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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."
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?
The long and the short of it is that nobody knows for sure. The point isn't exactly what the number means (80 000 000 unique downloads vs. 80 000 000 downloads by a crazed fan), but that the number is increasing, and therefore so much Firefox use to some extent.
Personally I've been installing it on customer's systems for a few weeks now as a way to beat spyware. Some of them adopt it, some of them don't. But those who do adopt constitute an increase in Firefox use.
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?
I am not a statistician by any means and could not hope to come up with a reasonable figure without a bit of study into the subject .. but here are a few thoughts
1:) distributed media (linux CDs , magazine covers) which could make the figure appear smaller
2:) repositories and uncounted download sites (lowering the number again)
3:) ???
4:) profit (sorry couldn't resist)
5:) mass installs from a single download (system administration of companies , installing it for family and friends (again lowering the number)
6:) reinstalls and upgrades( which heighten the figure )
7:)People trying it out (who may or may not continue to use the product after a trial)
So it would probably require a fair bit of study to get an actual factual figure on the size of the user base
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
This topic has been discussed a good dozen times already on slashdot
And will be discussed a dozen times over and over again because slashdot editors insist in publishing every single download milestone firefox reaches.
No sig
...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.
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
Excuse me?
So when I choose to download (and I just checked, its just a download link, not a form), Mozilla.org is pulling information about my system before beginning the download. And they do this without letting me know? And they do it silently and inline with the download? And they somehow differentiate between my notebook and the guy in the next cube with the same notebook?And they somehow compare my system information generated with todays download and cross check against the other 80 million unique entries?
Wow. Keep on taking back that web, keep on making shit up, and keep on (somehow) being moderated informative by someone who actually believed you.
idiots. its your http user agent that they count. https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?rh1dkyd2 most web browsers out there send information. and if you really care sbout what it sends you can change it using about:config
>similarly to XP activation, Firefox sends us a code generated according to the computer's hardware
Oh come on, this is just trolling.
The secret code if it exists is called USER_AGENT. Firefox downloads don't get counted. Nor do downloads from the update mechanism. Surely, if this secret code exists you can sniff the http session and post it here.
Seamonkey (the Mozilla Suite), however useful, isn't exactly "well designed" in that it's too monolithical. If you want the web browser, you get the e-mail client, calendar, Usenet client and fries on the side with it, whether you want to or not. For those of us using other programs for mailing/Usenet posting/calendaring/whatever-else, that's just a waste of resources.
The same thing goes for the plug-in architecture of Firefox. Those who don't want/need mouse gestures don't have to waste resources on them, for example. The plug-ins also allow for a more distributed development model, since people can contribute Firefox functionality as a plug-in, without having to contribute the code to the Mozilla Foundation.
As for Firefox going submarine, that's not going to happen. The Firefox/Thunderbird/Sunbird suite is the official replacement of Seamonkey, which will stop being developed after a certain point (I don't remember when, however). And then there's the issue if why they'd actaully want to do that...