about how Firefox’s interface isn’t filled with all sorts of complicated buttons unless you add them. By default, Flock has the below buttons next to the bookmarks.

Now, it feels like more work to remove things you don’t need than it is to add things that you do need. At least, that’s what I think.

So, Flock has features that I don’t need, and the user interface has buttons that control those features that I don’t need.

So, in conclusion, is Flock my browser of choice? Nope. Is Flock a cool browser with a lot of functionality built into it? Yes. Does Flock have a promising future? Yes. Are there people out there that could put Flock to good use? You can bet on it. While Flock doesn’t follow Firefox’s principles of simplicity and adding functionality via extensions, it is a very cool browser.