Have you tried Rockmelt? The new browser built on Chromium which in their own words:
“RockMelt does more than just navigate Web pages. It makes it easy for you to do the things you do every single day on the Web: share and keep up with your friends, stay up-to-date on news and information, and search. And of course, RockMelt is fast, secure, and stable because it’s built on Chromium, the open source project behind Google’s Chrome browser. It’s your browser – re-imagined and built for how you use the Web. “
I got in to the beta a few weeks ago and have been using it on and off, most of my browsing is still being done in Chrome, where all my extensions are installed, but I have been playing a little with Rockmelt. What I have discovered is that Rockmelt, and Lotus Notes share a very common problem.
When you are in the Notes client you are authenticated with your notes ID, but when you attempt to use other services in the sidebar like Activites, or Sametime you are forced to (at least the first time you connect) provide a user name and password (despite already being authenticated in to the Notes client).
Rockmelt seems to have the same problem in reverse, when I load Rockmelt it remembers my logins to Twitter and Facebook in the sidebar, but if I visit Twitter or Facebook in the browser there is no connection made and I am asked to login again as seen here:
While I would like to see the Notes Client do a better job of handling Single Sign on, even with out it, I get a lot of benefits out of the Notes client, from my mail, contacts, and calendar, to Applications I use, and the integration with Connections, and other sidebar plugins, the lack of single sign on is a minor annoyance, overshadowed by the features that I use.
The jury is still out on Rockmelt, I am seeing the annoyances, but not yet seeing the benefits really justify making the switch, I will continue to play with it and see as they release future updates if the benefits show up.
If you are looking to try Rockmelt I have some invites, you need to connect to Facebook from their site and request one, if we are friends on Facebook I will be able to see your request and send an invite, first come first serve (and please don’t friend me just for an invite)
Are you finding a lot of Chrome extensions that don’t work in Rockmelt?
I have not really tried to install all of my extensions in Rockmelt, mainly because I do not see the Sync options in Rockmelt that Chrome has. I am using the Beta channel of Chrome (current version 8.0.552.210) which includes Extension sync, which keeps my Chrome installs up to date across 2 machines, this is more important to me right now then anything Rockmelt has to offer at the moment.
I have been using RockMelt – New Social Browser for a few weeks now and I really love it for Social browsing.
When I find a site that I want to share, one click and it is done.
I also like the “tweets” that pop-up on my screen that I glance at.
As for the login issue, at first it bothered me, but they really don’t want you logging in, just using their sidebar to do your work. I like the fact that it shows the main timeline without the ads or other stuff that takes up so much space.
This is definitely a good direction for a browser.
Do you think they are looking to be bought by Facebook to be a real app vs. a browser app?
I’m still on the fence with RockMelt. I find it a bit distracting with all the people coming online/offline on the left sidebar. Maybe there’s a way to turn that off; I honestly haven’t looked.
I do like, however, how it makes the process of subscribing to sites very easy. Most people don’t know what an RSS feed and RockMelt makes it easy to subscribe to pages that you visit the most and get notifications via Growl.. I thought that was pretty cool.
Frank has an interesting point on just using the sidebar to do the social stuff.. but it does happen that sometimes you click on a link and it brings you to the regular Twitter/FB interface and then you have to log in (if you haven’t yet).
It’s currently my default browser on my home machines, but can’t make it default on work.. I rely too much on Firebug for now. I’ll keep playing with it.