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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."
This is a Good Thing. Not because everyone has to use Firefox instead of IE/Opera/Safari/whatever, but because this forces authors to create more standard compliant sites which work on multiple platforms.
Good stuff.
.: Max Romantschuk
What is the relevance of the number of downloads? Someone might download it 4 times to install it at his 4 PC an another might download it once and install it on his company's 200 stations.
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.
I sincerely hope so, because I'm well and truly sick of this sort of situation.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
And guess what, Firefox is going to keep growing! Why? Because IE7 is a rubbish. Before you mod this flamebait, let me explain why. Here is a screenshot of IE7 beta. Examine it closely. Here are my issue with it:
Seriously, this looks like it was designed by an amateur software development team. This is meant to be the Firefox killer? Firefox is showing that a monopoly doesn't guarentee you a browser monopoly. Is IE7 going to stop the rot? I doubt it very much. Firefox looks and feels better. Hats off to the Firefox team.
Simon.
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?
And when I install I from portage it is also not counted. In fact most Linux users are probably not counted, since most use things like apt-get, emerge, or whatever.
What is the relevance? It gives an idea of the popularity of the product. The number is big, and still increasing. That is all that matters.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Don't worry.
With a huge corporation doing everything they can to support Firefox, how can it fail?
The day MS changes its tactics I may start to worry.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Keep it simple.
The biggest danger to Firefox is that you forget the key reasons people like this browser... compact, fast, and secure.
It's the "winamp" lesson.
My blog
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
Firefox has been downloaded 75 million times. Many of these were upgrades from previous versions, which had already been counted.
Over 500 million songs have been purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Music Store. Many of these were purchased by the same person who had previously downloaded other iTMS songs (and often, the songs were part of an album and not purchased separately).
These really have nothing to do with each other, but it's sort of startling to consider the popularity of Firefox, which many of us depend on all the time and is free, compared to the popularity of something like the iTunes Music Store, which many of us never intend to give a dime to (draconian DRM and all that).
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I'm trying to look at your screenshot, but IE6 doesn't even say there's a picture there, what the fuck is png, everyone knows pictures are .jpg!
I suppose the most significant statistic for web developers would be: what proportion of browser requests to my site originate from browsers others than IE?
It is the growth of this number that will motivate the development of more standards-compliant web pages.
Problem is, browsers can "lie" about their identity (usually to pretend to be IE) - a practice that itself will only decline when IE is no longer the assumed "standard".
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Firefox is built on xul, so any os that runs firefox can run your xul app.
l
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xul/
http://www.xulplanet.com/
Also as to components you can use in your apps. There is the render engine:
http://www.mozilla.org/newlayout/
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/embedding/GRE.htm
Or the script engine, rhino
http://www.mozilla.org/rhino/
These other inferences are contentious:
1: Firefox has been installed on 75 million computers.
2: Firefox is in [regular] use on 75 million computers.
3: Those who have decided to install Firefox are using it on a daily basis.
4: And so many more.
Not really. ...
It may not be an exact number, but it can give a good indication. Others like me have downloaded it once and installed it in 12 computers or more, that accounts for your "extra 12 downloads".
Then you may add:
- Firefox added onto CD's (magazine, etc)
- Third party ftp sites not tracked
- Company mass installs
As I said... it's just a good hint at how many installs there are, it could be less as you claim, and it could be more...
The Spread firefox community has helped to develop firefox download counters which can track the exact number of downloads in real time.
I use Firefox! Why? - is the question we should answer.
If a browser is going to embrace the market (open source or not) it needs to add value to the users of the browser. If it's named IE, Firefox or something else is a secondary effect. (I know a lot of us here on SlashDot might use it just because it's cool).
Firefox has in my opinion 3 major advances: Tabbed browsing (when you tried it, you will never live without it again), better security and customization/extras abilities. You may have additional advances, but these are the ones I favor.
When I say better security, its not only a question about how many security holes there are in the browser, its also a question in regards to how many browsers are out there. To target IE is much smarter than some "minor" browser. Of cause this benefit will slowly decrease as Firefox becomes more popular.
Customization is an other issue. You may adjust IE, but the extras for Firefox are really good. I'm not even sure they can be made to IE (at least they are not easy to make). My Firefox is loaded with extensions. And the ones I use are of my own choice (you'll probably have your own favorite list). This option is not available in IE in the same degree. Some likes themes as well. I use the browser daily, so for me it's important to have a very functionally theme rather than a fancy one. (I use a very tiny one to get better space).
When I first installed Firefox I went to my own website (www.rednebula.com), and was disappointed as the layout collapsed... but as I checked the html, I realized that it often was due to errors in my html code that IE simply ignored. Now my website has been tuned to both Firefox and IE, giving better and nicer html... a nice secondary effect.
