Slashdot Mirror
Firefox Hits 80,000,000 Downloads
asa writes "It's been nine months since the release of Firefox 1.0 and with tens of millions of users we most certainly are taking back the web. Today our Firefox web browser hit the 80,000,000 downloads mark. You can see the live counter over at SpreadFirefox.com."
...how many of those downloads are unique users, vs. prior users downloading a new version?
not 80,000,000 users. I've probably downloaded the various versions of Opera at least 20 times, between new versions and new installs of Windows. The actual number of users is far lower.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
80,000,000 most likely non-unique downloads doesn't seem like that big of a number to me. Oh well...Congratulations~ I hope they do take over the web since they're obviously better than MSIE6, but I doubt if they will ever successfully convert the masses of casual users.
Well, we just had been notified of the 75M milestone.
Do we really need to get told about the counter constantly? It's useless anyway, as all Linux/BSD distributions use their own mirror networks.
When Firefox hits the 100m mark, it may be something half-worth of a note.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Almost all GNU/Linux distributions come with Firefox installed. The distribution makers only download the package once and include it in the distribution. There can be thousands of users of that package. My point is that this number is not a number that can be trusted, or am I wrong?
objorkum dot com
My weblogs show that IE is still the dominant browser, even though my two sites are primarily trafficked by those who are tech-savvy (who you think would be using a browser other than IE).
Personally, I know I've contributed to probably 50-60 of those 80m downloads, and I'm only one person. This is partly due to the assinine update mechanism. They really need a better way to deliver patches.
What is humor if not pain tempered by time?
... so it seems that there is still hope for a better world :)
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Yes, the number of downloads from one place is a horrible metric to determine accurately how many people are using the browser. Some download it 10 times on one computer, others download it from their distro's package manager 10 times. Others copy it to a flash drive and pass it along to 10 other computers.
So before everyone tries to get a +5 insightful for pointing this out, let's just be happy that a good open source browser that does it's best to stick to standards is doing so well.
Who (except Firefox fanboys) cares?
Is it really news every time Firefox hits a multiple of ten million downloads?
I just upgraded to Opera 8.02 (usually use Firefox as my browser, but wanted to see what was new in Opera). Load /. to see the stories, and guess what was on top? w00t.
3x for work because two of the auto-installs didn't work, 2x for Liz's comp, 1x for my laptop, 3x for burning CDs for people and my comp.
So... bitshift.
That has to be total downloads, right? Now unique downloads.
:-)
I talked my boss at work into installing Firefox on every machine, and he's thrilled with the results so far. If you have any influence at your job, do the same.
But that only counts as ONE download, since we installed that over the network.
So maybe that number is actually LOW.
Rich...
Ignore Alien Orders
New Jersey, NJ - Alberto Chumpout, a former McDonald's employee now living in his parents' basement says he's exhausted after generating 80 million downloads.
"I'll be frank," he said, "next time I choose to artificially increase browser download ratings, I'll choose Lynx."
When asked if he had slept during this incredible marathon of downloading, Chumpout croaked "Can you help me? All I see is red foxes. My dad said I should stop using the computer. Mom didn't bother me after I disembowelled and ate dad."
Microsoft is said to be interested in hiring Chumpout for their upcoming IE7 campaign. "Download Internet Explorer 7 or Chumpout will Chump OUT On You" is said to be the slogan, winning out over "Download IE7 and win a chance to have lunch with Steve Ballmer", which insiders said was rejected because they didn't want to scare the consumer too much.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Here in Canada, I find alot of my friends already have firefox.. and they arn't technical. I end up opening IE and then I notice they have firefox already... craziness. :D
Mod me down im a newf (wiki)
easy work, I have an ftp server.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
And the question of the century is: How exactly was this number calculated? Raw download data from the Mozilla website would mean nothing. The only way that this number would mean anything would be if each distribution contributed their totals...
80 million? We get it Slashdot. People are using Firefox. Stick to 0, 50, and 100 if you must.
On another point, wheres the discussion here? Are we all supposed to just pat ourselves on the back for a "job well done"? Whats the significance of this?
