Slashdot Mirror


Firefox Breaks 50,000,000 Barrier

MrDrBob writes "Today at 16:59 GMT (8:58 AM PST) Mozilla Firefox received its 50,000,000th download. To celebrate, SpreadFirefox.com has created a special page, where you can watch the downloads continue to climb in real time. Three cheers for Firefox! May it go on swiftly to 100,000,000!"

10 of 359 comments (clear)

  1. Hey, it says "actual number"--so it has to be! by Black+Perl · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just saw the counter go down. Cool, they're even counting "returns".

    Actually, the javascript only updates once a minute, and when it does, it computes a new rate, so the increments you see are only estimates until the next update.

    --
    bp
  2. Re:Does this include yesterday by asa · · Score: 5, Informative

    We're not counting downloads served by the Firefox update system. Neither are we counting the millions of downloads from download.com (they actually host Firefox as well) or from other download repositories. We're also not counting people who go directly to FTP without going through our "bouncer" tool (the app that directs you to the most appropriate mirror). There's lots we're not counting here. It's not meant to be a count of users. It's just a measure of how many people use our system to download Firefox.

    - A

  3. Re:Downloads per user by MarkByers · · Score: 4, Informative

    Seeing as I am downloading it directly from portage, this will not be counted by their download counter. I guess that many of the other posters have forgotten this and have probably underestimated the number of unique users by excluding most Linux users.

    --
    I'll probably be modded down for this...
  4. Re:In Internet Explorer by El+Cubano · · Score: 4, Informative

    And it can't be a coincidence that the page doesn't display properly in Internet Explorer!!

    Look here. This Page Is Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict! No conspiracy theories around here. Valid HTML is difficult to get looking right in IE.

  5. Re:Small nit to pick... by _xeno_ · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you look at the source, you'll see that it is actually pulling a real number from an RSS feed.

    It then defaults to 2 downloads a second, incrementing the timer by that rate every second. When it grabs the feed again a minute later, it then uses the "real" rate of downloads from the first grab to the second grab and starts incrementing by that amount.

    It then continues to do that for as long as the page is up.

    So the number is real-ish.

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
  6. Re:Are all versions of Firefox included? by asa · · Score: 5, Informative

    I should add a minor correction, that page lists the current version, so if you got 1.0, 1.0.1, or 1.0.2 from similar links, you'll also be counted. All those links go through our mirror tool that distributes load across our dozens of mirrors. We're not counting downloads that don't go through that tool.

    - A

  7. Re:We have identified this user ? by asa · · Score: 4, Informative

    We're not celebrating the person who made the download. We're celebrating the community and the specific community member who helped deliver that new user to Firefox. See the affiliate program at SpreadFirefox.com http://www.spreadfirefox.com/

    - A

  8. Re:It's Good to be the King by maotx · · Score: 4, Informative

    Does anyone actually know how many visits slashdot gives a site that is on posted on the front page? any guesses?

    The guy who did the Christmas and Haloween lights prank did a rather nice analysis on the incoming bandwidth from Slashdot and other media sites.

    Pasted below is Slashdot's statistics:

    5 min: 781
    10 min: 1,604
    1 hour: 11,699
    2 hours: 21,651
    4 hours: 35,895
    8 hours: 53,720
    24 hours: 90,607
    2 days: 94,830
    week: 98,054
    month: 117,210

    Take it with a grain of salt though...the analysis might be another hoax ;)

    --
    I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
  9. Re:Downloads per user by Given+M.+Sur · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why do so many Gentoo users get this confused.

    Gentoo does not host the packages that you download. They host the ebuilds and the ebuilds tell portage where to download the packages from.

    So, you downloaded it directly from mozilla. Check the ebuild yourself if you don't believe me.

    --
    nil
  10. Re:Harder #s? by Jason+Earl · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is what OneStat has to say.