Flock 2.5.6 available

Many people are unaware of the Flock browser. Essentially it takes everything that is great about Firefox and adds a couple touches to satisfy the social media enthusiast. You can do all of your normal web browsing in the usual window and utilize the greatness that is tabbed browsing. In addition you can post to your grab photos from practically anywhere and blog right from the browser without much of a problem. As if that were not enough you can load up your Facebook and Twitter streams (and MySpace if you still live in the stone age of social networking) in your left sidebar.

What makes these sidebars so useful, for me at least, is I can post a link directly to Facebook without having to load up the Facebook server. I can also upload photos and videos right to my Facebook page, which has helped me become more of a fan of Facebook than I used to be. Truth be told, I probably have become a little annoying on Facebook because of it as well.

I can also update my Twitter status on the same sidebar after clicking on the Twitter logo. But as a loyal Tweetdeck user (although I am getting fed up with the mobile version lately) I tend to use my sidebar primarily for Facebook purposes.

But recently the sidebar that I adore has been a little buggy. Updates have not been as frequent, leaving me to see updates from friends that are hours, if not days behind. So the good news for me is that they have just released an updated version this week.

Usually I receive an alert informing me that there is a new update for my browser of choice, but the Flock tam has turned off auto-updates for version 2.5.6. So I had to check my RSS feed from the Flock Blog to learn of the new update. The new version is supposed to address issues regarding the Twitter stream, some Firefox security issues and Flickr log out issues.

Facebook chat notifications are still in the works for an upgrade, but because Facebook is always changing their API for that feature and do not share it with developers like they do other features, it looks like the Flock team is going to hold off on correcting that problem until Facebook calms down.

I just installed 2.5.6 so I'll give it a couple days before offering my thoughts on the new version. If you happen to use it and wish to share your thoughts go right ahead in the comments below.

Download Flock 2.5.6 | Release notes