Flock Browser Flies Off into the Sunset

Posted 04/26/2011 at 2:45pm | by Paul Lilly

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The browser world loses one of its alternative comrades today. Representing the Web 2.0 world with a heavy emphasis on integrated social networking, the Flock browser was a popular choice for those who wished to stay connected with their various digital playgrounds scattered across the Web. Sadly for Flock fans, that all ends today as the self-proclaimed "social Web browser" issued an official end of support notice.

"Support for Flock browsers will be discontinued as of April 26th, 2011," a message on Flock's website reads. "We would like to thank our loyal users around the world for their support, and we encourage the Flock community to migrate in the coming weeks to one of the recommended browsers listed below."

Those browsers include Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, both of which provided the engine for Flock at one point or another. Early versions of Flock were built around Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine before Flock switched over to Chrome's WebKit engine in version 3.

In a strange twist of events for a social Web browser, online and social gaming company Zynga purchased Flock in January of this year, only to discontinue it three months later. It appears that Zynga was only after the talent, and not the browser itself.

"The Flock team joined Zynga in January, 2011 and is now working to assist Zynga in achieving their goal of building the most fun, social games available to anyone, anytime -- on any platform," Flock stated on its FAQ page in response to why it's shutting down.

Those who wish to keep using older versions of Flock can still do so, however certain key features will stop working after today, as the servers are being shut down. Security is another concern since updates and upgrades are no longer being pushed out.