Does Flock put viruses or spyware on my computer?

No, but be sure to download and install Flock from the Flock.com website. Any versions from other website or P2P programs may not be the real Flock or may be altered.

Flock Crashes At Startup

We've had a couple reports of Flock crashing at startup. Our investigations lead us to believe this is caused by a corrupted index file that supports the search history feature in the upper right of the browser. To resolve this issue please remove the "lucene" folder. Unfortunately the history of all the web pages you have visited will be lost. The lucene folder is located inside your configuration information folder called Profile. The profile is stored on your hard drive in a profile folder. The profile folder has a weird name -- a string of eight characters followed by ".default"; for example, "942ur3pf.default". Here's where to find it:

Mac OS X: The profile folder is in a folder named "Flock," and you'll find it on this path:
(your home folder)>Library>Application Support>Flock

Linux: ~/.flock/browser/

Windows Vista: C:\Users\Yourloginprofile\AppData\Roaming\Flock\Browser\Profile
2000 and XP:C:\Documents and Settings\Application Data\Flock\Browser\

This issue should be solved in Flock 2.5 - we highly recommend that you upgrade to avoid profile corruption in the future

Flock is not available in my languages

Currently Flock is available in many languages on ourversions page.

We rely on the awesome work of volunteer localizers to translate Flock into other languages. Don't see your language? Help us out - there's no technical knowledge needed! Find out more on the Flock Localization page.

How Can I Make Flock Remember What My Last Set Of Tabs Was?

You can set Flock to remember what your last set of tabs was by going to Options>Main and choosing "When Flock Starts: show my windows and tabs from last time".

How do I delete feeds, favorites, and media streams?

To Delete Feeds:

1. Open the Feeds Sidebar
2. Right-click (ctrl-click on Mac) the feed you wish to delete
3. Choose "delete" from the context menu.

To Delete Favorites:

1. Open the Favorites Sidebar
2. Right-click (ctrl-click on Mac) the favorite you wish to delete
3. Choose "delete" from the context menu.

To Delete Favorited Media Streams:

1. Open the Media Bar
2. Open the Media Streams menu
3. Click the stream you wish to delete
4. Once the stream is loaded, click the yellow star next to the Media Streams menu to unfavorite

How do I disable collection of anonymous usage metrics?

If you don't wish to participate in Flock's anonymous collection of metrics, you can opt out during the installation process on Windows. You can also disable metrics reporting in Flock at any time by completing the steps below. (To read Flock's privacy policy, click here.)

Warning: the Flock configuration window contains numerous settings which, if incorrectly changed, may render Flock inoperable. Please follow these instructions exactly as indicated to avoid this risk.

1. In your browser's urlbar, type "about:config" and press return.
2. In the "Filter" textfield, type "flock.metrics.enabled"
3. If no results appear in the result pane below:
   1. Context-click (right-click) to produce a context menu
   2. Select "New" and then "Boolean" from the resulting menu.
   3. When prompted, provide "flock.metrics.enabled" as the preference name
   4. Select "false" for the preference value.
   5. Restart Flock.
4. If a value does appear in the result pane below, verify that it is
   set to "false" or context-click (right-click) and select "Toggle" to
   toggle it to false.

How do I get Firefox keywords back?

Enter "about:config" (minus the quotation marks) into the url bar and press enter. Type "flock.favorites.showKeyword" (minus the quotation marks) into the "Filter" bar at the top of this window. Change the value to true.

Warning: the Flock configuration window contains numerous settings which, if incorrectly changed, may render Flock inoperable. Please follow these instructions exactly as indicated to avoid this risk.

How do I import my favorites, feeds, and settings from another browser?

Flock supports the import of favorites (bookmarks), feeds, saved passwords and a number of other settings from Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Netscape 8 and Netscape 9.

You can import settings during installation, or you can import by following these instructions:

1. Open the File menu
2. Choose "Import"
3. Choose the browser you would like to import from
3. Click "Next"
4. Choose which items to import
5. Click "Next"
6. Click "Finish"

How do I install Flock on Linux?

Flock is not yet packaged for any Linux distribution (with the notable exception of Ultima Linux).

This guide should work for most distributions of Linux

Before you install Flock on Linux, please note:

* The Flock binaries are only for GNU/Linux on x86
* libstdc++5 is required for Flock 1.x
* libstdc++6 is required for Flock 2.x

Installing Flock on Linux is relatively easy. First, download the latest version of Flock and save it to your home folder.

Open up a terminal window (not as root) and enter the following:

tar -C /home/yourusername -xzvf flock-*.linux-i686.tar.gz

Make sure you change the actual filename to match the version you have downloaded. This command extracts the contents of the package to your home folder

Now that you have done that, we need a desktop entry:

gedit /home/yourusername/Flock.desktop

You can use your preferred text editor, gedit is being used simply for example.

Enter the following in to the new file:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=2.5
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Flock
Comment=Flock Web Browser
Exec="/home/yourusername/flock/flock-browser"
GenericName=Flock Web Browser
Icon=/home/yourusername/flock/icons/mozicon128.png
Path=$HOME/flock
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
TerminalOptions=
Type=Application
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=
Categories=Network;Application;
GenericName[en_US]=Flock Web Browser

This creates a desktop shortcut to run Flock in your home folder. Feel free to drag it on to your panel or desktop to make it more convenient to access.

There you go! You're all set to start using Flock!

How do I reset my master password?

If you have forgotten your master password and wish to reset it, please go here, http://kb.mozillazine.org/Master_password#Reset_your_master_password, for further instructions.

How do I run Flock in safe mode?

Flock has an untested safe mode inherited from Firefox, so please use sparingly. You can run Flock's safe mode by following these steps:

Windows:
1. Open the Start menu
2. Click Run
3. Type "flock.exe -safe-mode" without the quotations
4. Click ok

Mac OS X:
1. Go to the Utilities directory (in the Applications folder)
2. Open Terminal
3. Run: /Applications/flock.app/Contents/MacOS/flock -safe-mode

Linux:
1. Open Terminal
2. Cd to the flock directory
3. ./flock-bin -safe-mode

I was using the Flock 2 Beta - why are my Favorites missing after updating to Flock 2.0.x?

As noted in the Flock 2.0 Release notes: Depending on which version of Flock you have installed, you may notice missing Favorites/Bookmarks. The way we store Favorites has changed in Flock 2.0, and you will need to follow some simple steps to migrate your missing Favorites to Flock 2.0. We realize this is an inconvenience for our Flock users and will be fixing this issue in a future release of Flock 2.0. Thank you for your patience.

* Note: Only the Flockers that have tried the Flock 2.0 Beta at some point may experience this issue. If you have never tried the Beta, your Favorites should not have a problem migrating.

To recover your missing Favorites, please:

- Re-install Flock 1.2.6 (via one of the links below)
- Export your Favorites from 1.2.6 in an HTML file to your Desktop. You can do this by going into the Favorites menu above and the Favorites Manager. From there go to File > Export.

- Install Flock 2.0
- Then import your Favorites to 2.0 by going to your Favorites menu, choosing Organize Favorites- then from there you will see "Import and Backup".

You can get the 1.2.6 versions here:
Windows.
Mac.
Linux.

Mozilla Firefox patches and Flock Maintenance Releases

Approximately every six to eight weeks Mozilla usually releases a patch containing bug fixes and possible security patches. Emergency patches may require a shorter cycle. Since Flock is built on Mozilla's code base it is important that these patches get incorporated into Flock as well. Our goal is to release a tested patch for Flock within one week available on the website and as an automatic upgrade.

In general we like to be cautious with regards to rolling out patches (depending on its contents and criticality). This way, in the unlikely occurrence of a new major bug being introduced, we can limit how many users are affected. We follow a few basic steps:

1. After a QA is complete we make the patch available as a release candidate for anyone to download.
2. After a few days of exposure and within 48 hours of Mozilla making the patch available for Firefox we we place the updated version of Flock (bumping the version number) as the downloadable version on the website.
3. After another day or so of exposure and if there are no serious issues reported, we make the patch available for automatic updates for a few hours. A percentage of users will get an alert announcing that there is an update available.
4. Again, if no issues are reported, after another day or so we'll turn on the automatic updates permanently.

Where can I find a list of keyboard shortcuts for Flock?

There is a list of keyboard shortcuts here.

Where does the Flock community hang out?

If you want instant communication join us on our IRC server irc.flock.com in the #flock and #flock-dev channels.

Don't know what IRC is? Don't worry about it! IRC is simply a form of chat, and you can use a website like mibbit.com to connect to it through your browser. Just enter irc.flock.com as the server and #flock as the channel.

Where's the stop button?

The Stop and Reload buttons have been combined into one button.

Why Can't I Connect to the Internet with Flock?

Often connectivity issues have to do with firewall software. Sometimes even if the firewall is supposedly disabled or uninstalled, it may still be active. The Firefox FAQ item on this subject is very in-depth, and since Flock is built upon their code their advice will be very applicable to our browser. Please click this link to go to their page: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Cannot+connect+after+upgrading+Firefox

Why Does My Windows Vista Account Have To Have Administrator Privileges To Install Flock?

In a nutshell, it shouldn't, but it does. This is a Vista bug that we are unable to work around. We're hoping it's fixed in Windows 7.

Why doesn't Flock work on Mac 10.3.9?

The current versions of Firefox and Flock do not support Mac 10.3.9, which is standard practice amongst many companies - it's an old operating system, and a lot of work for us to maintain compatibility with it.

Why don't some features work correctly with a full hard drive?

Flock creates and edits several files in the Flock profile folder that control some features such as the feed reader or history search. In a situation where the hard drive is full, Flock cannot edit and save these files. You may find that other application have difficulty running when you have a full hard drive, and it is likely due to similar reasons.

We would suggest that you free up some space on your hard drive in order to use Flock's features to the fullest.

Why Won't a PDF File Open in Flock?

First, make sure you have the latest version of Adobe (and Flock!) Then please open your Adobe Reader and go to the Edit menu. Choose Preferences and then the "Internet" tab on the left hand side. You should see "Display PDF in browser" please have this checked and hit OK. Adobe should take a couple seconds to configure and once this is done, please close Flock and re-start it.

If you are opening a PDF outside the browser, it will always open in Adobe Reader. The way that Flock's settings work is that if you go to a web page with a PDF file, it should open directly in the browser. In other words, "Display PDF in browser" only works for links to PDFs you encounter while browsing in Flock.