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1 Million Firefoxes in 4 Days

Dodger73 writes "The Mozilla guys would have liked to reach 1 Million downloads of the Firefox 1.0 pre-release version within ten days of its release. After four days, the download counter now shows 1,006,060 downloads, surpassing the 10^6 mark more than twice as fast as they desired! Congratulations!"

51 of 602 comments (clear)

  1. Link to get it by bobbis.u · · Score: 5, Informative

    How about adding a few more downloads?! Get it here.

    1. Re:Link to get it by LGagnon · · Score: 3, Informative

      You'll want this link then. And if you have a Mac, this link should help. Still, keep in mind that Firefox was originally meant to be a Windows program (but it doesn't hurt to be available on multiple platforms though, which I'm definitely in support of).

    2. Re:Link to get it by AKnightCowboy · · Score: 2, Informative

      I added to the download counter, installed it, found it didn't work at all for me, and then promptly downgraded back to Firefird 0.9.2. 1.0PR brought up some error about the Java plug-in being incompatible with Internet Explorer and then just hung taking up 100% of the CPU until it was manually killed with the task manager. 0.9.2 doesn't have that problem on my system so I'll stick with that until they fix the bug.

    3. Re:Link to get it by bheerssen · · Score: 2, Informative

      Thanks for the links, but Firefox is intended to be primarily a cross-platform browser and the Firefox team is deeply committed to that goal. Saying that it is primarily intended for MS Windows is just wrong and doesn't help matters. This site has a larger than normal percentage of Mac and *nix users and we don't need FUD like that.

      --
      (Score: -1, Stupid)
    4. Re:Link to get it by bhtooefr · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, Firefox IS meant to be cross-platform. It's Moz that cross-platform was a side-effect on. Windows first, Mac second, *nix later. This is because it's the OSS Netscape.

    5. Re:Link to get it by Finuvir · · Score: 4, Informative

      The original intention for Phoenix, according to Blake Ross, was to make the best browser on Windows. It has always been cross-platform and the developers are compltely committed to that now, but it was conceived for Windows.

      --
      Why is anything anything?
    6. Re:Link to get it by PeterPumpkin · · Score: 2, Informative

      Thats up to Yahoo! actually, not Mozilla Foundation. Displaying an error vs letting the site display. I'm sure Firefox could handle whatever they have perfectly fine.

    7. Re:Link to get it by MagicFab · · Score: 1, Informative
      Instead of giving direct links, use the SpreadFirefox.com tools.
      1. Open an account on SpreadFirefox.com
      2. Login and go to "My account"
      3. Use one the pre-formatted links that will count for your references and link to the main, auto OS-detecting site, like this one (generated for my profile there)
      4. ???
      5. Make money! :)
      --
      Notepad specialist & FAT administrator, group training available
    8. Re:Link to get it by Myen · · Score: 5, Informative

      See bug 121832 on bugzilla.mozilla.org
      They did talk to them; Yahoo replied that they want to be able to script Windows Media Player (plugin). Not sure what's happenning now.

      It would probably help if you complained to Yahoo as well (hopefully more complaints would help motivate them to fix things).

    9. Re:Link to get it by dwhitman · · Score: 5, Informative
      Grandparent: Still, keep in mind that Firefox was originally meant to be a Windows program (but it doesn't hurt to be available on multiple platforms though, which I'm definitely in support of).

      Parent: Do you have a reference to this intention?

      The opening paragraph of the Firefox Development Charter says:

      Firefox grew out of the desire to make the best browser for Microsoft Windows. Eventually we began to build on Linux as well, and also Macintosh. Most of our development work is done on Windows, and so that platform naturally tends to lead although we express a desire to work as well as is feasible on every system we can.

    10. Re:Link to get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Haven't you heard of shortcuts???

      You will notice in the menu bar that most of the commands have got a SHORTCUT associated with them, for instance, new tab is ctrl+t.

      Now stop pissin' around. =P

  2. Re:Most of that is probably from previous users by danormsby · · Score: 3, Informative
    > I would seriously doubt that this represents anything like 1 million new users.

