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Firefox 2 Downloads Top 2 million in 24 Hours

linuxci writes "Firefox 2.0 has had over two million downloads in 24 hours with a peak rate of over 30 downloads a second. This means Firefox is well on track to beat IE7's three million in four days. Of course stats don't equal users but it's interesting to see that the demand for Firefox is currently outstripping IE."

45 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. Re:But who needs to download IE? by dr_strang · · Score: 4, Funny

    Only four, because it took over 28 hours to install from floppy.

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  2. Re:But who needs to download IE? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, IE7 isn't default in XP.

  3. And what about RC3 Downloads? by Darwin_Frog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    After all, I never downloaded the final release since I already had RC3 and nothing changed.

    1. Re:And what about RC3 Downloads? by Chosen+Reject · · Score: 2, Interesting

      For that matter what about Ubuntu 6.10 which comes with it preinstalled?

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    2. Re:And what about RC3 Downloads? by BeeBeard · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And what about all the Slashdot readers who swamped Mozilla's mirrors a day in advance and downloaded the thing? ;)

      - An RC3 user

    3. Re:And what about RC3 Downloads? by tOaOMiB · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Alright, they're up to 2,000,003.

      Or as a serious guyss, 2,050,000. I mean, come on guys. How many people really downloaded RC3? Or use Ubuntu? When we're talking about downloads in the millions, we're talking about what normal people are doing. The stats of nerds don't significantly contribute.

  4. RC3 was the same as 2.0 by linuxci · · Score: 4, Informative

    For those that didn't know Firefox 2 RC3 was the same release as the final 2.0 so people who had already downloaded the release candidate didn't need to download the final (Help > About shows the build number and they're identical). This is usual with Mozilla releases, the release candidates are actual candidates for release (unlike MS) so the final RC usually becomes the real release.

    So people with RC3 don't count in these stats unless they didn't realise and downloaded 2.0 again.

  5. How about IE7 downloaded as security update? by Fri13 · · Score: 2, Informative

    IE7 will be installed almoust every windows machine because it will come as security update. Firefox 2.0 will not and is needed to download by user. Like there is many Ubuntu 6.04 users and it seems that firefox 2.0 will not come for those machines as security update. Users would need to update 6.10 version to get it. (or am i very wrong about this? :-D) 2 million downloads is very nice number, if IE7 has got only 3 in 3 days, i think it will be tie, after few days.

    1. Re:How about IE7 downloaded as security update? by aitan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      IE7 can be installed only by users that are running WinXP with SP2 or Win2003 and have enabled the WGA, so all the users that are perfectly happy with their Win2000 aren't able to install it. Those that still prefer to avoid SP2 (there are strange users out there) also can't install it.
      And lastly all those that have an old system with pre-win2000 versions just can't get any update from MS.
      And many organizations seems willing to block the install of IE7.

      So not all windows users will get IE7. I don't have any statistics to say the percentages but I wouldn't be surprised if after 6 months no more than 50% of windows users are using IE7.

    2. Re:How about IE7 downloaded as security update? by GIL_Dude · · Score: 2, Informative

      That 50% number is probably pretty close. I know for us, with 70,000 XP SP2 machines we are concentrating our planning and energy on Vista with Office 2007 and not on updating XP to IE7. Besides, most of our internal websites need updated CSS to render properly in IE7 and it is taking awhile for that to happen. Pushing out IE7 to the users would make them unhappy until the CSS updates get done. That all said, my main machine is Vista with (of course IE7) and Firefox 2.0 (which I am using to write this as I prefer FF - mainly due to adblock).

  6. So what the hell happened to all the fuss? by Channard · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Specifically, the fuss about the US Gov demanding IE be removed from Windows? It seems to have disappeared from public memory, just like Bird Flu.

    1. Re:So what the hell happened to all the fuss? by BostonVaulter · · Score: 2, Funny

      what is this "bird flu" you speak of?

      --
      Happy Puppy User
  7. The one feature that makes it worth the download.. by scuba_steve_1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...an integrated spell checker for all HTML text form fields.

    Plus, it's a relatively trim download, so cheers to the dev team for that.

  8. Re:A pity. by linuxci · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's what Google is for. Anyway, the best way to remember the URL for Firefox downloads is getfirefox.com or even just firefox.com will get you there eventually.

  9. I've downloaded both and one is easier by bgfay · · Score: 5, Informative

    I downloaded IE7 on one of my school's computers. It took a little while to download, took a long time to install, required a reboot of the computer, and I've used it twice so far. To be fair, I wasn't an IE user before IE7 and don't have a lot of interest in using it now. I downloaded it out of curiosity.

    I downloaded Firefox 2.0 on two machines at home and eighteen machines at work. It downloaded very quickly, installed even faster, and did not require a reboot. It also installed over my old version, asked if I wanted to check for updates to extensions, and moved all my bookmarks over. (IE7 might have done this too, but I didn't check.)

    All in all, Firefox is easier, has a cleaner layout, and just plain works. Way to go Firefox. What a great program.

    --
    Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
    1. Re:I've downloaded both and one is easier by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You have to be kidding or blind. Use what works the best, but always reevaluate when the variables change. If we didn't we'd still be using netscape 4. Ie 7 is a huge upgrade and much much better than the previous edition FF2 is more like IE 5 in terms of improvement over the previous edition. IE looks better and has some features that Firefox really could use( the button that shows all tabs in single window and the ease of choosing a bookmarked site). Its pretty sweet. But for my money, Opera wins. it seems to devise and perfect innovations years before anyone else. I guess firefox is a close second or least it was until the release. I haven't made up my mind which I prefer ie or firefox. I do know that firefox seems a bit flaky. the default skin is ugly my favorite skins haven't been updated yet. Another one I found that said it worked, didn't. to be fair IE 7 seems to suck, when you first start using it. On two computers I've set up with it, its locked up on first run (then its fine afterwards, what do you want its microsoft! But then it grows on you like fine cheese. I find it matches well with a fine merlot from the northern part of california and wagnu beef.

      --
      Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  10. Re:But who needs to download IE? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I personally know of two people who bought Win95 because "everyone else" was buying it. Neither of them owned a PC.

    So much for the American consumer making educated choices in the marketplace, (an alledged keystone of American Capitalism; the type of Capitalism we want to seed in the developing world.)

  11. Re:Well, how many UNINSTALLED IT? by linuxci · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Everyone should know by now that extensions often take a few weeks to get updated. The extension mechanism can be annoying when there's a major update but it's like that so that extension authors are encouraged to test their extensions with new versions.

    Most people actually use Firefox without extensions and by default it's a lot more featureful than IE6 and about as featureful as IE7 some people say too much was put in 2.0. You can't please everybody so instead of putting everything under the sun like Seamonkey (the Mozilla suite) or Opera they've decided on the options that are of most use to the most people and allowed others to add the extra features.

    Also worth noting is that bugfix support for 1.5 will continue for a while so you can keep using it to wait for all your extensions to be compatible with the new version.

    Also, there's choice in the market if Firefox is not for you. I personally prefer Firefox to Opera, but Opera is a good browser and it's worth trying it may suit your needs better.

  12. Re:A pity. by MassEnergySpaceTime · · Score: 3, Funny

    or ie7.com

    --
    Respect the laws of physics, for the laws of physics have no respect for you.
  13. whats the fuss about by eneville · · Score: 2, Funny

    i preferred phoenix anyways

  14. Re:Most people don't know IE7 is out by arose · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Once Windows automatically downloads IE7 next month, then compare downloads.
    The current statistics are interesting because they show user demand as opposed to market share.

