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Firefox Goes for World Download Record
Kelson writes "For the upcoming release of Firefox, Mozilla is preparing Download Day 2008: a campaign to set a world record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. Participants are asked to pledge to download Firefox 3 on the day that it's launched. The exact date hasn't been scheduled yet, but everything seems on track for June."
Are they trying to kill their own servers or what?
What's the current record? I'd expect MS service packs to set a pretty high bar. Also, how are they counting? If Debian get Firefox 3 through into testing on the day (which I doubt), would an install via aptitude count, or are they only counting direct downloads from Mozilla?
Get your botnets ready :)
if it includes the mother of all UI mistakes
the "awesome bar" that turns a location bar into another search thingy (making 2 search things on the interface)
so now after years of the user learing the location bar is the location bar and how it behaves thats going to be all thrown out and the user will have to learn that actually its a location bar AND a search bar not to be confused with the search bar which is to the right of the search/location bar confused yet ?
seriously its one of the worst UI/usability mistakes ive seen from Mozilla yet
so until they get rid of it or make it optional, ill stick with 2.x or Opera or Safari or IE
Since presumably my Firefox 2 will bug me to update to 3 as soon as it's released?
Not to disparage Mozilla, but lately it seems like they've been a mite too concerned with press releases. They should release when it's ready, and we'll get it when we think it's ready. What's the big rush?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
because many popular plugins are not 3.0 ready :-(
The entire dell call center will be pulling its weight from Figi. With all Seven of their computers downloading it at the same time!
...who has Mozilla's petard ready for them to hoist?
... these are the same idiots that thought that a beta of windows vista was the single largest software download: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/06/windows-vista-for-guinness-world.html
... and apparently there is no "world record" to break anyway: http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2008/05/mozillas-latest-firefox-launch.html
show of hands: who downloaded a linux dvd iso larger than 3.5 gigabytes before vista beta was released?
and, are they not going to consider the millions of copies of, say, internet explorer 7, downloaded the first day it was forced through as an automatic update? or how many downloads of itunes are there in a day when apple _requires_ an update?
Go for the record Mozilla! If you get it, you might even get a place right next to the Most Marshmallows Stuffed Into A Person's Mouth record!
How long will it take to get into the Ubuntu Hardy repos? And even if it's there on day 1, does apt-get upgrade even count?
Overall downloads of Devils0wn WinXP Pro Corporate the day it came out
The important one is how fast we can /. the web site :)
If you can't be good, be good at it!
I'm not getting the release until I know for sure it won't crash hard on my Macs, like the beta I tried did. And that it won't delete my cookies, like the beta did.
I'd really like to see continued support for the old style of searching in the url bar, too, but I doubt that will happen. And the new look is just uglier.
Currently USA way ahead followed by Japan, Spain then Poland. Not really the top four I would have guessed.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice; in practice there is.
Completely opposite to the ideals of capitalism, those swines are trying to topple the world order with their no-cost merchandise.
However, few can say that Firefox is a software which you shouldn't own a copy of. Let's show them that enterpreunist powers rule with a firm iron hand and instead of criminally downloading a free version, buy a CD version of firefox on that particular day.
I think this a great way for Mozilla to publicise Firefox and increase its market share. And I pledged, of course. I look forward to Firefox 3.
I have used Firefox for a few years and love it's potential. But it has always been buggy and I was forced into v3 when I updated Ubuntu recently and I think it's got worse! It crashes more now, they have changed features that I loved (like the way you save U/N and P/W) and on top of that most of my plugins don't work anymore :-(
Look, all 18 computer uses have pledged.
when they'd just wait for the Slashdot effect to proceed ?
On the map you can see how many people have pledged and colors are on how many people do this. These colors and numbers mean absolutely nothing. At least it should be compared to the amount of people living in a country. If 10.000.000 people do a download in the USofA, this will mean less then the same in Belgium, where it will mean that each and every person has pledged to download it.
