Firefox Breaks 25 Million Downloads

certron wrote to alert us that earlier this week, Mozilla passed the milestone of 25 million downloads. From the official site: "With a minimal set of tools--an affiliate system, a small donations fundraising system, blogs, galleries, forums, and the good old human larynx--you all are spreading Firefox to a quarter of a million people a day. More than 500,000 sites now link to Firefox according to Google--a fivefold increase from six months ago. What was just a small flame 100 days ago has since exploded into a phenomenal demonstration of the power of open source. Tens of thousands of devoted users and fans are a powerful and capable force of change. We have created a special commemorative image if you would like to mark this milestone on your own site." Reader asa also wrote to mention an interview with Bill Gates from this week where the mogul was asked directly what he thought of Firefox.

Comments

More = Better?

[samtihen]

25 Million Agree - IE SUCKS!

Although, the 25 million downloads doesn't actually equate to 25 million users. How many times have you downloaded Firefox? I'm over 10, that's for sure. And how many people got it from others, rather than downloading it?

I mean, it really doesn't matter, it really shouldn't be a competition anyway. If it is a good product, it will do well. Who really cares if it competes with IE? All more users really do is bring attention (very possibly malicious) to the project.

Update!

[RobertTaylor]

25,241,830 and counting to be precise ;)

Refresh button

[madaxe42]

Damn, knew I'd pressed it a few times too many on getfirefox.com

Interview with Bill Gates

[Walkiry]

Problem is, he doesn't really say much other than "we have competition in many places, we'll keep working to be the best". Typical marketdroid stuff. The funny thing is that one of the things he mentions is that they'll be trying to be #1 in "Security". Heh. One can only hope...

Firefox *breaks* downloads?

[thiophene]

I read that the wrong way.

Power of open source?

[suso]

has since exploded into a phenomenal demonstration of the power of open source.

I see what you're trying to say, but I don't know whether you can call this newfound popularity due to open source. When I think of firefox, It doesn't even occur to me at first that its open source. I mean, I know that it is, but thats not the first thing I think of. When I think of something like Gnome, I think of it as open source. Mozilla and friends just have a different feeling. Does anyone else think that too?

Hahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

GATES: No, in fact that's one thing I like about the Microsoft culture -- is that we wake up every day thinking about companies like Wang...

So what you're telling me is the first thing on his mind every morning is wang? Interesting.

What bill says

[gowen]

In fact, we just announced that we'll have a new version of the browser so we're innovating very rapidly there

Wow, a new web browser 4 years after the old, and several years after you've declared that there wasn't even going to be another stand-alone version.

Four years of stasis.
Two years of complete disinterest.

That's some really rapid innovation, there, Bill.

The difference is simple :)

[KZigurs]

Firefox thinks about usability.

You wouldn't associate Open Source with usability even if forced to.

Someone please stop the download bots!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, Firefox fans, you can stop the auto-download bots now you've made your point !!

BEFORE applying settings!!!!!

[codesurfer]

I'm sure many people know about this, but please read the following before applying the settings mentioned in the parent article. There are other things to consider. The following is an excerpt

The dearly beloved "run the turbines at Military Power 'til they blow up" Scribner on your staff who suggests sticking their foot through the floorboards by tweaking Firefox & setting "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to "30" connections (This means it will make 30 requests at once.)
Said Scribner, who is obviously a gamer & overclocker freak, _FORGOT_ to read the comments section at th4e bottom of the posting http://forevergeek.com/open_source/make_firefox_fa ster.php#comments
"#13 Great little tips, but only one problem, and that's that you're breaking servers by doing this. 3-5 requests is fine, but trying to do 30 requests at once puts some strain on the server. If two people try to access the same page at once with this set, that's 60 connections. Most httpd's are set to cut off after there are 100 connections made. So, 4 people with this set could not access the same site. I urge you to think things through before setting something like this and killing the websites you browse."

Re:BEFORE applying settings!!!!!

[m50d]

You must be new here. We *like* killing servers.

what makes it better are the plugins, my top 5

[Steve_Jobs_HNIC]

here they are:

Adblock
Session Saver
Web Developer
IE View
Target Alert

Re:what makes it better are the plugins, my top 5

[tehshen]

And before the complaints come,

Slashfix

Commemorative Image scares me...

[thepseudogenie]

Is a vectorized fox with flames shooting out of his ass burning the world to a crisp really the image we want for firefox...? I would say that image is apt for Micr... oh nevermind...