They all demand IE because "they support it" (i.e. they bill you a shitload to "fix" spyware, and if you use firefox AND finally get something, they won't touch it, heh, their financial loss either way, use firefox and help send their jobs to the trashcan, not india :) besides, maybe if everyone dumped microshit, we'd finally have IT jobs where we come up with NEW things instead of fixing the M$ trojan horse known as Windows).
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Even the current version (1.0.6) seems to have its share of bugs--the dependencies can be tricky, and various searches confirm that certain problems are recurring and not unique.
I imagine things are better on the Windows front?
This is partly due to the assinine update mechanism. They really need a better way to deliver patches.
If I recall correctly, they're working on a patch system that only alters the changed parts of the file (i.e. does not require full re-download and re-install). I think it's set for version 1.5 or similar.
Join the Empire! http://www.empirereborn.net/
How about a post from Cmdr Burrito or Cmdr Enchilada? I am sick of tacos.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Offtopic and all that. Bring Zonk back.
I decided to finally migrate from Firebird to Firefox on one of my PCs at home. As I started Firefox for the first time, it loaded a page from mozilla.org telling me that my version is already old (even though it is the latest, 1.0.6) and I should promptly download the newest one. "WTF?" I thought - don't the mozilla guys know what version of Firefox is available?
So, they seem really supereager in making sure everybody who has Firefox downloads a new copy (or the same copy, depending on how alert you are). Can this, partially, explain the "number of downloads" - a lot of "returning customers", so to say?
Sigged!
At least 10,000 was me.
Anyway, the number of downloads is "interesting" but that's about all. What counts is how many people use Firefox as their primary browser. Still around 10%, I think. But that's not bad. I'm just afraid that IE7 may reduce some of the perceived advantages of FF such as tabbed browsing and some of the "appearance" things. Many people don't understand or care about technical issues...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Firefox Usage is about 5% and growing.
Not much not much.
But, at a store, you do not randomly kick out 1 out of every 20 people who walk in.
5% means nothing, 1 out of 20 means much more. And growing just means it's something to pay even more attention to.
With Mozilla you also have to take into account the downloads that didn't go through their own servers, which considering unlike Opera is probably a lot. My copy came with my distro, so the only way they are going to count that is...well telepathy (or counting distro's but that would get muddy).
Just kidding about the chump thing, its Sunday.
Quack, quack.
...still using straight Mozilla? Maybe I just haven't played with Firefox enough to get it set up the way I want but I find the Mozilla interface much more comfortable.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
This is getting redonculous.
(blah... blah ... blah... placeholder to satisfy the message police))
Or office, or lotus notes, or any other proprietary software???
Mod me flamebait, but do you have to make a headline on the front page whenever they hit a small milestone? Perhaps only posting when they've hit things like 50,000,000, 75,000,000, 100,000,000 etc., would allow for more timely news?
We all know that the counter is steadily increasing and that the user base is growing rapidly -- but must this much news space be devoted to one subject?
Firefox reaches 82,500,000 downloads. Only another 2,500,000 to go before the big one!
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
I wonder how much higher this count would be if there were some way of tallying up Linux users who install from their distribution's package collection rather than dowloading directly? I use Firefox on all of my machines, but I have never had to download it from Mozilla's website. My wife has installed Firefox on her Mac as well which counts for at least one direct download, but that is only one machine out of four in the house - the other three aren't counted.
the counter counting the number of times Slashdot reported how the Firefox counter again reached a large number with many zeros hit 1,000 today.
That's almost as many downloads as Windows XP Pro!
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
80,000,000 downloads, after there have been countless releases in this time frame.. and how long is this time frame?
I've probably "downloaded" slashdot and fark's main pages 80,000,000 times personally..
then again, i may have downloaded firefox and/or mozilla a couple thousand times too
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Good job. See opensource can work
---- Berlin Brown http://www.newspiritcompany.
