That crazy new browser, Flock, has rolled into version 1.0

I really like the way it integrates with Flickr and Facebook and the like. If you can afford the screen real-estate, it’s really quite lovely.

I really like the way it makes use of the address bar with mini tabs and the people sidebar has already become my new must-have. It’s smart to have the browser highlight features that are on a web page, drawing attention to them (like RSS, media files etc) and then providing a way of dealing with them for you. Flock could be one of the best things to happen to RSS since, well, RSS.

My preference is usually for way LESS in a browser – clean and simple – but I find now that I’ve usually got quite a few tabs open at all times and Flock seems to be addressing that by building in a number of things that I would normally have sitting in a tab. So, despite my misgivings, I’m really liking it.

And, what’s not to like about a built-in blog editor.

Click the images for larger screen grabs.

Early beta versions had runs badly on my MacBook, but version 1.0 is smooth and fast on Leopard.

I keep thinking that this is a browser I should hate – so much stuff jammed in – but its nicely engineered and sweetly designed.