Watch the new features and the story behind Google Chrome:

The Beta version is only available for windows, versions for Linux and Mac will be available soon.

Click here to download the Beta version: Chrome

Wiki: Flock is a web browser heavily based upon Mozilla Firefox and other Mozilla technologies. Flock is also the name of the company developing the browser. Flock’s creators call it a “social browser”, due to its ability to interact with popular social networking web services. Such web services include Flickr, Del.icio.us, Technorati, Photobucket, and various popular blogging and news aggregation services.

I have to say, I hesitated if to download the browser and give it a try or not, I mean I already use Firefox and I have IE7 and Safari 3 and I hardly use them, why would I need another browser.

So I decided to give it a try and blog about the result, I wasn’t expecting something special to be honest.

The download and installation went really quick, My first impressions about the browser is that it really looks like Firefox but in a different theme and a bunch of new cool plugins and adons.

The next thing I knew was that I was jumping around websites and testing the new functions that this browser provides.

The browser is pretty easy to use and you get pop up notifications were ever you are introduced to a new feature.

Now once you launch your browser you find this new feature under the navigation toolbar to the left of the screen:

Here are the new features that this browser provide, starting from left to right:

My world, People, Media, Feeds, Favorite sites, Accounts and services, web clipboard, blog editor, Photo uploader.

My World is Simply a start page or a homepage were you can view your favorite sites, favorite feeds and favorite media. A nice light page for a homepage.

Simple and easy to navigate from.

People is one of my favorite features in this browser, a feature that allows you to connect with your friends from different online communities like Facebook and Youtube.

From that sidbar you can easily choose what you want to do weather to poke, message, wall post, view profile etc..

Media Now if you click on the Media icon a new bar will launch at the top of your browser were you can browse through the chosen person’s media.

The same works for youtube, flicker and other online media sharing communities.

It’s really easy to search through your videos and photos on different websites, at the top right corner of the bar you can choose were do you want to search for your images.

Feeds is another cool feature that most internet browsers have adopted, but feeds browsing on Flock is a lot easier and more advanced.

From the sidebar you can easily organize your feeds the way you want, you also have the ability to easily mark as viewed or not, save an article or blog an article.

Favorite sites Very easy to use favorites that are divided into two, local favories which are your bookmarks that you have imported from another browser for example and online favorites which you can create, access from any were and share with anybody.

Accounts and services is were you edit and manage your accounts and how they behave in the browser.

Web clipboard is another one of my favorite features in this browser, because I’m the kind of guy that keeps copy pasting items around the whole time, the clipboard allows you to store anything you want simply by dragging it to the box.

You can also Blog and share the items that you have stored in the clipboard anytime you want.

Blog editor is a very easy to use and access blog editor from any were. very easy to setup and manage.

when I signed in to my blog I got this notification about how to blog using Flocks new features.

I simply followed the instructions and now I can use the blogging features on Flock.

The editor is very easy to use, haven’t tried it yet but I will soon.

Photo uploader, Last but not least, very easy tool to upload your photos to photo sharing websites with the abilities to edit the photo, tag and add descriptions and notes.

I guess they were right when they said ”Get ready to meet your new favorite browser!” because Flock is my new favorite browser.

I really do recommend you to get it a try at least, you can download it from it’s official website www.flock.com

Enjoy

I will start with the speed of the different browsers:

Speed:

Html test:

JavaScript test:

Application launch test:

So without any doubt the Internet explorer is the slowest internet browser out there meanwhile the fastest in all the tests is safari 3 which is twice as fast as IE. Source for the test here. Watch the test video here.

Security:

Well, when it comes to security it’s hard to judge which browser is the most secure browser for many different reasons, one of the reasons is that it’s pretty hard to put them to test another reason is that the security of the browser is defined by how the user is browsing the internet.

Here are some of the security updates for the different browsers:

Firefox: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html#Firefox

IE: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS04-025.mspx

Opera: http://www.opera.com/support/service/security/

Safari: http://search.info.apple.com/?search=Go&lr=lang_any&kword=&type

Some are clear about their security update history and some aren’t because obviously they are all trying to show that they are the most secure.