Don't get too excited! According to Broadband Reports and ComputerWorld: "The streak of Mozilla's Firefox browser gaining market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer has come to a grinding halt in July. For the first time since Firefox Version 1.0 made its debut, Internet Explorer was able to regain some lost ground. Firefox's market share shrunk to 8.07% in July from 8.71% in June, while Internet Explorer grew its share to 87.2% in July from 86.56% the previous month."
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
It has been said coutless times in comments here on slashdot, that downloads are not counted when you download with firefox, or when you are updating to the latest version. Perhaps to avoid all the comments about "most of these coming form upgrades, etc", submitters, or even better, editors need to add some additional facts to the post.
an example of what they could add:
"NOTE: Downloads started with the firefox browser or downloads initiated by update are not counted"
There's some debate on how this relates to actual Firefox usage, and I propose we do the following: to track how many people are using Firefox, why not just check how many unique conenctions there are to the update server (that notifies of new versions of extensions/themes/the browser)? It always does that, so it would provide a much closer estimate of how many people actually run Firefox for their main browser.
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
As I remember from past FF stories it's not actually a counter but rather a display that increments based on time and is brought in check with reality occasionally.
Still, the numbers must be way off even with that - I have installed >10 machines off my tools CD (since then only autoupdated, which isn't counted) plus my own 3 Linux machines via the package repository, also not counted.
Beep beep.
I love firefox, but there's something negative associated with the word 'spread' that I can't quite put my finger on.
You can spread herpies, you can spread something tasty on your toast in the morning, but I'd leave "spreading" software applications to Bonzy Interactive Inc. or whatever the fuck they're called these days.
How many of those are because of upgrades, like those due to security problems? Rhetorical question, though, since it's really hard to figure that out. It's easy to count the lines in a log file. :-)
Of course, other vendors play by these rules, too, especially when they count the browser as part of the OS. Fight fire with fire, ya know?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't be a queer, use Safari.
Oh wait..
Comment removed based on user account deletion
80,057,234 downloads...
There's also another question: how many people who downloaded FireFox actually use it? I imagine that there's a considerable number of people who do get hooked, but there'll probably also be lots who don't.
I myself am an example. I've downloaded Firefox about half a dozen times in total (different versions), but even though I have it installed (mostly as a convenience for visitors who're used to it), I still use Seamonkey myself - and, for that matter, I consider Seamonkey to be superior to Firefox.
I may not be a typical example, but the raw number of downloads is not really a good metric to assess how widespread a browser is - it's a rather meaningless number, even though it makes for nice headlines of course.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
...on "technical issues" when it only runs (natively) on Windows? "Technically" every whitebox shop out there is full-up with windows boxes that are completely hosed, despite this being the year 2005, despite all the AV and firewall products available, despite all the various patches, updates and industry recommendations to people, despite MS throwing billions at it over the years and who knows how much in terms of man years of coding effort. "Technically" just about every geek out there has to fix friends and relatives windows boxes all the time. "Technically" every iteration of windows and IE was supposed to "fix" this. And somehow automagically this new effort will be "the fix"?
Let's run that by some vegas and london oddsmakers, shall we?
You could have a new 42 inch laserplasmaquantum HDTV with surround sound but if you try to use it with two pieces of twisted coat hanger and some tinfoil for your input the total results will most likely not be "technically" all that great.
Don't be girly man. Use wget.
:O
Alternatively...
Don't be effete. Use telnet [FQDN] 80
I RULE!
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
am I blind or is there no download link on spread firefox ? kinda silly aint it ?
And every time I have been a different user!
You know how people are bi polar, I'm like.. deca-polar! hehhe
So don't argue with me! Ten against one... you won't win! heheh
Everytime I use Firefox, I get a lot of jittery pages. It happens randomly. It's not something that happens only on certain pages. It's totally random. But when it happens, the page shakes up and down in a steady pace. Refreshing sometimes solves this, but it's annoying nonetheless. Can anyone tell me what is happening here?
Lots of downloads are nice and all, but there's some serious bug issues to fix, like memory leaks.
It seems every day now that FF will randomly max out the CPU for around half a minute at a time. It does this around 5 times a day it seems. I have Win2K with FF version 1.06, but it's been doing that the last few upgrades.
I'm just not that good at paying attention to the "please don't feed the trolls" signs.
It's not about the supposed weaknesses of Firefox, it's about its strengths. 80,000,000 downloads (even if not unique) is a good sign. You point out the inherent positive of Firefox (and Opera too): it is better than IE. IE is, currently, the de facto web browser for the majority of internet users. And it also helps to propagate spyware/viruses. By making a better product, and having that product do well, benefits everyone... in theory, it even benefits users of IE. Hopefully, the popularity and features of third party browsers (such as Opera, Firefox/Mozilla, Safari, etc) will cause Microsoft to implement these features in to future versions of IE as well. I'm not just talking about things like tabed browsing (which is in pretty much every browser by default now except IE), but increased security (like not allowing applications to automatically execute after downloading [Safari under 10.4.2]).
I am a proud Firefox user. It has its faults, granted, but I use it on every OS I run (Win XP, OS X, and Linux) because it gives me the same experience cross-platform, and it very seldom ever crashes. I use a g4 optimized version of Firefox on my OS X machine, and it launches about 1 second faster than Safari, and about 2x as fast as IE for Mac (there's some bloatware for ya).
So, Troll, I have fed you. If you're going to troll, at least do it well.
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
"asa writes "It's been nine months since the release of Firefox 1.0 and with tens of millions of users we most certainly are taking back the web. Today our Firefox web browser hit the 80,000,000 downloads mark. You can see the live counter over at SpreadFirefox.com.""
1: Taking back the web from whom? I wasn't aware the web ever belonged to anyone.
2: 80,000,000 downloads...and how many people downloading new versions?
3: ASA eh? Sounds like someone didn't want to come up with an actual name and wanted to be anonymous....yea
Newspeak.
Repeat every ten million downloads.
People that complain about the ads at the top of the trial versions of Opera are complete faggots. If a company wants to give you a free trial of something they are going to at least either disable something / add something annoying / or limit number of uses.
Why is it when Google used context sensitive ads in Gmail people did not complain half as much as they do about Opera's free trials. Opera is loads better / faster / more stable. Most of the Firefox "innovations" came from Opera.
People say that Opera only sucks because it costs money, how many people in the open source community / Slashdot actually paid for their version of Windows? Probably less than 4%. I bought Opera a long time ago and have stuck with it ever since. If you want Opera so bad just google for a serial.
Opera > Firefox in every way possible.
Someone should start http://www.spreadopera.com/
Opera's yearly earnings are a testament to how badass the browser is. People are willing to pay for something in that niche ( the browser market ) that they could easily get for free ( Firefox / IE ) Thats a testament to how great Opera is.
to track how many people are using Firefox, why not just check how many unique conenctions there are to the update server (that notifies of new versions of extensions/themes/the browser)?
Using IP addresses? Dynamic IPs will distort the numbers. Using a GUID in a cookie? Privacy advocates will complain.
I downloaded it, installed it...didn't really care for it...uninstalled it...now am testing IE7. Jury is out.
http://chicagodave.wordpress.com
Maxthon.
I use it, lots of other people I know use it, you can get it to do the end-user stuff firefox can do, the UI response is waaaaay faster, it works in the real world, and I've never had security problems.
I've switched back and forth, using Firefox for better parts of a year (I only use my computer for web browsing, IM, movies, and as a terminal to *nix machines, really). I prefer Maxthon.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
... anybody else catch this movie, late last night on AMC?
I never knew they named the browser after a fictional Soviet version of the B-1 bomber...
Open Source Solutions for Small Business Problems
Freelock Computing
The Communist browsers have been known to block advertising, denying American companies advertising revenue, and open pages in 'tabs', freeing up computer resources and thus destroying global hardware sales. This menace must be stopped.
without all the hype surrounding firefox, azureus has now gathered more than 86 millions downloads through sourceforge.