Even better would be to have it linked to internet connections, people who are actually able to download it, number of computers or anything similar.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
will be counted most probably. I dont know of many linux users who download directly from mozilla website. Most would use a package from their distribution which generally is not available on the same day (and even if it is, how will they count those downloads).
They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. -Nathaniel Lee
If they set a record - they'll be in the news.
If they are so successful that the servers go down temporarily - they'll definitely be in the news.
As you can see, just submitting the idea has put them in the news. This is a great idea for a company with growing market share.
Speaking of download servers;
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these babies NOT crashing under the load.
Yeah, I know, I know, clustering download servers isn't the best way to do a server farm but this is slashdot.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Spam your friends, useless news which doesn't matter, omg lets get lots of hits for mozillas download page! Who needs missions to mars and particle colliders when we have awesome news like this!?!
This might be the most senseless Guinness record ever, and that says a lot. It's measure of nothing. It's not even a measure of Firefox's popularity. Because bulk of the download counts will be generated via some downloading scripts. Even they allow one download per IP, there are proxies. Number of downloads won't nearly equal the number of PEOPLE who downloaded Firefox that day.
I mean it can't go down in the books as Firefox was downloaded by 2 million people on that day. Maybe 2 million times, out of which half was generated by 300,000 download scripts. I am not sure about you but to me that doesn't sound all that impressive.
It won't even helps spread firefox that much, as all the pledged downloadees will be firefox users.
Entirely pointless!
Possibly the only more pointless thing that this is my rather elaborate rant against it.
I'm marking "Download Day" on my calendar right now.
I have a big circle around 2008, and a thin one around 2009 too, just in case the news gets any more vague.
I won't be downloading Firefox as long as it has that horrible Awsomebar. I'm using 3.0 RC1 now and unless they do something about the Awesomebar, I'll switch to something else. It's the worst thing ever to happen to Firefox. I'll pay to switch to Opera before I use it in its current state. It looks horrible. It's difficult to use -- the results that come up are not predictable since it searches on the title of the linked pages as well. Worst of all, there's no way to turn it off. I thought they said that things like this (the AwesomeBar) were going to be plug-ins.
I think this is a cool idea. There are still lots of people who don't know there are other browsers in existence; when they open IE they say they're opening "the internet." Anything that makes the news and makes them aware of alternate browsers is good - especially if it's "hey this thing is really popular." For many people, that's the best argument for trying it.
Mozilla seems to have done pretty well by harnessing the power of fanatic users so far - remember the big newspaper ads? And check out the "pledge map" on the site. Think how proud you'd be to see that you're one of a very few people in your country who has pledged to download it. Kind of a mix of national pride and geek pride.
Every web developer's dream is a world where all users have more standards-compliant browsers, and IE is forced to follow suit. I say hooray for almost anything that makes that closer to reality.Could they track the number of downloads if they used bittorrent? Also, if their goal is a record number of downloads for Firefox, do they want to set up an additional hurdle for people? "First, you have to download and install one of these other programs. No wait, we can explain why. Come back."
Great don't worry about helping the thousands of newly homeless and hungry people - download Firefox 3.
Cone on where are all the memory leak issues comments modded up +5 :)
davecb5620@gmail.com
I use firefox portable at uni, as I am unable to install software, portable apps is a great way to stick with OOo and firefox and filezilla and notepad++. But it is unlikely that Firefox will release a portable version of firefox 3 on release day. Debian/Ubuntu releases are a bit behindtoo, so unless Ubuntu manages to stay in time (which I doubt) and the Australian mirror stays in time with official Ubuntu (even less likely) then i doubt I will update to firefox 3 at home either. But shit, i'll download a copy for windows anyway! Why the hell not!
like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
Fanboys are Go!
would it be possible to counter-act the download count by trying to upload the installer back to the server?
portfolio
I can't find a single country on the map that has not have at least 1 pledge. Can we assume the ENTIRE world uses Firefox?
Come on Lesotho, wake up.