Most reviews show that safari is the world’s most secure web browser.

After all, They are all pretty secure if not as secure and it is the user behind the screen that really decides how secure will his browsing be.

Customization:

When it comes to customization it is very obvious that Firefox is the most customizable internet browser so far, it has a vast assortment of add-ons for your browser.

Other internet browsers like IE, Safari and Opera have hardly any add-ons.

Here are the different browsers available extensions :

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/recommended

IE Pro: http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/content.aspx?ctId=388&tabid=1

Opera: Couldn’t find any!

Safari: Couldn’t find any!

Conclusion:

Safari is the world’s fastest internet browser, Opera is the world’s most secure internet browser as most reviews show, Firefox is the world’s most customizable internet browser and IE is the world’s most used internet browser today.

Choosing your web browser depends on what you use the internet for and what operating system you have.

Stats also show that users from different ages and different parts of the world prefer different internet browsers.

After all it’s a matter of what you qualities you need the most in your browser.

Comments:

Eyad: Never mind, I won’t tell anybody

Adel: well, Firefox is another IE (Internet explorer) of course, but it’s a more faster and more customizable internet explorer.

Shawn: True, and that’s what the stats are exactly showing.

Qwaider: it’s a matter of taste, you might not feel the speed difference if you don’t have a descent internet connection nor understand it’s customizablity if you don’t give it’s add-ons a try.

Kriks: Agree

Qwaider: Show me your browser stats for a previous month and I will prove to you that IE users are decreasing meanwhile Firefox users are increasing.

Here are some recent stats for the world’s internet browsers stats :

It’s not surprising to me that IE has more users out there, but the point I am making is that IE users are decreasing meanwhile Firefox users are increasing, that’s why we saw a tipping point in the browser stats in Isohunt.com which is mostly visited by young and into IT users as Hani said as well.

Hani: I agree with you about the age and internet usage relation to the browser.

Firefox
Sep 18, 2007 – Sep 24, 2007 45.84%
Sep 25, 2007 – Oct 1, 2007 46.19%

Internet Explorer
Sep 18, 2007 – Sep 24, 2007 46.42%
Sep 25, 2007 – Oct 1, 2007 46.07%

Opera
Sep 18, 2007 – Sep 24, 2007 3.89%
Sep 25, 2007 – Oct 1, 2007 3.79%

Safari
Sep 18, 2007 – Sep 24, 2007 2.82%
Sep 25, 2007 – Oct 1, 2007 2.91%

In my opinion this really shows that people know that Microsoft products don’t have to be the best products out there and they are starting to explore and use other available products.

Well, isohunt is one of the biggest torrent search website if not the biggest.

To make this more interesting I believe it will be better if we make some comparession between isohunt.com stats and another website.

So here are the browser stats from one of my websites, as7aab.net which is a 6 months old arabic forum:

August 2007:

	Browsers	Percent
	MS Internet Explorer	88.6 %
	Firefox	9 %
	Opera	1.3 %
	Mozilla	0.8 %
	Safari	0 %
	Unknown	0 %
	Netscape	0 %
	Nokia Browser (PDA/Phone browser)	0 %
	Sony/Ericsson Browser (PDA/Phone browser)	0 %
	Phoenix	0 %

September 2007:

	Browsers	Percent
	MS Internet Explorer	84.6 %
	Firefox	12.7 %
	Opera	0.9 %
	Mozilla	1.5 %
	Safari	0 %
	Unknown	0 %
	Netscape	0 %
	Nokia Browser (PDA/Phone browser)	0 %
	Sony/Ericsson Browser (PDA/Phone browser)	0 %
	Phoenix	0 %

When we compare the browsing stats we can see that in both of the websites firefox users are increasing meanwhile IE users are decreasing, but at the same time we can see that isohunt users have a higher percentage of firefox users than IE users.

So, is the used browser related to what the user does on the internet? is it related to were is the user browsing from? like Asia, South Africa or Europe? or is it related to what operating system the user has?