How about setting up a site where everyone who has Firefox visits and it creates a unique cookie for every browser that visits it? Each browser is counted only once. Keep it open for a week and we should see some interesting results.
or how about an extension that calculates a unique ID based on your hardware and sends it in? Yeah yeah, i know, privacy and all that...but here it is being used just to count Firefox users. Wouldn't you voluntarily install that extension to show you're a Firefox user out of sheer pride in the browser you're using? And once you're counted, you could un-install it.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
I hear so many talk about tabbed browsing, popup-blocking, security, etc., but to me, the best feature of Firefox are the XUL extensions.
Mozilla should really start pushing XUL as an application platform more. Also, it'd be great to see a bit more standardization in how the extensions integrate into the browser and with each other, so you don't end up permanently mangaling your browser with a bad combination of extensions.
And I doubt IE will ever have AdBlock or StumbleUpon! Great stuff!
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
I heard today that Ben Goodger took a dump. Later Tim Rowley scratched his nutsack. Is this /. or Sheep for Firefox group?
There are many browsers out there, unless Mozilla foundation starts paying for all this advertising, I think there should be a ban on Firefox articles.
XUL is the Visual Basic of mozilla. Like Visual Basic, it may count as a success if all you do is count beans and you notice it's widespread use. However, it is slow and uses up all my RAM. It should be banned. Methods for writing plugins in a compiled language, such that the parent process (plugee ?) catches all signals and the plugin can't kill it, are well known.
Fact: if you are writing code in anything other than C or C++, you hate your users.
Actually, most C++ coders code slow-ass abusive code also.
Is this a dup, or we going to get another breathless "Firefox breaks another record!" every two weeks?
Do each of my multiple personalities count as a unique person downloading it?
...will soon pass the 80 million mark as well!!
I never could stand a tech-cheerleader, which is what all these announcements amount to (is there a moderation code for 'rabid fanboy'?)
The whole 'take back the web' crap just got annoying coming from a group that couldnt figure out how to do an update/install.
If I wasnt so busy (ok, lazy), id build a site to count people who like me, gave back the web and stopped caring. But I also switched back to Outlook from Thunderbird, so maybe id have to build two sites?
A more important question is, who's in charge of that counter? Do you take anything you see at face value? Put Mr. Prankster as the website admin, and then when the counter hits 55 trillion, you wonder how it got there. When billions are spent on advertising in general, having control of such a simple device as a counter, well, the temptation is huge, for anyone pushing an agenda. You have to take everything with a grain of salt, even open source marketing spins, and instead evaluate and see for yourself. If you are happy using firefox, and you do use it, then ok, 80M is believable.
I for one prefer mozilla classic suite, with bundled email and composer, "overwhelming" amount of features that don't overwhelm me. Firefox is just way too dumbed down for my taste, last time I looked. Mozilla classic is well designed, people put their heart in it. What I fear with firefox is this "let's take firefox through the roof mission, then submarine it," and make it some massive nuisance security breach issue, because some 10 year old script kiddie was allowed to donate code to it, without some oversight committee. That's how we teach everybody a lesson. The need for firefox to have to use external plugins for basic functionality already provided by mozilla is suspectful. Yeah, I can go around downloading wallpapers from any script kiddie or joe sixpack, no big worries there, but firefox plugins, running code while on the net? I have no problem lookin at VBA macros, and using anyones macros, as long as I get to read the code and understand it, then copy and paste the sourcecode and tailor it. Is the firefox plugin interface so simple and dumbed down that joe average can read it and pick out the meaning, like he can from an msoffice vba macro? That's what needs to be dumbed down, the programming interface, not the user interface. Using mozilla with its "overwhelming" features is incredibly easier than using the easiest programming languages for anything these days.
Firefox (the plane) was a fighter, not a bomber. The armaments used by Clint in the film were air-to-air missiles.
Also, its name begins with F like other Soviet fighters. (Foxbat, Fulcrum, Flanker, Fishbed)
Soviet bombers begin with B (Bear, Bison, Backfire)
repeat for about 2 months.
All of the IT companies I worked for (mind you not departments, since departments generally want to show that they are doing better than companies and departments at other companies) but all of the IT companies I've worked at were HAPPY to force users and clients into using IE to keep the spyware/virus/trojan cleaning business flowing in. Unethical? Doubtless. Profitable? Even moreso.
They were all Microsoft partners too, I am uncertain if that factor had any influence on their lack of ethics (I mean, look at how reliable and trustworthy M$ is... right?) but one of them was so flakey that I had to fight with them for 3 months to get my last (legitimate) paycheck after I had already jumped through all the NDA signing hoops to leave the place and ensure my last check would be timely... (it was anything but).
You my friend are a rare gem, I salute you!
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
But that doesn't mean the numbers they're reporting aren't amazing! Really!
Who cares? I mean, I'm a dedicated, almost rabid Firefox user. I love the extensions that give me *exactly* the functionality I want. I recommend and advocate for Firefox to friends, family and folks online almost tirelessly. But this must be the fourth milestone announcement I've seen in, oh, the last few weeks. But who really cares? It's still a drop in the bucket, and anything could cause it to either have a sharp decline in the rate of adoption or even a reversal... why all the focus on these relatively small increases in numbers of downloads?
This inclusive community already gets it. We know our efforts to educate those close to us (or force said humanoid units to switch) are having a positive effect on the Firefox userbase. It's simply not quite clear to me what all the interest in the seemingly constant barrage of small milestone announcements is all about. As long as there are *enough* users to keep developer interest sufficiently high, I'm a happy camper. I can wish that the rest of the world would switch, but when I can't beat some family members into submission after their third jumpstart of their Windows boxen, I can't get all that excited about these little statistical announcements.
Bah... never mind... it's probably just the grape juice talkin'.
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
Please make a permanent story of it and integrate the Firefox live counter in Slashdot !
I've downloaded a single time and installed on multiple computers, some via network and others not on the network by using a "Utility" disk that I carry with me to install certain applications without having to go online unprotected when I'm cleaning up a compromised system or getting a new one ready to use. Some of the other applications on that CD are, Ad-Aware, Spybot, AVG antivirus, Zone Alarm firewall.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I've probably downloaded Firefox a dozen times to install and use on different machines and to update it when new versions came out. So number of downloads doesn't equal number of users. If the average person has downloaded Firefox 4x (not unreasonable) that's only about 20 million users for those 80 million downloads.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
how many people in the open source community / Slashdot actually paid for their version of Windows? Probably less than 4%.
Doesn't Windows come with the computer?
Someone should start http://www.spreadopera.com/
Or even sicker: Spread IE
wanking to a windowed video of some girl from http://www.borderbangers.com/
Border Bangers? Now if it were Border Badgers, I might wank too.
I believe he means to see how many connections there are that have the Firefox UA String. It will still be thrown off by dynamic IPs, but will be a much better representation of the user base.
In the past 12 months I have downloaded FireFox at least 30 times.
In addition to that, I have *updated* it (on several systems that I own (and re-install) about 10-15 times.
Perhaps I'm more active than Average Joe, but you get the picture...
To borrow Jerry Seinfelds take on the subject, I get it. Firefox has been downloaded a bunch of times. Good for Firefox. Can we stop counting now. It's like McDonalds. 500 Gazillion-fucking-billion served. Yeah, we get it.
...someone who had a big pipe wanted to advance Firefox's position and set a script to download it over and over and over?
IE 7. Is what the number really means. Firefox has awakened MS and it is updating a browser that it probably would have left to rot on the shelf.
Microsoft in an attempt to fabricate some image of functionality encourages the people at Myspace.com to use Microsoft Software to run the show.
So goes the reason for "This users profile is currently under routine maintenance", EVERY OTHER CLICK!
But, the guys at myspace were very clever. They decided to allow for personal modifications using HTML and CSS. CSS being as powerful as it is, is probably the most useful feature in customization in regard to Myspace.com
As a result, Myspace.com agreed to the bullying of Microsoft and fired back with the CSS gig. We all know how poor CSS support is in IE and we also have a gazillion users looking at standards and recommendations from standards oriented designers on Myspace.
All this boils down to one thing. Due to Myspace, people want the most bells and whistles, all that CSS can offer. In order to see all these bells and whistles, they should be using FireFox!!!!!