    Who said it did?

    Just think about the numbers though. It must be already 10x the number of people the whole development team will meet in their entire lives.

    --
    Omnis amans amens
  3. coolness by Mr._Hole · · Score: 3, Informative

    I like the new find bar on the bottom of the window... way better than it poping up.

    1. Re:coolness by hsoft · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Esc" works... I personally have trouble getting used to that kind of bar. In every other program, CTRL+F pops a window in the middle of the screen. I sometimes think that the CTRL+F is broken... until I look down. And I don't really like the fact that the search is incremental. Well. I guess I will be used to it in a couple of days...

      --
      perception is reality
  4. More downloads... by dutt · · Score: 5, Informative
    If the amount is over one million at the download counter on their site, then it doesn't meen that it's only one million downloads.

    Copies are spread through many other sources so the actual amount of downloads is probably much more than the download counter indicates!

    Congrats Firefox!

  5. How many did you contribute? by GillBates0 · · Score: 4, Informative
    I got 2 Windows users to download and install it. I would've liked to do more, but something's better than nothing. I followed up ofcourse, with a short demo of the "essential" features and setting up the homepage, importing bookmarks, etc.

    Things that impressed them the most over their first ~5 mins.

    1. Tabbed Browsing
    2. Ability to set multiple pages as home pages.
    3. Sleek look.
    4. Small download size.

    I guess the popup blocker didn't make as much of an impact because of 3rd party blockers/etc that they had installed and functional.

    Go Firefox!

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
  6. Re:Firefox vs. Windows update by Nerftoe · · Score: 4, Informative
  7. Re:Firefox vs. Windows update by Mekabyte · · Score: 3, Informative

    Umm, all that does is open Windows Update in IE. However, there is an ActiveX plug-in for Mozilla, but I don't know if it works with Windows Update.

  8. Re:Supported browsers by bizpile · · Score: 2, Informative

    I just hope this leads web-developers to eventually test and validate their pages with something else than IE.

    I have just the opposite problem: I usually have to remember to go back and check my site in IE after I update it. I've had to make a lot of minor changes because something looked muffed up in IE. For example, IE doesn't like when you put spaces inside of the quotes around HEX colors. (e.g.: bgcolor=" #333333 "). That color appears green in IE.

  9. Re:Well then, it's a good thing... by bwd234 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hmm, that's funny, cause I'm running two copies of it and it hasn't crashed on me yet. One on my machine and one on my girlfriend's.

    Yes, a /. user that actually has a g/f!

  10. Firefox.com by Artega+VH · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can't believe noone mentioned Kevin Karpenske who kindly donated the firefox.com domain to the mozilla guys.

    Kudos to Kevin for demonstrating a great deal of kindness in supporting our favourite browser..

    --
    groklaw, wired and slashdot. The holy trinity of work based time wasting.
  11. Thats nothing compared to the future by mnmn · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've been looking at ways to automatically deploy it using MSI files, and switch the default browser to it across the company network.

    Even though I limit peoples permissions they still get spyware. When things get bad especially for people who need admin access to their machines for legacy apps, I have to reinstall Windows2k. Not fun.

    Wait till we get version 1.2 or something, and people can confidently install it in the corporate.

    Then start counting.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
    1. Re:Thats nothing compared to the future by asa · · Score: 3, Informative

      We don't bundle the Flash installer, but our plugin service allows you to add flash support when you first encounter sites that offer flash content. The service all happens with a couple of clicks in the browser, and doesn't even require a browserrestart.

      --Asa

  12. Re:My four downloads... by Ford+Prefect · · Score: 2, Informative

    Firefox on a Win95 era (i.e. a Pentium) computer? That sounds like madness. I can't even get it to run acceptably on my PII-350.

    In this case, the Win95 machine's a 333MHz K6-2. Firefox is a little slow on startup (ten seconds or so?) but a big improvement on Mozilla. In use, it's absolutely fine.

    One of the Win98 machines is a 166MHz Pentium. Firefox is completely usable there, too - screen updates are slightly slower than on a modern machine, but it's really nothing to complain about. It's all completely 'interactive' - no stupid pauses not responding to mouse clicks, or anything like that.

