RockMelt - Change The Way You Browse.

Today I will review RockMelt.

This is a new Facebook-based web browser and it changed the way I use my internet.

This browser is still in early beta mode and already very stable and very easy to use.

Here is a short video from the RockMelt team:

Once you managed to get an invite, you need to go to the RockMelt website and give RockMelt full access to your Facebook account. This is in order for RockMelt to work properly. The RockMelt team say that they take privacy very seriously- in their Privacy section, RockMelt say they will never ever spam you or your friends, nor they will ever auto-post. From my experience this is definitely true-- RockMelt won't even try to convince you to post stuff to your wall.

If you want to share - go ahead and do it. Its extremely easy. But if you want to keep the browsing experience to yourself, that works just as well.

The first thing you see when you open the browser is a small Facebook login screen. From now on you are always logged into Facebook. If you would rather not be visible on FB chat, you can set chat to "Invisible" mode.

You will notice the edges on the sides of your screen. On the left side there is a friends edge where you can chat with your friends or check their recent activities. You can set favorite friends, friend groups, or just see who is online right now. You can also drag links to your friend to share with them via Facebook message or a post on their wall.

On the right side there is the apps edge, which is what I'm most excited about.

The apps edge lets you know every time there is an update on your Facebook news feed or on any other website you decide to follow. Personally, I follow my Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and a few tech websites, but you can connect to any website that has RSS simply by going to the website and press the small plus button on the bottom of the right edge. If the website has an RSS feed this button will appear in green, allowing you to add it to your apps edge. You can even add friends' Facebook pages. With each update to the websites you are following there will be a small number next to the website logo. The updates do not open in a new tab but in a nice box that lets you see a short version of the post. From that box you can share or like any post. That box can also be detached from the edge and move to the top of every tab or software. So you can watch your YouTube, talk on Skype, or do whatever it is you want, and still have the information box with whatever content you are following right in front of you. 

On the top there is the usual address bar and what looks like a simple search bar- which is actually a very advanced search bar. The new search bar shows you Google results of whatever you are looking for in the same kind of simple box. It also loads the sites in the background, which means you can use the arrows to move between those sites really fast.

Up there between the regular chrome-like address bar and special search bar there is a share button, which allows you to share any web page (such as this blog) easily as a Facebook message, wall post or tweet.

My list of Pros and Cons for RockMelt:

Pros

- Very good Facebook and Twitter integration.

- Makes it easy to follow what interests you, whether its news or friends.

- Very easy to customize and personalize your browsing experience.

- Works great with all the websites I've tried.

Cons

- No Facebook group integration at all.

- The Gmail app doesn't open in the same kind of nice separate window, instead it shows you the number of new emails and opens a new tab when pressed.

- No Linux support, only Mac and Windows support for now.

RockMelt have many many other nice features and the browser is still in beta mode, so I think we can expect real progress and increased social integration. 

A few quick tidbits about RockMelt:

1. You can only use it if you get an invite.

2. If you invite someone and they accept the invitation you get more invites to give away.

3. It is founded by one of Netscape's co-founders.

4. It is based on the Chromium Open-Source Project- which means it looks a lot like Google Chrome.

5.This also means you can also use most of your Google Chrome Extensions.

Let me know if you want to read a more in-depth review of RockMelt in my blog.