RockMelt got a lot of attention in November for being a “social web browser,” a banner that the Flock browser has been proudly wearing well before RockMelt was a twinkle in its creators’ eyes. Now Flock is fighting back with a Chromium-based version 3.5.

Flock has announced that the much-anticipated Flock 3.5 web browser will be available starting on Wednesday, December 1. The new version ditches its often sluggish Mozilla roots, instead adopting Chromium 7, the same engine which drives Google’s Chrome browser as well as the competing RockMelt social browser.

Flock 3.5 reflects a complete interface redesign driven by three years of user input and testing, and the company promises that the new version “outperforms the competition by providing unmatched capabilities, greater ease of use, faster performance and superior stability.”

The first thing you’ll notice about Flock 3.5 is a more streamlined user interface -- the previous Flock 3.0 released in June of this year offered a lot of social interaction, but with an often bewildering number of options. The latest version keeps everything in the sleek new Flock Sidebar, where you can interact with Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, YouTube and Flickr content.

The new Flock also adds LinkedIn to the mix, and the company isn’t shy about touting that it’s the only social browser to support the business-themed network as well as the leading five social networks. Now you can quickly update your status on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter all at the same time, or choose which services you want to post to individually.

Flock has also hit another milestone, with the company announcing that nine and a half million users are now using the browser worldwide, a number that they clearly hope to increase further with the sleek new update.

“We’re seeing great overall growth in users and engagement, including 57 million new activities conducted within new Flock per day, and over 4 billion activities over the last four months,” reports Flock president and CEO Shawn Hardin. “Our growth is 100 percent user-powered: 83 percent of our users say they have already recommended or intend to recommend the new Flock browser to their friends and family.”

You’ll be able to see for yourself on Wednesday, December 1 when the new Flock 3.5 for Mac will be available for download on the company’s website; the current Chrome-based Windows version will also be updated for Chromium 7 tomorrow as well.

Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter