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Firefox nears 50 Million Downloads

bluephone writes "Firefox hit 49,000,000 downloads last night. Today, as we approach 50,000,000, SpreadFirefox is offering prizes for photographic proof of your most amazing spectacles to celebrate. To quote: 'We have a handful of unique prizes that you won't find anywhere else, and we're asking you to do one simple thing to claim one: impress us. As we drive toward 50 million downloads, do something so cool, so unusual and so spectacular to spread Firefox that we can't help but scurry around the Mozilla Foundation to tell every one.' But you don't have long. The Infocraft Firefox Counter shows just over 800,000 downloads left at the time of this submission!"

36 of 314 comments (clear)

  1. Swimming? by Avsen · · Score: 5, Funny

    Any devs volunteered to swim the Pacific over this?

    --


    Massive networking attempt for friends

    1. Re:Swimming? by tehshen · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hey, Firefox can't go swimming, because the flames will go out. Which sucks. Maybe the Opera guy could find it and snuggle up to it for warmth if it lasts long enough.

      --
      Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
    2. Re:Swimming? by Billy+the+Mountain · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hey, Firefox can't go swimming, because the flames will go out.

      Ah, now I get the joke on this link:
      "Should we lower Mitchell, our fearless president, into an erupting volcano?"
      It's a parody of the Opera Atlantic swim, Firefox style!

      BTM

      --
      That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
  2. Firefox and the Slashdot set by winkydink · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The subset of people who visit Network Mirror are showing 75% Firefox & 22% IE.

    --

    "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

    1. Re:Firefox and the Slashdot set by winkydink · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Here's the whole list. IIRC, Opera can be configured to say it's either IE or FF, so their numbers are probably a little low.

      75.72% Mozilla
      22.50% Microsoft Internet Explorer
      0.22% Opera/8.0 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)
      0.13% Opera/7.54 (X11; Linux i686; U) [en]
      0.12% Opera/7.54 (Windows NT 5.1; U) [en]
      0.10% Opera/8.0 (X11; Linux i686; U; en)
      0.09% Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)
      0.09% Opera/7.54 (Windows NT 5.0; U) [en]
      0.07% Googlebot-Image/1.0
      0.04% Opera/8.0 (Windows NT 5.0; U; en)
      0.03% Opera/7.54 (Windows NT 5.1; U) [nb]
      0.03% Opera/8.00 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)
      0.03% Opera/7.23 (Windows NT 5.1; U) [en]
      0.03% Schmozilla/v9.14 Platinum
      0.03% Mediapartners-Google/2.1

      --

      "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

    2. Re:Firefox and the Slashdot set by thepotoo · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Does anyone know what the stats are for a major site like google or yahoo? It would be more meaningful to see that.

      This is really a great day for open source and Firefox. Hopefully, most of those downloads are being used and not just sitting around (although I suspect that a few people are downloading FF several times).

      --
      Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
  3. Hmmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Did the article just ask me to go on a mass shooting spree while wearing a firefox shirt?

    1. Re:Hmmm. by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 4, Funny

      Did the article just ask me to go on a mass shooting spree while wearing a firefox shirt?

      Yes. In Redmond.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
  4. GNU is a virus = X rated photos? by lilmouse · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well, I'm told GNU is like a Virus, and FireFox is open source, so I can think of a great way *I'd* like to spread it!

    Of course, they may have trouble posting the pictures on spreadfirefox!

    --LWM

    1. Re:GNU is a virus = X rated photos? by winkydink · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is Slashdot.

      Infecting your hand doesn't count as "spreading it".

      --

      "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

  5. Like this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    #!/bin/bash
    :start
    wget http://www.mozilla.org/Firefox1.0.3Setup.exe
    rm Firefox1.0.3Setup.exe
    goto start

    Besides, real men use Opera.

    1. Re:Like this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      >Besides, real men use Opera.

      Real man use telnet to port 80 or lynx, they don't eat quiche either...

    2. Re:Like this? by biglig2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Pah! Real men put the Cat5 in their mouth and interpret the tingling.

      --
      ~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
    3. Re:Like this? by juggleme · · Score: 3, Funny

      I doubt it. Real men aren't going to do fellatio on a cat5 cable (how else are you going to do a GET?) to read a web page.

  6. quick.. someone pull this off by peculiarmethod · · Score: 5, Funny

    All you need to do is hack paris hiltons new blackberry, put in a folder called pics, include firefox.exe in it.. release details on slashdot as a troll. BAM. 2 billion installs.

    --
    ** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
  7. flaming foxes by weopenlatest · · Score: 5, Funny

    I just dipped a few dozen foxes in lighter fluid and set them scurrying around the park aflame, but those damn firefox people just called me a sick bastard.

  8. Over on... by tcopeland · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ...RubyForge it's mostly Mozilla/Firefox too:
    gforge=> select browser, count(browser) from activity_log group by browser;
    browser | count
    ---------+--------
    OPERA | 240
    OTHER | 167539
    MOZILLA | 251311
    IE | 73724
  9. Weird... by EdZ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Anyone find it odd that the spreadfirefox image galleries don't display properly in firefox (e.g. http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=image/tid/42). Maybe 1600x1200 is just too much for the page? Who knows?

  10. I got it! by Golias · · Score: 5, Funny

    I will celebrate by rounding up 50,000 actual foxes and setting them all on fire!

    And to really turn it in to a spectacle, I will call PITA and give them advanced warning of the event, so they can round up whoever they can find to try to stop me... and then I'll do it an hour earlier than I said I would.

    MWwaaah-hahahahaha!!!

    --

    Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

    1. Re:I got it! by winkydink · · Score: 4, Funny

      You mean PETA, but I'm sure a lot of people consider the a PITA. :)

      --

      "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

    2. Re:I got it! by Xeo+024 · · Score: 5, Funny

      BREAKING NEWS

      FOXES SET ON FIRE

      Man sets entire population of foxes on fire in the woods of California, as he was arrested and taken away by the authorities, he was heard saying "spreadfirefox.com fools, now where's my prize?" The deluded man was promptly beaten with a night stick several times, as he made his way to his new home, the state penitentiary, according to several eye witness reports. PITA arrived on scene, and was outraged by the incident, declaring war on the man. The United States government quickly rose the terror alert level to red, and President Bush later commented "The quick brown fox jumped over the.. uh... damn I forgot it again" confusing the press, and consequently creating havoc on TV stations world wide.

      Details developing.

    3. Re:I got it! by Callitrax · · Score: 3, Funny

      It is PETA which stands for People for Ethical Treatment of Animals.

      And here I thought it was People Eating Tasty Animals

  11. Not wanting to be pessimist... by jawtheshark · · Score: 5, Insightful
    but, I alone, have been responsible for at least 20 different downloads? Why? I don't carry around my USB stick all the time and when I want to install it somewhere, I just re-download it. Also this can't be the downloads of a single release: it's the total downloads since version 1.0? If yes, how about the people that redownloaded just because a new version came out?

    Of course, often a download my indicate more than one install: at my parents, I downloaded the program once and installed it on all machines (4 in total)

    So, we cannot say much from download numbers about the spread of the program. We still have the risk that we geeks/nerds download it for people and those people stick to IE. Case in point: I'm a teacher and all my pupils use IE. Even though, I always tell them to use Firefox. Why? Don't ask me... I'm only doing this job since january.

    --
    Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    1. Re:Not wanting to be pessimist... by tehshen · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, but while there are people like you who download it many times, there are other people who download it once and deploy it many times, or use a package manager to install it. 50 000 000 is a pretty big number, so everything pans out eventually.

      Usage is the best metric of Firefox's success; however, you can't measure it, as different sites have different hit rates, no doubt many have already been mentioned. Downloads is the best count we have because it's actually measurable.

      --
      Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
  12. No contest... by killa62 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Seriously... Zonk won because he posted this on slashdot...

  13. Hmmm... by Stanistani · · Score: 5, Funny

    I suspect that a few of the responses to this campaign will have the hapless promoters throwing their hands in front of their eyes, whimpering, "I really didn't need to see that..."

  14. Thanks for the /.ing by scovetta · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can now download Firefox at a blazing 6.7kbps.

    And it looks like every /.er is downloading Firefox just to make the counter go up.

    As if this wasn't expected.

    --
    Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
  15. Re:Counter by uberdave · · Score: 3, Funny

    I opened up two copies of the spreadfirefox counter page, and the counts differed. That is odd.

  16. Re:misleading? by asa · · Score: 5, Informative

    But shouldn't it be 50 mil / 4 = 12.5 mil because almost all users automatically updated from 1.0.0.0 to .1, .2 and then .3?

    We're not counting those users who updated via our application update mechanism.

    - A

  17. Re:so what - skype got much more downloads... by __aaitqo8496 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Skype doesn't face the compitition Firefox does - there's not vendor installing a similar application with every copy of the OS

  18. Downloads All Updates? by FriedTurkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Firefox asks me to update when a new version is released but it really just downloads another version. It would be cool if they did something that just updated it self instead of just downloading a new version.

    1. Re:Downloads All Updates? by Pecisk · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is answer to your question:
      Slashdot comment #12352325

      No, they don't count updates from FF as downloads in spreadfirefox.com counter.

      --
      user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
  19. Re:When it gets more stable... by __aaitqo8496 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm the world's biggest fan of Microsoft. To me, Microsoft Excel is the best application ever written, and Microsoft C#/.NET is the best programming language and operating environment ever developed.

    Oh yeah, that sounds like an objective web page. How much more stable do you need? I only rarely experience problems with firefox, and those typically are attributed to crappy plugin implementations (such as Adobe's PDF Reader - which I've since stopped using, the resource hog it is).

    Further, regarding the il rendering of slashdot, maybe if the site code maintainers would update the template to something that actually validates, everything would Just Work. As of now, Slashdot doesn't even validate at HTML 3.2. It includes no character encoding information and the SGML parser on W3 comes up with 114 errors. Maybe they could follow some advice and Retool Slashdot with web standards.

  20. Flamebait! by EnsilZah · · Score: 3, Funny

    Getting a bunch of PETA members somewhere by setting a bunch of foxes on fire?

    That's just plain flamebait!

  21. Re:obligatory by DigitalHammer · · Score: 3, Funny

    This broadcast was brought to you by Fox News.

    (Sorry, couldn't resist the pun.)

  22. Re:Counter by blakeross · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not quite. It is a real counter that synchronizes with the actual number every 60 seconds. In the interim, it increases by a constantly adjusting rate that's usually pretty close to correct. See http://www.infocraft.com/projects/ffcounter/