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Firefox Goes for World Download Record

Posted by samzenpus on from the record-for-the-lamest-marketing-campaign dept.

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."

6 of 344 comments (clear)

  1. Patch Tuesday by pjt33 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Patch Tuesday by unlametheweak · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I would suspect "software downloads" would imply an independent application and not a patch or a service pack. I'm sure they have their servers prepared to get Slashdotted and Digged, etc for the marketing event. Though I wonder why Microsoft with it's money couldn't hire a marketing firm to think up something savvy like that for Internet Explorer.

      It would also be a great opportunity to promote bittorent as a mass downloading medium. Too bad it doesn't seem to be in the plan.

    2. Re:Patch Tuesday by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Bittorent doesn't allow for tracking downloads. It's one of the things that really holds it back for general use for a lot of companies. For example, a lot of internet TV shows would LOVE to use bittorent to reduce their download overhead (which is HUGE), but how are they supposed to determine their "ratings" if they're not sure how many donwloads they've had? They used to talk a lot about this over at DLTV.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  2. followed by most rollbacks to version 2... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    because many popular plugins are not 3.0 ready :-(

  3. Re:I pledge not to download it by Zebedeu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A not only history, it also searches your bookmarks, which is something that I've always wondered why it wasn't implemented before.

    Now you don't have to navigate your deep bookmark folders for that link, just start typing the name and it appears directly under your cursor.

  4. Re:Why should we? by Kattspya · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's the most brilliant thing I've seen in it so far (I've used the portable beta 3 for about an hour). When the password prompt isn't a window you can make sure the pasword is correct before storing it.