-:) Oh no - not again.
www.rednebula.com
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
Latest data on Firefox market share and versions from a popular (100,000+ unique visitors/day) general-interest site I own, collected in the last 2 days:
Share of pageviews (including robots): 12.3%
Share of pageviews (excluding robots): 13.0%
Most popular versions:
1.7.8 on XP: 23%
1.7.10 on XP: 20%
1.7.5 on XP: 12%
1.7.2 on XP: 5%
1.7.8 on NT: 5%
1.7.x on OS X: 4%
1.7.7 on XP: 4%
1.7.9 on XP: 3%
1.4 on XP: 2%
1.7.3 on XP: 2%
1.7.10 on NT: 2%
1.7.5 on NT: 1%
1.7 on XP: 1%
1.7.8 on Win 98: 1%
1.7.6 on NT: 1%
1.7.10 on Win 98: 1%
1.7.10 on Linux: 1%
Firefox users running the latest version: ~25%
great job firefox team ... thanks to you 2005 is not like 1984 ...
where did my sig go? where's my sig at?
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.
The Firefox team should just use the Windows Genuine Advantage© Program to validate users, allowing one download per licensed machine. That way, only Javascript hackers will be able to fudge the download numbers. Simple. I should be a marketing exec.
-William Brendel
Actually, the fact that Mozilla has become so popular doesn't surprise me. In Germany over 20% (!) of Internet-users browse through the Net with the Mozilla Browser, each and every one of my co-workers (web-development) uses Mozilla, Greasemonkey scripts and all the other stuff which makes the life of web-users easier contribute to such an enormous development of Mozilla. I wonder, how much time will pass by until IE will lose its dominant position on the "browser-market".
Vitaly Friedman, Saarbruecken, Germany
vitaly.friedman -> creative.web.design.saarbruecken.germany
Surely one meaningful number would be the number of downloads via MSIE. This would be the minumum number one could safely assume that are converting.
Another would be the number of downloads from FF on Windows. That would be the approximate lower limit number of people continuing to use Firefox.
rewriting history since 2109
Are you sure IE is rendering in standards-compliant* mode? I discovered that it's really easy to knock IE back into quirks mode with things as simple as a XML declaration. After I tracked down what IE was choking on, I was able to create a valid XHTML Strict document that IE likes, too.
*IE's standards-compliant mode isn't, but at least it doesn't have the box model bug.
#!/bin/sh
. 6&os=osx&lang=en-US' > /dev/null;
while true; do
curl -L 'http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-1.0
done
I won't argue your point, but why isn't it *packaged* as valuable, reusable modules?
I'm one of those folks still using the "classic" Mozilla, because my family and I spend a fair amount of time in each of the browser and mail clients.
First off, under Linux there's some non-trivial configuration to be done getting them to work together properly. (ie: send link)
Second, those valuable, reusable modules are not separately packages, and then used by Firefox and Thunderbird. Instead, installing Firefox and Thunderbird ends up installing 2 copies of those basics on disk, and dragging 2 copies into RAM. If you're going to be using both during a session, the classic client is leaner.
Plus, repackaging would go partway toward solving the security update problem. I also recognize that a heavily compartmented packaging of Firefox/Thunderbird would probably confuse the heck out of Windows users and annoy the heck out of rpm (not urpmi or yum) users. But for those of us on Gentoo (or urpmi or yum or apt) it would be great. Imagine a Mozilla-* update that no longer requires an overnight build on my aging k6-3.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Safest? I don't know about that. It's certainly the most comfortable to surf with, though. And it doesn't seem to go into convulsions at the sight of Java on my system- which is more than I can say for Firefox. They're pretty much equal in most aspects. But the question we must ask ourselves is why are we bothering with these newfangled, "next gen" browsers when we have a perfectly functional IE6 available right now? We might like the tabbed browsing, and added security, but with Microsoft putting such a herculean effort into patching the holes in IE as soon as they appear, it's not quite as insecure as most make it out to be. Popup blockers can be downloaded for free. It's all that most people want- your average joe won't be fussing about it lacking tabbed browsing or not supporting Foxytunes or the like. Firefox is unnecessary for most people. As is Opera.
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.
In related news: IE reaches 75 million security patches.
Each employee running the installer first thing in the morning actually. Pretty simple.
The above scenario asssumes that each employee has local admin rights on their machine. No sysadmin worth his salt would endorse that policy.
I'm getting irritated by these pantywaists why say we need web browsers. Whatever happened to telnetting to port 80?
It's been a long time.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that "look and feel" of any product is just some shallow cosmetic thing that only ADD afflicted 14 year olds care about.
:D
The thing is, on average, something like the issue of a 15 hour battery and a 24 hour battery only affect the user once or twice in a long period of time, but a horrible interface affects end users every single time they use the product.
I've seen people complain about how their "computer is broken and sucks", only to find out their trackball mouse is full of lint and needs to be cleaned.
Let me anticipate the usual flames: everybody who accesses your Babylon 5 fan site uses Firefox. Firefox is a much better browser. Anybody who cares about security should switch. We'll never have standards compliance as long as Microsoft is in the driver's seat.
All true. But face it, the big switch isn't happening. Time to figure out why and do something about it, and stop living in denial.