Also, I'm sure it's been said, but I hope they torrent this thing, else we'll have the record for most smoked servers since CNN got simultaneously Farked, Slashdotted, and Dugg for the last Britney Spears media stunt.
Maybe they need more silly publicity stunts like this one.
So, who's the current world record holder? I'd ask Norris McWhirter but he died.
I looked at the pledge map last night on firefox 3b5. It decided to cache the data and now it won't update it (even after page refresh). So yeah, from firefox 3 it looks like the firefox 3 pledge is a total failure. Ironic?
The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
Whenever Opera fans jump into conversations like this, I'm reminded of this comic.
That said, I'm quite fond of what Opera has done for mobile devices. Opera mini is far and away the best mobile browsing solution for virtually any hand-held device (particularly Windows Mobile devices). I recommend it to almost everyone I know who uses the web on their phones, and I use it myself.
Nevertheless, I'm writing this in Firefox 3. I've downloaded Opera here and there for a lark, but always end up back on Firefox. So you raise a good point: Why is the Opera installed base so low? It is a good browser.
http://zooomr.com/photos/darin/4957470/
This is hardly some official event where China has a veto vote, so I see no real need to appease the Chinese warlords on this issue and avoid calling Taiwan Taiwan. Unless of course the team wants to take the stance of Taiwan is part of China, in which case they should just count it as part of China and make no distinction.
This trying to make both sides happy stuff is just silly because the 'right answer' is neither China, or Taiwan, but will never be 'Chinese Taipei'.
As a precursor, maybe there should be an intentional attempt to slashdot their servers first! Although right now it appears to be running fine despite the link posted in the article.
:)
There's enough accidental slashdotting of sites, surely if we really tried even the firefox website might struggle
I hate to point it out, but the goal: 'most software downloaded in 24h' will not be broken, no matter how many downloaders there are. It is and ever will be only 1 software: firefox.
:-)
Now, if you were to say grab all of piratebay in a single day...
Same with this FSF petition against extending the copyright in Europe - that was formulated as: '...if you think the current term is good...' - no I don't. But I vehemently oppose the extension, but I can't in good will support such an action either. Simply because they can't be arsed to properly phrase the goal.
Doesn't MS Win Spam or malwear or some exploit hold that record already ? ;p
I want to meet that one person in Burundi who has pledged to download Firefox 3.
As long as the major plugin issues are resolved, I will download and use it. I have to remove it and go back to Firefox 2 because so many plugins I use didn't work.
Fair comment, but, I think you've somewhat missed the point.
Mozilla's primary target audience is people who already know about Firefox and would probably download it anyway - so Slashdot would be the best place for someone to promote this goal for a specific day. (I also have to assume that this is not the only site that has heard about Mozilla's goal for Firefox.)
This is what happens when marketing doesn't discuss their "brilliant" plans with engineering...
Just more proof that if you want to know what is in the next Firefox, just get the current (or previous) Opera.
You must be one of these two guys that make up the whole Opera market share! Wow! :D
Even worse, Cuba is at 12 users. I guess that is all the tin-can connection to Key West can handle.
The FireFox updater could opt to install the new FoxTunes (I made this up, but it sounds like a cool name!) 'update' while it takes care of the browser as well.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
I thought there was going to be a FF RC2 as well. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Firefox-3-0-Release-Candidate-2-RC2-Gets-the-Green-Light-86752.shtml
Calvin:Do you believe in the devil? Hobbes:I'm not sure man needs the help.
I won't be downloading it. In the latest Ubuntu release, Firefox 3 beta 5 (or whatever version) is running like molasses. And, I still have problems with menus dropping down behind flash movies. I haven't really researched these, yet. But, I thought Firefox 3 was supposed to be a major performance improvement over 2. And, the flash thing should just work.
You're probably aware of this yourself, but there always seem to be a few people who haven't gotten the news, so if they're reading this...
Back when Opera was first released, most browsers did cost money. Even Netscape technically had a price tag for commercial use. (Though I suspect most people just downloaded it without paying.)
