New browser RockMelt oozes into beta | Hacker News Reader

New browser RockMelt oozes into beta

news.cnet.com

16 pointsdavewiner14 comments

I’ve been saying for a while now that browsers should have native support for sharing content. I love the idea here.

I’m not sure that a row of faces is the best way to do it.

(I’m sure it’s hysterical (and counter-productive) to have those faces staring back at you during, er, adult browsing. Just don’t drag anything onto one of your friends…)

* * *

Edit: A lot of people are assuming this = Flock.

They may be making a fundamental error. We nerds tend to think in feature descriptions sometimes. “They both integrate social.” But if the UX / UI are different enough, that could make all the difference.

(Edit2: Removed Gecko remark: “Not only is based on a different rendering engine, which hardly matters…”)

> Not only is it based on a different rendering engine

Actually, Flock switched from Firefox / Gecko to Chromium / WebKit earlier this year.

That said, my comment is a bit flippant, and for exactly the reason you mention.

Edit: I'd really like to see the RockMelt team discuss why they think Flock has failed to gain traction, and how they plan to address those issues.

Oh hey, it's Flock! (http://flock.com/)

When Google came out, I'm sure you'd say "Oh hey, it's Alta Vista!". I literally can't count the number of products and companies who attacked markets where others had largely failed (or at least not blown the doors off) and won big. YouTube, Google, Facebook, iPad, etc.

With a wretched name!

Except that Flock was incredibly bloated, and took up lots of screen real estate, when I tried it at least.

I'm not social enough for this browser, I can't "connect" for an invitation if I don't have facebook and there is no other method to get an invite? I hate it when websites do that.

Normally I'd agree with you, but in this case you're signing up for a beta for a web browser that is (at least right now) almost entirely built around Facebook. If you don't have a Facebook account, why do you want an invite?

(quick edit: I'm genuinely curious--sorry if that came off a bit mean, that wasn't my intention.)

The on site video shows twitter and other sites. You're right though. I think I was more complaining about about site doing this facebook connect only thing.

Not a huge fan. Already in a web browser, no real reason I can't just go to facebook the website, which automatically supports its new features (obviously).

Also not sure I want to see my friends faces all the time beside every webpage I visit. Definitely worth a try though.

If the rendering speed in any way reflects that in the video then the social features would just be the icing on the cake for me.

those vertical toolbars look horrible

facebook connect is forced? no thanks - browsers should be enabling more privacy, not handing it away

do we need another browser?

I'm sure a lot of people asked the same question when competitors to Netscape hit the scene, and look at how much they've changed in that time.

I've only read a little about RockMelt, but it's not clear to me why they didn't develop this as an extension ... aside from perhaps being able to claim the search revenue.

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