    What sort of things do people do to make Firefox run so slowly? I'm always puzzled as to how people are using web browsers to make them behave like that; I've never noticed any real slow-downs on the pages I visit...

    --
    Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
  13. Re:Now how about fixing slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You should take a look at slashdot through the W3C markup validator.

    Of course, the Slashdot Moderators(tm) don't want you to look at the site through the w3c. That's why you get the 403 forbidden error. However, if you save a page from this site and upload just that html file to w3c, you'll get over a hundred html errors. Try it with this story and you'll see what I'm talking about.

    And people wonder why this site doesn't render right on different browsers, sheesh.

    Shaggy

    p.s. Yes, I know it's easier to bitch and moan than to actually do something about it. But damnit Jim, I'm a bicycle mechanic, not a programmer!

  14. Re:Now how about fixing slashdot? by themoodykid · · Score: 2, Informative

    Nope, it's still screwy for me. Seems 25% of the
    time, it renders Slashdot incorrectly. Reloading
    often does nothing.

  15. Re:It's a conspiracy... ok not really, but sort of by asa · · Score: 5, Informative

    With almost every release of Mozilla based products, we fix security bugs. We announce those security bugs when we release, that's our standard operating procedure. See http://www.mozilla.org/security/ and http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vul nerabilities.html.

    We're very proud of our new Security Bug Bounty program which went into effect well before the Firefox PR shipped. That program helped us identify and fix several more security bugs than might have otherwise been fixed in this release.

    The PR was actually release a couple of weeks behind schedule, in part due to our being busy working on fixing a couple of security and privacy issues. We certainly didn't "throw together a preview for the sake of not having to announce it as a fix for major exploits." What actually happened was that we announced the security fixes to the public and to security research firms like Secunia when we shipped PR. They found out about the problem because we shipped and we disclosed the bugs -- our normal process.

    You seem to have the misconception that the security issues were about to be disclosed so we rushed a release out. That's just not the case. It was the Mozilla Foundation that made the security disclosures. We do that each time we ship a new release that has security related bug fixes.

    --Asa

  16. Re:Bugs by jiipee · · Score: 2, Informative

    I also had some problems with 1.0PR. Most disturbing was that it didn't start at all. I went back to 0.93. Will give it another try when it reaches 1.0.

    --
    -- life is such and it gets sucher and sucher --
  17. Re:Now how about fixing slashdot? by Soul-Burn666 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes. This bug still apears in 1.0PR.
    It comes from the ability to view the site while not all of the data was already downloaded. In case images don't have their size properties, it assumes a default value and forgets to update it when the data appears.

    To fix, simply ctrl- and ctrl+ to change font size and it'll fix the layout.

    --
    ^_^
  18. Re:er ... hasn't reached "10^6" yet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    10^...
    0: 1
    1: 10
    2: 100
    3: 1,000
    4: 10,000
    5: 100,000
    6: 1,000,000

    This will seem obvious once you've had your joe. :)

  19. Re:What's so "cool" about FireFox? by asa · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, given the increasing number of broadband users in the USA, the difference in download times for FireFox and Mozilla 1.7.3 is no longer significant.

    The difference between 4.5 MB and 11MB is dramatic for the 60 million (49%) US internet users who still don't have broadband.

    I'm not sure how a figure like "half" isn't significant. Half of the US still isn't on broadband and for them, Firefox downloading much easier than Mozilla. Firefox is about the size of an MP3. People can relate to downloading something that size.

    But Mozilla has a few things that FireFox lacks right now: 1) better page-rendering accuracy and 2) a very good mail and newsgroup reader.

    Mozilla and Firefox share the same Gecko rendering engine so I'm not sure where you get the "better page-rendering accuracy" from. Firefox has a powerful companion e-mail application called Thunderbird for anyone who needs a great (not "good") email and newsgroup reader. Thunderbird is to Mozilla email what Firefox is to Mozilla browser.