When Microsoft released IE for free, it destroyed the business model of selling a browser. Netscape scrambled, trying to find a new business model, and eventually was bought by AOL who invested in the browser as a bargaining chip against Microsoft. Opera tried things like putting ads in the toolbar.
Finally, in 2005, Opera dropped the price tag and ads entirely. Of course, Firefox's big boost came in 2004, so as far as marketshare was concerned, it was too little, too late.
To the best of my knowledge, IE does not have this. Opera has it (and searches page contents as well, though IMO Firefox's current UI makes it easier to spot pages at a glance), but only in the current 9.50 beta release.
IIRC, these features first appeared in Opera last September, and in Firefox last November (not counting nightly builds). I have no idea how long the idea has been in the works for each development team.
I hope version 3 fixes the major flaw where a mistyped URL is sent to Google for resolution. People moan about IE not being compliant with standards, but where in the standards does it say that a for-profit company should be the authority on domain-name resolution? I wouldn't complain IF I COULD TURN IT OFF !!! Even if it's through about:config.
Then might I suggest trying Firefox 3. It's in RC1 now, and works like a charm! My only problem is that I prefer Adblock over Adblock Plus, and it doesn't work correctly (ie: imeem.com playlists won't load even if it's disabled)
Better yet, wait a month and download it with the rest of us.
My memory leaked and I forgot... :P
If they set a record - they'll be in the news.
If they are so successful that the servers go down temporarily - they'll definitely be in the news.
As you can see, just submitting the idea has put them in the news. This is a great idea for a company with growing market share.
Ummm, "submitting the idea" did not put them in the news, as would be every geeks wet dream or raising the public awareness of FOSS. It made the news for nerds , which only serves to inform geeks that which they are already aware of: the existence of FOSS.Regardless of whether this is a stunning success, or a miserable failure, I don't expect to go home at the end of the day and hear about it on the 6 o'clock news, nor read about it in the morning paper.
1. It's not open source
2. It wasn't free for a very long time, then they had a brief period where a free version was available with ads, then they took the ads away and made all versions (windows, linux, etc.) free.
3. No addon/extension system
Though I see #3 as the biggie.
I see 16 Cubans have pledged. I thought there was a restriction on encryption (SSL) to countries like Cuba. The page referenced has a paragraph title "Export Control Notice".
When the Adobe Flash PLayer is updated, it easily gets more than 5KK in one day. Same with IE. WHere does FF think they are #1. Pffft!!
Not to be confused with F3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C2%B3
I remember this from 1999, but I don't know if it is still valid. INTERNET'S BUSIEST SOFTWARE ARCHIVE REACHES NEW DOWNLOAD MILESTONE San Francisco, CA., May 26, 1999 Walnut Creek CDROM, Inc. announced today that their popular software archive at ftp://ftp.cdrom.com has surpassed the one trillion bytes (one terabyte) milestone of files downloaded per day from a single server machine. The current record set on Sunday of 1.39TB of file downloads was made possible while testing a new gigabit ethernet connection with the company's Internet service provider, CRL Network Services. "We're very pleased with how the gigabit ethernet performed during these tests", said Robert Bruce, Walnut Creek's President and founder. "This new bandwidth capability coupled with the incredible performance of the FreeBSD Operating System software has allowed us to raise the bar of Internet server performance to an entirely new level." The server machine, also known as "wcarchive", was recently upgraded to a single processor NetFRAME 9201 system from Micron Electronics, Inc. and is capable of handling more than 10,000 simultaneous downloads.
New Guinness World Record: Mozilla proves that the world is flat; heading west from the Americas doesn't get you to Asia after all!
They should also offer options/scripts for package managers too (aptitude, up2date, yum etc). That'll help boost their download numbers.
I remember it took a while before v2 was available through apt-get (Ubuntu). This form of install is appealing to the lazy among us.
Firebug is not on FF3 (whatever that's supposed to mean - "is on"). And btw, it's Fx3, not FF3. Anyway, blocksite, greasemonkey, hyperwords and bugmenot are still not Fx3 compatible.
I'd say there's a long road ahead until many people, or at least I, migrate to Fx3. I can't even do my job without Firebug, and greasemonkey is rather necessary too.
I Auto Installed SP3 and now my computer is a useless brick!
If Mozilla puts up a debian repository and promise to update it for each release I'll download it from their site. If not I'll wait for it to be moved into the ubuntu repository. Personally, I don't have enough time during the day to install updates manually.
Does this mean i have to download another 100 Foxfire Browsers :)
Jack of all trades,master of none
they have the balls to take all those eyeballs!
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
The now-defunct browser called Netcaptor was the first to implement tabbed browsing. It was originally released by Adam Stiles in 1998, and was a shell for IE's Trident rendering engine. I still use it as an IE replacement for IE-only sites, and you can get the last version from the Netcaptor site
Whilst the link depicts great stats for various countries, it'd also be interesting to see the map on a per-capita basis. I'm sure it'd be grossly different (just like the world wars: #men vs #men per population). Australia would kick arse!
Ive had a look and the country with the lowest # of pledges is Samoa:4, Tonga: 6. Is there any country that hasn't been represented at all? (One would hope that these stats are actually real and that the 6 people in Turks and Caicos Islands are accurately represented)
I've tried my damn best to get people to switch over to using something besides that POS non-standards infect me because Active-X is unsecure Internet Explorer and 9 times out of 10 they will use it for a while if I load it for them, but the first time they hit one of those shitty websites that only work in Internet Explorer because some lazy ass web designer didn't bother to make sure that their website looked and operated good on all standards compliant web browsers they always switch back to using IE
sorry to bitch, but just because it's being downloaded doesn't mean people are going to keep using it.
Firefox, Opera, Safari hell anything but IE
I know it's a relatively small download, but what about setting up a torrent? They'd still be able to track downloads and it would reduce the strain on their server.
Twice.
Whats the record anyways? (num?)
Thats great idea!!! I have marked my calendar.
You can't just magically get files with your average BitTorrent client - you must first download a .torrent file which describes some basic information about the download and lists available trackers. Couldn't companies just track how many times the .torrent files is downloaded? Further, if they are running the tracker themselves, wouldn't they also be able to get a pretty good idea of how many people are downloading the file by, I dunno, _tracking_ connected peers?
I don't know how much merit your "can't determine ratings" argument has upon serious review.
I pay real attention to comments, mods, and the rest.
But the Mod system is meant to filter out clear trolls so that the basic discussion can go on. On complex topics, even in serious discussions 10 posters end up being wrong because they missed a detail. Then they all learned something when poster #11 solves it once and for all.
The basic heuristic for upmodding is "if it looks like information, give it a chance". Across the range of stories, modders can't be experts all the time, but they want to reward quality posts.
If he's submarining, I cannot always know if one of his viciously clever posts with some piece of code does not butcher the situation.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Fortunately, at least as far as the general public is concerned (i.e. not the sort of people that have even heard of Slashdot), _no one_ really cares what Linux users do, much less how many of them do it.
Well, I suppose there is an exception to this - sometimes Linux users get lumped in with other "alternative" choices, such as terrorists and gays. Why would someone choose to do something nonconformist if they weren't looking to subvert our nations principles, right?
(In case it isn't obvious, this post is seething with anger towards people who actually think this way. Which unfortunately includes most voters.)
I think in this environment we need both "flagship" marketed versions, and a couple of "principled" versions.
The sneaky art of marketing does include factors aimed at popularity which often means features that annoy expert users. However, projects with too small of a userbase eventually wither into perma-stasis and cease to make a difference in the broad picture.
I recall hearing a couple stories about the Debian project struggling with some administrative issues because there was "no rush".
Some kind of IceCat variant or such would satisfy the specialist users who could go on to do things like trash Awesome Bar if they wanted to in one version.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine