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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 :)
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 :-(
... 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!
You clearly haven't worked with Fx3 yet. At first I was skeptical about the new smart bookmarks and address bar, but now that I've used it for a month or two (starting with beta 2) I'm quite pleased with it. The address bar basically does exactly the same as it always has, except now it actually does an on the fly substring search in your history instead of just giving an arbitrarily sorted list of previously visited sites. I would dare say this is one of the biggest improvements to the web browsing experience in the last several years.
Weird, I have the release candidate, you know you can still actually use as a location bar and ignore the search, it still drops down and give suggestions of previously typed in URLs
Don't see the problem
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.
Look, all 18 computer uses have pledged.
And something Opera invented first! (Among other things like tabbed browsing, mouse gestures in a browser, a zoom feature that also resizes images, etc, etc.). And Opera 9.50 even searches the contents of pages you have visited for more WIN.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
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.
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.
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 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.ya, and by the same logic, if firefox is so damn good, why does the IE has 75% marketshare.
captcha: divisive
Actually, I've been using Fx3 since beta1. I still am not really keen on the thing. Unless I make sure to keep my bookmarks and history trimmed down, it freezes my system for a few seconds as it trudges through things. This is irritating, especially when I was just wanting to type in an address real quick and not have possible matches pulled up. It consumes more time in searching for possible results than it saves me in typing.
Some way of reverting to the old functionality would be nice.
Maybe they need more silly publicity stunts like this one.
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.
I Auto Installed SP3 and now my computer is a useless brick!
#3 isn't wrong. It doesn't have an addon/extension system. Built-in customization features do not count. Opera has no where near the extensibility of Firefox.
Don't get me wrong, I like Opera. I use it at work because it has the most compatibility with the websites I have to use without being IE. It's very fast and has a small footprint, CPU and memory-wise, but I just can't use it for my everyday surfing, simply because it lacks the ability to extend/support addons. The main addon I can't live without is adblock plus. Yes, I know Opera can do ad blocking, but who wants to add them by editing a file? And don't forget, adblock plus has pre-defined adblock list sources, so you don't even have to build your own just to get a decent amount of ads blocked; the list does it automatically.
Living without something like Adblock Plus is a deal breaker when using a browser.