ROCKMELT BROWSER IS SHUTTING DOWN!

Yes, it's true, the web underdogs have lost the battle of the web browsers. The Rockmelt Browser has been a great part of my social web experience for the past year. They announced the retirement of the bowser back in April 2013. Kind of sucks that I didn't know about it sooner to have made use of it since its inception in 2009. The fun was exciting while it lasted that's for sure. BUMMER!

I would like to say that I am utterly disappointed that the Rockmelt social web browser will be no more soon. It's been my go-to web browser for quite some time now. Not only did they make keeping up to date with my social accounts convenient, they made it easy to bookmark and come back later without the hassle. Before I migrated to Rockmelt, I was a devoted Google Chrome user. *sigh*

The decision to retire Rockmelt browser was made because keeping up with the steady stream of updates for Chromium, the code upon which the Rockmelt browser was based, was just becoming way too costly. In its place, the company announced Rockmelt for Web, a portal that may serve to alleviate some of the outrage many of us are experiencing. It aggregates content from "your favorite sites, your favorite people, and a dash of crazy stuff you never would have discovered," so it's like a combination of RSS, social networks, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon. IT SUCKS!

...but if you're a lover of web apps, then you should easily adapt and adore the new Rockmelt app experience.

Their mission was to reimagine the web browser for the social era. As an alternative to bookmarks, the left and right edges of of the Google Chromium-based browser housed a buddy list of online friends to chat and share with, and a stack of icons for your favorite sites and social networks that displayed counters for how many times they’d be updated since your list visit.

The idea was to relieve you of having to manually check your Facebook, Twitter, and bookmarked page for new content in an endless loop. (TechCrunch.com). With popular browsers like Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox, Rockmelt just couldn't keep up.

“Distributing a desktop browser is hard and expensive (especially if you don’t have an operating system or the world’s most trafficked website to promote it)” -- Rockmelt

Say Hello To The New Rockmelt...

Did I already mention how myself and MANY other dedicated users are not too fond of the alternative Rockmelt web app? I say that for two reasons. 1. Because Rockmelt is the BEST browser with an overall great user experience on the market. 2. Because Rockmelt is just the better choice!

With the Rockmelt web app for all you news lovers, once you connect your social accounts, you’ll get a big grid of tiles displaying headlines and images for stories piped in from your Facebook and Twitter contacts plus Pages, accounts, and websites you follow. The web app is also available for smartphone users of Apple iOS and Android.

Rockmelt web browser will be no more on July 31, 2013 at 10AM/Pacific Time. If you've been an avid user like myself and have bookmarks, passwords, among other things you'd like to export, go here to do so. Looks like it's back to Chrome for me...

Will you make the switch and allow Rockmelt for web to grow on you or will you revert back to another browser platform?