Millions flock to download FireFox, only to run over to Myspace for all the neat eye candy!
C'mon people. This is day one stuff! It's so apparent, it's like Conspiracy Theory 101!
What abt those guys who are downloading the browser again to patch existing vulnerabilities. I think around 20% would be downloading again.
(by bjarne nilsson)
An idea is to restart the conter hven 1.5 comes out, and count the nr of updates ( or start a new update counter). This hvay we ca mesure how many pople bother to update.
Then we cold get som real install base numbers.
I have to say that of the non-tech sites I look after Firefox use has been hovering just below 10% since the start of the year. The figures for August so far look like this:
303927 IE 84.30%
34781 Firefox 9.65%
7245 Safari 2.01%
6844 Netscape 1.90%
5264 Opera 1.46%
2479 Mozilla 0.69%
This is still impressive. Pre Firefox release IE was about 95% of all the traffic we saw so Firefox has taken about 10% of IE's audience. But until IE is dropped from big corporations I doubt you'll see the huge swing away from it that many analysts have been predicting.
.. another discussion on FireFox downloads.
If anyone will read this, for example, I have some low non-tech company site, and guess what - 20% of this year traffic comes from Firefox. Yes, it is isolated case, but it still shows that Firefox matters.
In any case to avoid flamewars - I don't believe in total domination of one browser. So I would like to see at least three very good browsers. We have two for now - FF (well, Mozilla counts here too) and Opera. IE still have to grow to be good (not good enough) and I have to see what Microsoft will achieve with new version, however, I remain sceptical so far. Yes, they try new things, but they are *pushed* to do this, so... I just don't like their attitude torwards all this, that's all.
About Firefox - sure, it has lot of things to do right, yet, I believe that they *will* do it. I can't say about Microsoft the same.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
apt-get install mozilla-firefox
For every binary I fetch from the Mozilla site, I fetch two from the Debian archives...
May we live long and die out
No doubt one of the many (ex) Firefox developers now 'owned' by Google.
Initially, it was good to see the number of downloads steadily rise. It inspired confidence in some to jump on the bandwagon and get their own copy, or copies rather, as many have pointed out.
But once a product is established, I think a far better measure of its greatness is the lack of -negative- publicity on it. How many articles from reliable sources have you read that actually say "Firefox is bad" or at least "Firefox is worse than IE/Opera/etc."?
Sure there are some, but Firefox is enjoying an enormous popularity among its users and I have yet to meet someone who tried it and switched back to IE or Opera.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=www.spreadfirefo x.com
A failed result is none too good for a browser that is supposed to be all about standards
...for all those people who already have a far superior and secure browser pre-installed on their machines!!!
I tried FF for a week. Then switched back to Opera. Imo Opera is much better and I happily payed for a lisence to have the add banner removed. Opera has everything I need built in, not as unstable and sliggish extensions.
;)
There it is, just had to point it out
PS: Use Thunderbird for email tho, since Operas mail client is silly.
When in danger, whewn in doubt! Run in circles, scream and shout!
Just a quick rebuttal. The plain fact is that IE intrinsically is, and always will be more of a security problem than Firefox. As you might know, IE is part of the operating system, and can therefore cause greater damage than a stand-alone application. Yes, they put out patches all the time (like last week, they put out a patch for several critical IE exploits), but the exploits keep coming. So IE is still a security risk, and it will likely stay that way for a long time. Judging IE7 is hard, but from MS' track record concerning security, I see no reason why it should be much better. Especially if they keep it integrated with the system, they are already far behind. But I do agree with you that if you protect yourself enough (firewall, patches, antispyware and antivirus), you can probably get by using IE.
The speed issue I find a little puzzling. IE is quicker to start up, because it is preloaded on windows, but all tests I have seen show that FF is quicker at rendering pages than IE, and that Opera is quicker than FF.
Personally I use FF all the time, and are really happy with it. Most (~80%) of the people I show it to also stick with it. It does have some problems (memory leak, crashes), but I find it way better than IE. Hopefully the first point release after the big 1.0 will iron out most problems.
-TN
I feel sorry for you. Can't get a normal female so you're just moving down the species list...
This reminds me of that time Sony announced it had sold 25 million consoles (or was it 50 million?) The controversy of all of it was that the consoles sent in for replacement (under warranty) were counted as another console.
You know what the irony of this is? Sony and Firefox's numbers both made Microsoft's equivalent look bad.
As has everyone else, I have preached FF security and installed it on every machine I repair, but I download FF for my own machine several times over the year, as I clean my machine and re-install Windows every couple of months or so. So, does that count as one download or several?
Oh yes, and here's the wiki, which gives a mock-up of the relavent interfaces.
It may have many downloads but according to recent press reports IE is actually gaining back ground it lost to firefox.
I swear by Firefox for developmental purposes. With extensions like the Web Developer extension, AddNEditCookies, and Aardvark, Firefox is the ultimate development browser.
However, I don't see Firefox catching on with the average (or even somewhat computer savvy) computer user, and here's why:
* Memory usage. I've seen Firefox take upwards of 200MB of memory with just a few tabs open, and none of the new releases seem to help matters any. Many people will not tolerate this, and I have a hard time tolerating it myself.
* Extension requirements for usability. Certain things such as extended tab preferences should be available in the base install of Firefox, but they're not. Since your average computer user isn't going to be installing a bunch of extensions (and in the corporate world, this may even not be allowed altogether), the base install of Firefox remains somewhat crippled.
* Speed. Firefox could really use a rendering kick-start. I've made some mods that have helped, but it just isn't that fast, plain and simple.
IE7 is going to introduce a lot of the features that consumers and developers have been demanding. While I don't think IE7 will be a great browser for developmental purposes, it will probably be more than adequate for average consumers. Should IE7 prove to be a fairly capable browser, the Mozilla team is really going to have to start addressing some of these issues real quick-like.
A community-oriented lyrics site
I've downloaded Firefox thrice at three different places. But, I dont use it. Hope this helps.
Clearly, Google is the next Microsoft.
Yep, i've downloaded it about 8 times. And just for one computer.
I develop web analytic software and have it running on quite a few sites that generate large amounts of traffic - the sites aren't geared toward any one type of user, either.
While the number of downloads may be 80m, the market saturation hasn't changed all that much. IE is still ranging up in the 90% while Opera/Firefox/whatever make up the remaining 10%. This has remained fairly consistent for the past year or so.
You'd figure after 80m downloads that firefox would be populare enough so that the number would change significantly (say, dropping IE down into the low 80% range with FF making up the majority of the rest).
Until that happens, it's all just big numbered downloads with no significance whatsoever.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
otherwise we'll be seeing one of these Firefox downloads at xx,xxx posts every day or so.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
since 98 or ME systems will read it, whereas on those systems I'd have to install a driver for the USB flash drive. Almost any machine is going to be able to read a CD these days. Oh, I also carry a Knoppix live CD with that, too, for the really bad cases that won't even boot Windows.
My 1 Gig flash drive, like yours, has PuTTY along with my installation of Eudora 5.1 for my main e-mail address that runs from flash so I am carrying my e-mail archive and client with me that will run from any XP machine at hand. I actually have the latest Firefox install and a few other utilities on the flash, too, with enough room left over to salvage files off a dead Windows machine when I boot to Knoppix. It's my electronic scratch pad, so to speak.
I know that some would be concerned about running an executable from flash given the published limited write cycle stats, but I used the 256 Meg version before I got this new one for over a year on a daily basis without a hitch.
Just to be safe, though, I have a program on my home machine that does a backup to our home network file server at midnight every night and then the file server runs a backup to a USB hard drive at 2:00 a.m. Same thing for my wife's computer. Anal retentive? Maybe, but I've been bitten a few times before I had an automatic backup in place.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
You do realize there's no possible way, without violating the laws of physics, that the number of total downloads could decrease, right?
Actually, all this is an effort to copy opera functions. However mozilla by coding all these things to keep up, adds a helluva lot more size to their setup file. Opera is shrinking every time. (while adding, or optimizing existing code) Mozilla is good for its value though... (free)