    --Asa

  20. Re:Firefox 1.0PR sucks!! by Deathanatos · · Score: 4, Informative
    1) Switching tabs does not update the window title. WTF?! I don't want my window to have the wrong title! It isn't the first tab or anything like that. Just whichever one it likes.
    Hmm... works fine for me.
    2) I don't want a fucking top bar every time a popup is blocked. What was wrong with the icon at the bottom? Oh yeah, SP2 added their "Information Bar" crap, so Firefox has to have it! What if the popup comes up after a few seconds? Does all the page content move down to allow for their Information Bar thing? (I don't know, somebody tell)
    It is a pretty nice looking bar, but I agree it's annoying. Try click on the bar, and hit 'Don't show info message when popup are blocked.' (The little icon will still appear in the lower right corner.)
    5) I stay focused in this text box, switch tabs, and I can keep typing into this box. Obviously I should be find-as-you-type-ing into the new tab.
    I also can't reproduce this... and find-as-you-type was disabled on my installation. But you can re-enable it through Tools-->Options, Advanced, Accessability. (Or you can use Ctrl+F to bring it up.)
  21. Re:All Right! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yeah, and MyIE2 supports Super Drag-and-Drop, too! We should go download it and stay with our huge security hole as our main browser! Or not... Firefox isn't just about the Tabbed Browsing. Tabbed Browsing is extremely useful, but what makes Firefox great is that in conjunction with such other features as Find-As-You-Type, the cleaned up interface they offer with 1.0PR (with the Find dialog eliminated and appearing as a strip at the bottom of the window), the extra security (just from not bein IE), the standards compliance, and the plethora of excellent extensions available for it.

    One thing - this 'Super Drag and Drop' crap that MyIE2 can do - yeah, Firefox does that, too...

  22. Re:Firefox vs Moz question by Antony.S · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't know specifically anything, but anything you might lose you can probably make up for with plugins.

  23. Re:awesome by ToLu+the+Happy+Furby · · Score: 2, Informative
    If they're going to produce a 'component-ized' Mozilla, why don't they also put out a stand-alone version of Composer??

    They do. Sort of. Nvu is a standalone web authoring system based on a fork of Mozilla Composer. The project head is Daniel Glazman, who was lead developer for Composer. I have not used Nvu, but it seems to have added a number of significant (and IMO much needed) features to Composer's base (e.g. CSS editing and site managment).

    The development is sponsored by Linspire, not the Mozilla Foundation, so the project arguably loses out in terms of branding, marketing, integration with Mozilla's bugzilla, etc. to an official Foundation project like Sunbird (the standalone calendar component). On the other hand, planet.mozilla.org (and thus the mozilla.org frontpage) syndicates Glazman's blog posts.
  24. Re:Firefox vs. Windows update by ChairmanMeow · · Score: 2, Informative

    Then use Program Manager for your shell, and find some other program for viewing files ;). And yes, Program Manager does still exist in WinXP.

    --
  25. There is such a program by PoitNarf · · Score: 2, Informative

    It does not interact with WU, but it does have an up-to-date install for all XP updates pre-SP2. They are currently working on it for Windows 2000 and 2003 as well. Check it out: www.autopatcher.com

    --

    "0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
  26. Re:Firefox 1.0PR sucks!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Switch on "Use Find As You Type" in Options -> Advanced -> Accessability and you'll be able to find links by just typing again.

  27. Re:One new user here by Tore+S+B · · Score: 2, Informative
    Well, welcome into the warmth.

    Regarding what keeps you in Windowsland, all the standard Microsoft fonts can be gotten by typing
    apt-get install msttcorefonts
    assuming, of course, you have a Debian/Semidebian. And for the games, well, it's slowly improving. :)

    Good luck ahead, and don't be afraid to ask in #debian or #linux on irc.freenode.net. (I'm toresbe)
    --
    toresbe
  28. Re:All Right! by frodo+from+middle+ea · · Score: 3, Informative
    Don't forget the one and only undispencible Nuke Anything extension.

    Saves so much inks when printing directions.