    No matter how good Firefox may be, it'll never overcome "already installed and automatically updated".
    That's funny, because I'm typing this from an Ubuntu 6.10 CD with Firefox 2.0 while the system is installing in the background, when I reboot Firefox 2.0 will be already installed and automatically updated with the rest of the system. On Windows systems the "already installed" part depends on OEMs and automatic updates are done by Firefox itself. Will you be able to browse the web with IE 7 while Vista installs? Will there be system-wide automatic updates or will people still need to update a large part of the system by hand?
    --
    Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
  15. Nothing unexpected by Ksempac · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who are the people who are most likely to download a new browser right after its release ? The guys who read IT news everyday with great interest...Call them Geeks, Devellopers, or typical Slashdot's reader it doesn t matter...

    The point is : do theses guys use IE as their main browser ? No.
    Are they using Firefox as their main browser ? The majority of them does.

    Therefore they are more likely to get Firefox 2.0 than IE7 (although many of them will get both in case they stumble upon a IE-only website). So its absolutly normal that the initial rush is in favor of Firefox...In the same way that Firefox's RC were more used than IE7's RC. Actually if Firefox had a lower download rush i would have quite worried for them.

  16. Re:Well, how many UNINSTALLED IT? by slack_prad · · Score: 2, Insightful
    It's a nice tactic to say 'Bye bye karma' or 'This won't please the mods' and force the mod to mark it insightful/interesting

    oh, bye bye karma.

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    Sent from my desktop computer
  17. Re:The one feature that makes it worth the downloa by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Best part about the spell checker is (at least in my English/United kingdom dictionary) it thinks Firefox is misspelt.
    It gives options for firebox and Fire fox.

    There are other oddities in this dictionary which will no doubt be ironed out.

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  18. Re:Download both by linuxci · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You mean only those running XP or later? Mozilla now have an ideal target in Windows 2000 (businesses) and 98 (still in some peoples homes) as well as Linux and Mac.

  19. Re:Well, how many UNINSTALLED IT? by Donniedarkness · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Really? FF2 seems to be the fastest yet (on all of my machines, one of which is uber, and some of which are old as dirt). This may be different on the Linux version, though...

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  20. IE only on english computers by MadMirko · · Score: 2, Informative

    Considering that you currently can't install IE7 on anything but an ENGLISH XPSP2, which excludes the majority of worldwide users.

    I wouldn't jump to conclusions right now, you might be embarrassed later.

  21. Re:Download both by baomike · · Score: 4, Funny

    I use Opera and complained to a site about their IE only policy/design.
    They replied with a Word document.

  22. Re:But who needs to download IE? by drsmithy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That was 8 years ago and people were desperate to get off of 95.

    No, they weren't. Indeed, the take-up of Windows 98 could only be described - generously - as "sluggish".

    Slashdot, at the time, was overjoyed at how poorly received Windows 98 was, considering it another sign of Microsoft's downfall and using it as another example of how Linux on everyone's desktop was only 12 months away...

  23. Re:But who needs to download IE? by Zarniwoop_Editor · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Perhaps the stats are not worth crap, but it certainly shows a trend.
    I for one welcome anything that provides a choice, especially when it comes to microsofts dominance.
    I'm not a member of the "Microsoft is evil" club but I do think that their market share is certainly not based on the merits of their quality products.

    --
    - F1 NEWS
  24. Re:Well, how many UNINSTALLED IT? by linuxci · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In an ideal world then all extension authors would test their extensions with the release candidates and have things good to go by release time, but most of these people who write extensions have jobs so may not have the time to update their extensions.

    I would really like to see the Mozilla Foundation employing the authors of the most popular extensions and make them official so that they'd be ready by every release.

    For some people extensions are the biggest selling point of Firefox.

  25. Annoyances by teslatug · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here are some of the settings that I've gathered so far to get Firefox 2.0 to my liking:

    In about:config
    * browser.tabs.closeButtons to 3 for one close tab button
    * browser.tabs.selectOwnerOnClose to false for successive reading and closing
    * browser.tabs.tabminwidth to 20 for displaying tab scrolling in extreme cases only
    * browser.urlbar.hideGoButton no use for the Go button
    * dom.disable_window to true, fix various window annoyances
    * network.prefetch-next to false for not wasting my bandwidth

    In userChrome.css for disabling the List all tabs which annoys me when using the close button:
    /* Disable Container box for "List all Tabs" Button */
    .tabs-alltabs-stack {
    display: none !important;
    }

    Feel free to add your own to the thread.

    1. Re:Annoyances by Trentus · · Score: 2, Informative

      I remember the day I learned to use about:config. I was able to get rid of a couple of simple extensions, and it made me feel like I could make the browser do whatever I wanted.
      Some of the ones I use are

      *browser.search.openintab true
      *browser.search.suggest.enabled false
      *network.dns.disableIPv6 true

      Some pages were taking a while to load up, but when I disabled IPv6, most pages sped right up. Guess I'll enable it again when more sites use it. As for the search, well, perhaps I'm just particular about this sort of thing, but I don't need any suggestions for my searches, and when I do search, I want it to be in a new tab dammit!

    2. Re:Annoyances by Trentus · · Score: 3, Informative

      MozillaZine seem to have a pretty comprehensive list on the about:config entries and possible values. It'd be nice to see a help section on about:config though, and maybe include all the entries in the help file, or at least a link to the MozillaZine page.

  26. Re:Firefox update broken ? by ilovepolymorphism · · Score: 2

    Or maybe they just haven't enabled the auto update, and are waiting until the demand goes down a bit.

  27. It still isn't production quality software! by bradbury · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yep its just like the fancy new Christmas toy that has a few more bells and whistles than last year's toy. Unfortunately it lasted less than a hour before I managed to break it.

    I downloaded Firefox 2.0 and installed it under Linux (Gentoo 2.6.17-r7).

    Just for the heck of it I tried the same tests I tried in 1.5 and filed bug reports about several months ago. Sure enough Firefox 2.0 does *NOT* handle memory allocation failures. If one limits the amount of virtual memory (e.g. ulimit -Sv 115000) and starts firefox shortly thereafter it will core dump and will open a Talkback Incident window. I managed to file 3 different reports in 30 minutes of using it with memory limits in the range from 100-120MB.

    While I anticipate the bookmarks handling may be better (1.5 never should have been released until its bookmarks handling was on par with Netscape 4.72!) I still do not consider this to be production quality software. It will not be until it has decent handling of the various types of resource allocation failures (can't open tab, can't open window, can't allocate memory for image, script, network connection, etc.).

    Though I haven't tested it yet I also suspect they haven't handled things like window switching or efficient session restart. The open window (tab) should have top CPU and network priority until it is displayed. Any excess CPU or network resources can be dedicated to non-lead tabs or mininimized windows. They probably also haven't handled the heap fragmentation issue -- so after using Firefox for a week and one has opened 100 windows and 700 tabs (pushing the memory usage up to 1.2GB) it will still take 15 minutes or more to simply close all the windows and exit from Firefox (presumably because it has to merge all of the memory fragments being deallocated). Upon restarting the same session one will find that Firefox only needs 900MB. That is a memory leak and/or heap fragmentation problem.

    Please, no comments about how I shouldn't be using my browser this way... You use your browser your way, I'll use it my way. I happen to like to work on multiple things at the same time and when I'm writing research papers it isn't uncommon for me to open hundreds of sources simultaneously. I wouldn't have started limiting the virtual memory and run into Firefox's failings in that area at all if 1.5 hadn't turned out to be such an excessive memory consumer.

    The interesting question one might ask is how one releases software and specifies what its minimal memory requirements are if you don't limit its memory to determine that? I can only assume that the Firefox developers picked their numbers out of thin air [1].

    As an aside it may be worth noting that Firefox 1.5.0.7 does run under Windows 98 on a 75 MHz Pentium that only has 132MB of memory. It doesn't have the performance that Netscape 4.72 can show on the same machine though. As the 2.0 memory requirements seem to have increased (presumably due to the SQL libraries for bookmarks & history handling) I strongly doubt its performance would be improved over 1.5.0.7.

    1. Firefox 2.0 will *NOT* run in the Linux specified Minimum System Requirements of 64MB of RAM [2] unless you also have several hundred MB of swap space. And believe me, having pushed Firefox memory to ~70% of system RAM under Linux -- you would *not* want to try to use it even on a 128MB system due to Firefox's problems with heap memory management and the poor paging performance it generates under Linux.
    2. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/system-requir ements.html

    1. Re:It still isn't production quality software! by Faizdog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ok,
      I won't comment on how you use your browser. But here's a question, is there ANY browser that would be able to handle the stress tests you used?

      If there is another browser that can handle "hundreds" of open sessions, and still work well for you, then perhaps that is a better fit for your purposes.

      Otherwise you're pushing your browser to the extremes, then pointing out its faults, however nothing else can handle it either.

      --
      -"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
    2. Re:It still isn't production quality software! by oGMo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sure enough Firefox 2.0 does *NOT* handle memory allocation failures.

      [...]

      Upon restarting the same session one will find that Firefox only needs 900MB. That is a memory leak and/or heap fragmentation problem.

      First off, almost nothing gracefully handles memory allocation failure. Particularly anything in C/C++. You need memory to complete an operation, and if you don't get it, you're screwed. There's no way to reliably unwind the stack and reverse the state of the program to continue without performing that operation.

      Second, I believe you are suggesting they implement a defragmenting memory manager. If you'd care write one, particularly one that drops in place of their current one, I'm sure they'd be happy to accept. Good luck.

      The real complaint here is "Firefox uses a lot of memory". That may be so, but then it has a pretty high compatibility for rendering all the silly XML and Javascript and crap the web requires these days. If you want a slim (but not so compatible) browser, you should check out dillo or something.

      --

      Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage

  28. Re:To be fair... by _pruegel_ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There is no auto-update from Firefox 1.5 to 2.0 yet. And there is no Windows Update for IE7 yet. Those figures are all but meaningless. The numbers show that early adopters are equaly likely to download FF2 and IE7 (or maybe download both).

  29. Re:But who needs to download IE? by teslar · · Score: 2, Funny
    No, they weren't. Indeed, the take-up of Windows 98 could only be described - generously - as "sluggish".
    Can't speak for anyone else, of course, but personally, that was due to my Windows installation at the time being Windows 95c, whose only major difference to 98, as far as I could tell at the time, was that 98 had integrated Internet Explorer into itself. So I wasn't desperate at all to get rid of 95c. In fact, I don't think I ever had a 98 installation... I just went to 2k as soon as that was out. Nowadays of course, it's just Ubuntu... until the doctor says it safe for me to start playing games again ;)
  30. Re:Most people don't know IE7 is out by GIL_Dude · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's funny about who is changing what here. I generally keep IE as the default browser because I get email with links for some admin tasks (approvals) that only work in IE. My main browser is FF, but I want these links to work right so IE stays the "default". However, installing FF 2.0 changed the default to FF without bothering to ask first! That was not appreciated at all. I repeated the install on another machine and it did the same. I did not see anywhere where it asked "would you like to make Firefox your default browser (recommended)". LAME. I like the browser, but that is reprehensible behavior.

  31. Ban advertising?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
    You're right, how unsuspecting third worlders are been preyed upon by savagely greedy ad agencies. We can't allow that. I say put a moratorium on all advertising in developing countries. It's the only way to keep those pristine cultures untainted by western immorality.

    It's a good thing we know what's best for them!

  32. Re:Most people don't know IE7 is out by Selanit · · Score: 2, Informative
    I generally keep IE as the default browser because I get email with links for some admin tasks (approvals) that only work in IE.

    You need IE View. It's a Firefox extension that adds a new entry to the context menu: "Open link target in IE".

    So, your user sends you an approval email, you right click the link and select "Open in IE", and boom. There you go.

  33. Re:The outstripping won't last long by thrills33ker · · Score: 2, Funny

    You mean Nazis, not Nazi's.

  34. Re:But who needs to download IE? by crazygamer · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Well, IE7 isn't default in XP.
    That's the point. As soon as Vista comes out IE7 will probably top out Firefox within a few days.