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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."

9 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. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

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  5. 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.

  6. 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?
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    Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
  7. 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.

  8. 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.

  9. 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.