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Firefox Breaks 50,000,000 Barrier

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the get-up-get-on-up dept.

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!"

12 of 359 comments (clear)

  1. Time zones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Today at 16:59 GMT (8:58 AM PST) ..."

    *blink*

  2. Downloads per user by r_glen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So how many unique users does that translate to? Anyone with a reasonable estimate?

  3. Small nit to pick... by pegr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    On four different machines sitting in front of me, the counter is off by about 500 between the lowest and the highest. \

    While the counter is cute, I'd call it a bogometer. :)

    1. Re:Small nit to pick... by geeber · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Download my free songs!
    2. Re:Small nit to pick... by br0ck · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

  4. Slightly Inflated? by PocketPick · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The large amount of downloads are great, but how many of those downloads simply were the same users downloading updates: v1.0, v1.0.1, v1.0.2 and v1.0.3? I'd be interested in knowing how many of those downloads correspond to unique users. After all, that's really what is most important.

  5. Re:Rumor has it by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny
    That if they reach 100 million downloads in the next four days, Blake Ross will fly to the moon under his own power.

    I think Bill Gates would volunteer to fly him there.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  6. slashdotted already (article text) by h4ter · · Score: 5, Funny

    50,037,604
    50,037,605
    50,037,606
    50,037,607
    50,037,608
    50,037,609
    50,037,610
    50,037,611
    50,037,612
    50,037,613
    50,037,614

  7. 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
  8. Re:Swim... by clem · · Score: 5, Funny

    That would constitute a bath, so I'm afraid it's out of the question.

    --
    Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
  9. 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

  10. 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