    --
    for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
  29. Firefox.com by 16K+Ram+Pack · · Score: 3, Informative
    BTW Kevin Karpenske has kindly donated firefox.com to the project.

    Nice one Kevin.

  30. Re:Early Hype a mistake by ESqVIP · · Score: 2, Informative
    * I can see many avarage Joes downloading 1.0PR and never updating it - jeust because of the buzz
    Don't worry, Firefox 1.0PR does include software update and checks for new versions every 3 days :)
  31. Linux vs. Windows FF by schmiddy · · Score: 3, Informative

    About FF supposedly being aimed towards Windows, I'm not going to believe that unless you have a credible source to cite.

    However, one thing that irks me about the Moz team is how Firefox's default behavior is quite different in Linux and in Windows. In Windows, if you middle-click on the tab bar at the top, the tab closes. In Linux, the middle click by default wants to open a new page with a link from the clipboard which, more often than not, is not a valid URL and generates an annoying error message. To fix this, you just have to go into the about:config, and change the middleclick.openURL (I think..) to 'false'.

    Another thing.. In Windows, if you middle click in a page, you can scroll up and down. In Linux, again, you have to enable this in the about:config.

    Since FF is supposed to be a multi-platform browser, I really wish they would make the default behavior consistent between platforms. I don't want to have to twiddle in the config to get it working like it's supposed to.

    --
    http://cltracker.net -- powerful craigslist multi-city search
    1. Re:Linux vs. Windows FF by multipartmixed · · Score: 2, Informative

      > "Remove End of Line". Not sure what that even means

      If it's "Remove text until End of Line", it would be equivalent to emacs' yank function; also control-k.

      --

      Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
  32. Re:How many of these are repeats though? by asa · · Score: 2, Informative

    I would think they build from source (don't know if they count that too). But still disribution downloads are not in the 1 million.

    We don't count that well but it's likely pretty insignificant. We offer anonymous CVS access and maybe we could count the full checkouts from that tag. We do count source tarball downloads at our primary mirrors and those account about 4,000 of the nearly 1.2 million downloads so far.

    --Asa

  33. Re:Minimo by asa · · Score: 4, Informative

    Interesting project, although I think building a lean browser from the ground up is the better approach compared to trying to strip the bloat off Mozilla.

    I think that anyone who has ever built a rendering engine capable of displaying even 95% of today's websites would beg to differ with you. Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine is the most capable standards supporting code available. Minimo is an attempt to get that rendering engine leaned down some and running on small devices.

    I've spent some time testing Minimo on an iPaq and it rocks. It can handle just about any web page you throw at it, like Mozilla and Firefox, and it fits in your pocket :-)

    --Asa

  34. Re:Firefox vs. Windows update by hkmwbz · · Score: 2, Informative
    Why did you stop using Opera anyway? Opera's a lot faster than Firefox here, but I guess that depends on one's system.

    If you like these extensions, Opera has loads of useful features. The validation thing was in Opera first, for example: Press Ctrl+Alt+V to validate (or access from the right click context menu).

    --
    Clever signature text goes here.
  35. multiple installation of one download by snig64 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm wondering how many IT pro's have downloaded this new firefox and installed it by deployable logins? I am aware of a company that downloaded it one time and installed it on twelve computers via domain login script.

    --
    http://dont.spam.me.anymore.com
  36. Re:Firefox vs. Real Mozilla? by asa · · Score: 4, Informative

    Do the Mozilla folks have any good recommendations on when to use Firefox vs. Mozilla?

    http://www.mozilla.org/products/choosing-product s. html

    --Asa

  37. Learn from history... by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Informative

    Great news - for the next steps, I would advise in the strongest terms that you NOT say you'll reach 100 million downloads in a year and plan to get there via a Pepsi bottlecap promotion!!

    Just a thought.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  38. Particularly on semi-tech sites... by Kjella · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...I've seen some very misleading information. Stuff like "Firefox 1.0 released" only to find somewhere down in the body text that this is a PR release, often with a semi-understandable explaination of what a PR release is. I suspect a great many slightly less geeky people believe that this IS 1.0 final.

    Kjella

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings