RockMelt Social Browsing: Review

Searching with RockMelt

I mentioned the address bar was short. That’s because to the right of the address bar is a separate search bar that lets users search Google right from RockMelt. I thought having two top toolbars would irk me, but no.

The Google search bar is an elegant solution. Typing in a query and hitting enter shows users previews of results without making them go clicking around from web page to web page. If a user wants to see the results in Google.com, they can click the “View in Tab” button above the preview. Clicking a result launches it to the tab window.

Let’s explore the App edge on the right, where users may access their Facebook News Feed, Facebook Profile or Twitter live feeds without clicking away to Facebook.com or Twitter.com. These tabs all offer much of the functionality from the social networks.

The App edge provides push notifications, tracking users’ favorite sites and alerting them when a new story comes out, a friend posts new pictures, or a new video is available. This is nice at first blush, but can get noisy fast if users opt to show updates in the task bar.

The Add Feeds tab is interesting. Clicking it shows an option to add the URL of RSS/Atom feeds they want to plant in the App edge bar. RockMelt also helps users build feeds by showing users recent websites they visited and those they browse most often. Users may fill up the App edge by adding RSS feeds from websites they visit.

Management

The RockMelt management tab, which sits in the uppermost left corner of the browser, is a lot like the one in Chrome.

Users can import their existing bookmarks, browsing history, saved passwords from Chrome, Google Toolbar, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Unfortunately, this was kludgy for me. When I imported bookmarks Chrome instantiation, it sucked in the data, but instead of appropriating the bookmark icons straight to the browser toolbar, it put them in a bookmarks folder, where I had to drag and drop them manually to recreate my user experience in Chrome.

I want a browser that will put all of the bookmarks in the toolbar above the browser window exactly as I had it in another browser.

One cool option in the management tab; users tired of the Friend or App edges can hide one or the other or both by clicking the edges button.

Could be faster

RockMelt was fast at times, slow at others. It definitely had the feel of a browser that wants to be as fast as the latest version of Chrome, Firefox or IE. In my mind, it’s not there yet.

However, I’m going to keep using it over Chrome, which I switched to from Firefox one and a half years ago. Why? Because it’s so native to my web surfing and sharing experience.

I don’t have to bounce around from browser window to browser window to access my top two social networks. I can share everything from within RockMelt, affording me efficiencies for work I can’t get from any other browser.

Are you one of the 700 million combined people who don’t use Facebook or Twitter? RockMelt is not for you. Stick with a lighter weight browser.

With that, I sadly bid adieu to Chrome and welcome RockMelt, whose name sounds gratingly like a boy’s Hasbro toy, as my new browser engine for work and play.