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Firefox Downloads Reach 75 Million
WindozeSux writes "Today Mozilla Firefox has reached its 75 millionth download. The Mozilla staff find this a morale booster since recent security vulnerabilities have slightly lowered the browser's growth rate. 'We're beefing up the management on the project. The project is still very healthy. We're seeing continued corporate interest and have a lot of large organizations that want to do deployments,' said Chris Hoffman."
What I mean is, is there some valuable component or application of Firefox that can be used by product or service companies beyond the basic browser application? IE, for example, is a modular browser component that can be reused in private applications. Linux is useful in a broad range of products/services that aren't simply desktop and server operating systems.
Is Firefox modular enough to break out valuable, reusable parts and implement something new out of them?
I use Firefox on most of my computers, so I'm responsible for about 5 of those 75 million downloads. 30, if they are counting each patch too.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Where I am currently working at, they tried to get rid of all the firefox on all the systems. Even if you upgraded to current, they did not want anybody on it, unless you had a business reason. So what was the browser of choice? MSIE.
Funny thing is that in 6 months that I have worked here is the only time since 1993-94 that I have been on Windows. I have seen no less than 5 system be massively infected because of MSIE (in a group of 20). Huge amounts of work had to be discarded (can not have virus/spyware getting into this software), which probably cost this company no less than 100K (and that is just what I am aware of. I have heard that it happens here constantly).
Yet, they discard Firefox, which I heard that they can not prove infected even one system (but they can prove that those 5 system were through MSIE, and the sys ads think all the others were as well).
Insane.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What makes people think that the discovered security vulnerabiliies and the slowing growth rate have anything to do with each other?
What is the relevance of the number of downloads?
Well, that's a valid point but short of requiring every Firefox user to register, how do you reliably gather usage statistics?
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
but also seem to use it more often. Downloading installing and then decide to not use it (IE is simpler/used to/plays my favourite spyware better) happens a lot too. However in januari about 10% of the pages was views with firefox on my webserver (mix of restaurants, IT, realestate, blogs ea companies use it), The last two months that has risen to about 15%. See http://totalweb.edusupport.nl/usage_200507.html for the stats (near bottom for browser stats).
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
The Spread firefox community has helped to develop firefox download counters which can track the exact number of downloads in real time.
All the people who I've showed FF are superhappy as they feel their PCs perform better now they understand IE brings in most of their nastyware and they tell about it to their friends, or customers. (A friend at the Blackberry / 3G helpdesk of VodaPhone redirects now everyone having some sortof browsing probs to FF's website to get a copy as she herself feels FF has solved alot of her frustrations.)
I find it a fascinating statement, as were people ACTIVELY go out to find a browser even when there's one preinstalled.
It's a very strong statement...
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
At my last contract we were not permitted FF, and had to use IE on the grounds that the IS team had not done a security review of FF, but they had of IE. The policy was simply 'better the devil you know'.
I could see their point, up till I asked when they were going to do a review of FF - and they said they weren't.
I think some people just like banging their head on the wall at work, for the feeling of pleasure they get when they stop and go home.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Spot on. The most important measure is market share. If your website is being viewed 40% by Firefox, then you are going to make sure it works in Firefox. And in Firefox's case, that means it works according to web standards.
That's how Firefox will improve the web (fingers crossed)
Firefox is good, but it's far from perfect. Both Firefox and Thunderbird eat RAM like cheese (turn on the VM column in the Task Manager and take a look at how much RAM it's using. At one stage this morning, I had 8 tabs open and firefox was using over 200mb of memory (on a 512mb machine). I exited and reloaded the same tab group (using an extension) and that seemed to free up most of the ram so it was only using 50mb. I hate to say this but this RAM mismanagement (I won't call it a leak as it is fixed by a restart) doesn't seem to occur with IE 7.
I think the Firefox and Thunderbird developers need to take a serious look at memory management in both these products. Thunderbird is currently using 110mb of RAM on my machine. It seems totally unsuited to people who like to keep a lot of their email on IMAP servers (a few thousand messages - which I have to, for work).
It also has several annoying bugs which are marked as "WONT FIX" in bugzilla - despite the fact that hundreds of users find these bugs an irriation.
I also seem to end up with Firefox opening two windows when I load it. The second window has most of the toolbars missing and is usually displaying the blue update icon. No idea what's causing this...
Raise your hand if your tired of both the Firefox and iTunes "X Million Downloads" stories. Pretty soon other sites will be running "x Million Stories" updates tracking the number of "X Million Downloads" stories that appear on Slashdot.