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!"

Comments

To be fair....

[ActionJesus]

I have downloaded firefox like 30 times. Due to installs, re-installs, upgrades, downgrades, and just for the hell of it, it mounts up. Not to say this isnt an achievement... one of my progects is currently on about 50 downloads, after 3 years. But still, I'd like to see more concrete numbers than downloads. Gratz, ffox :)

Just remember

[computerme]

I have download it 3 times for the same machine.

(1.0. - 1.0.3)

I am sure others have done the same.

I got a cold splash in the face last week when i told my client they should be using firefox. They responed "what's firefox"

Its a little too early to break out the "IE is dead" champagne...

I hope it will happen someday but there is much more work to be done.

Opera has 49 million or so to go to catch up.

[elcid73]

I can't wait for them to do it :)

Re:Opera has 49 million or so to go to catch up.

[PaxTech]

It's not over til the fat lady sings.

Harder #s?

[Doc Ruby]

Who's got real webserver stats with % FireFox vs IE, Safari, Mozilla, Netscape et al?

Does this include yesterday

[stoolpigeon]

Yesterday I ran the little 'check for updates now' deal and apparently there were some for firefox itself as it downloaded the whole installer, ran through the whole thing and reset my home page.

Do these downloads count? If so-- then every time there is an update you are really ramping up your numbers due to current users getting it.

Re:Small nit to pick...

[geeber]

I also like how the counter increments at constant regular intervals. Seems like firefox is being downloaded precisely once every second.

I would hardly seems like it could be the actual number in real time.

Firefox does not 'auto update'

[Yankel]

I've updated FireFox on my in-law's Window's box three times now. Each time, the 'upgrade' consisted of downloading the new install executable to the desktop and running it.

The new installation overwrites the old one, keeping your various settings (history, bookmarks, etc.) in tact.

It would be interesting to find out how many of those downloads were resulting from the upgrade prompt (red arrow). Hopefully, that's already been factored in.

Re:Small nit to pick...

[br0ck]

Look at the js source, it increments each second, but it uses XMLHttpRequest to look up and correct to the actual value once per minute.

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/ffcounter.js

What does it mean ?

[Jules Labrie]

There are millions of Linux users who download or get it from distributions. So the community is actually much greater. What's really important is:

1. The market share

2. The community's active participation into the project.

I don't see what it brings to say there is '50.000.000' downloads, this is just marketing for the average user.

Re:What does it mean ?

[asa]

Jules, a big point that you're missing is that this is a celebration for that community of active participants who have helped Firefox achieve these downloads. Are open source projects supposed to discourage their communities from celebrating milestones?

- A

Re:Good and bad.

[ssj_195]

It's bad that a quality piece of open source software is getting the recognition it deserves, because it will fall even faster than IE to surreptitious purveyors of spyware and virii taking advantage of the source to discover new ways to subvert our web browsers without our knowledge.

Good - I say "bring it". Because whereas spyware developers have to spend *weeks* poring over the massive, already heavily-audited code-base looking for exploits, and then days to weeks tailoring a piece of code to exploit it and distributing the malicious code, the Firefox developers who actually have intimate knowledge of how Firefox works will probably have a fix within hours. With the upcoming trouble-free patching in Firefox 1.1, a fix will probably be distributed within days of an exploit hitting. And so the arms-race continues, but the Firefox team (who are more dedicated to their product than Microsoft were to IE) will always have the upper hand as the majority of vulnerabilites are far easier to patch than they are to craft and distribute an exploit for.

"May it go on swiftly to 100,000,000!"

[TheoGB]

"May it go on swiftly to 100,000,000!"

Okay, I'll probably get modded out of the place for this but it's just a fucking browser, not the second coming. It doesn't give oral sex and it's not Half-Life fucking 2.

I've got it installed here and at work. I still end up using IE most of the time, to be honest. I only notice a difference when I'm trying to sort out my Stylesheets so they work on both browsers (and IE really needs to sort its shit out there).

Long may FireFox continue because IE's quality really began to dip when Nutscrape disappeared. A bit of competition is healthy but for most browsing IE does the same job just as well...

Re:Good and bad.

[Changa_MC]

Then why is Apache (open source) the most secure and the most popular webserver?

Maybe (gasp) because OSS works!!!

Back off Billy, your sily jedi mind tricks have no effect on me.

I call B.S. on you

[lheal]

it will fall even faster than IE to surreptitious purveyors of spyware and virii taking advantage of the source to discover new ways to subvert our web browsers without our knowledge.

I don't think that will happen, for several reasons:

1. One of the design goals of Firefox is preventing viruses and such from using it to attack your computer. IE doesn't have design goals, it has "security features".
2. The source code for Mozilla has be available for what, 5 years now? Your imagined plague of Mozilla virii and spyware hasn't happened yet.
3. The source code is available to the good guys, too. That means that bugs can and will be found before anyone ever tries to exploit them.
4. The source code is available to the good guys, too. That also means that bugs can be fixed more quickly. It's not magic: finding a bug is the time-consuming part. With lots of people looking, identifying the exact nature of the bug becomes much easier. Once the exact nature of the bug is known, coding around it is less painful and happens faster.
5. Firefox is an application, not part of the OS.
6. There are lots easier ways to develop and spread viruses than scouring the Firefox source code.
7. Many of those writing viruses do it for the glory factor - just to think that they did something "important". Yeah, it's stupid, but at least they aren't doing it for greed. Anyway, for some of these folks there will be stronger motivation to do get credit for supplying a patch than there would be to release a virus.