Mozilla Outage On Firefox 3 Record Launch Day

Kolargol00 writes "An outage affected the Mozilla.com website on the day the organisation launched its Guinness World Record attempt for downloads of the new Firefox 3 browser. The mozilla.com site was unreachable from around the world, occasionally responding with the message, 'Http/1.1 Service Unavailable.'" Since they decided to run their day from 1pm to 1pm Eastern time, the download day is actually still going, so you can still get Firefox and be part of the record.

Comments

Cause found, not to worry.

[mrRay720]

A large chair-shaped dent was subsequently found in the side of their web server, and a large sweaty man was seen running from the scene of the crime shouting "DEVLOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS!!"

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[Anonymous Coward]

Was he running on two legs or on all fours?

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[Anonymous Coward]

He was swinging from tree to tree.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[CDMA_Demo]

Anonymous Coward on the internet, huh? Very smart.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[Blakey Rat]

Out of legitimate curiosity, why do many Slashdotters think that Microsoft sees Firefox as a threat? They currently give out IE for free, so it's not like they're making money off of it, and the vast majority of Firefox installs go on Windows computers, so it's not like Firefox significantly is increasing Linux adoption...

Hell, the IE team sent them a cake:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2008/06/17/the-cake-is-a-lie-ie-team-bakes-a-treat-for-mozilla
And I'd wager it makes their jobs a lot more interesting and important, so there's no resentment there.

I don't get why Microsoft would care, frankly.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[CastrTroy]

It's a big threat. Firstly, they push MSN search as the default search engine on IE. That's a lot of advertising dollars right there. Secondly, the more people who use alternative browsers, the more websites will cater to those browsers. Using Linux used to have a lot of downfalls because a lot of websites didn't support any browsers that ran in Linux. Now that many windows users are also using alternative browsers, it means that most websites also work with the alternative browsers. That's one less reason why you wouldn't move to Linux.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[Blakey Rat]

They actually use Live Search as the default search in IE, I'm not sure MSN Search even exists (it appears to just redirect to Live Search.) But yes, you're right that that does net a lot of advertising dollars, no doubt.

Secondly, the more people who use alternative browsers, the more websites will cater to those browsers. Using Linux used to have a lot of downfalls because a lot of websites didn't support any browsers that ran in Linux. Now that many windows users are also using alternative browsers, it means that most websites also work with the alternative browsers. That's one less reason why you wouldn't move to Linux.

I suppose so, but that chicken's already left the roost-- sites already work in non-IE browsers, if only to support Macintosh users.

I still don't see why Ballmer would be all that upset about it, frankly. You've given a reason for mild concern, perhaps, but even with that, IE still has a commanding lead in marketshare and it's improving at a high rate of speed since development has restarted on it.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[indifferent children]

Maybe Firefox is a boon to the employees on the IE team, by forcing MS to pay people to improve their browser. Firefox is a burden to Microsoft (the company), because it forces the company to pay people to improve their browser. You'll notice that it was the team, not the CEO, who sent the cake.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[gbjbaanb]

They actually use Live Search as the default search in IE, I'm not sure MSN Search even exists (it appears to just redirect to Live Search.) But yes, you're right that that does net a lot of advertising dollars, no doubt. I think they rebranded everything from MSN xyz to Windows Live xyz, and then just Live xyz. Next week it'll be something different. I remember when they did this with .NET, *everything* was xyz.net.

Advertising dollars are very important, about $47.5bn important, so while the techies at MS may be happy to coexist, I'm sure the people who tell those devs what to do would prefer everyone to use the MS-default search and advertising options. Last I saw, Firefox didn't come with Windows Live Search set as the default.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[Blakey Rat]

You'll notice that it was the team, not the CEO, who sent the cake.

Well, der. If Ballmer personally sent a cake every single time a competitor (or potential competitor) released a product, he'd do nothing all day but send cakes. I don't see that as an indicator of anything.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[flink]

Out of legitimate curiosity, why do many Slashdotters think that Microsoft sees Firefox as a threat?

Microsoft is terrified of the web becoming everybody's primary application platform, rendering the OS irrelevant. That's why they started giving IE away with Windows in the first place: they wanted to crush Netscape. There was a little antitrust suit about all this a little while back.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[PhxBlue]

They currently give out IE for free ...

No, they don't. If you run Windows, you paid for IE.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[morcego]

Out of legitimate curiosity, why do many Slashdotters think that Microsoft sees Firefox as a threat?

Because they do, and rightly so.

Remember then they took Netscape down ? That should be enough proof for anyone.

As for the reasons. Lets remember that marketing wars are fought and won on a single battlefield: the mind. Keeping your brand strong is very important. When people start using non-microsoft solutions for something, they are likely to start using non-microsoft solutions for others. Microsoft always made a lot of money pushing the idea they alone can provide solutions. People who start using Firefox are more likely to look toward OpenOffice.org.

The "search engine" issue was pointed by others, and is also relevant.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[Blakey Rat]

Because they do, and rightly so.

Remember then they took Netscape down ? That should be enough proof for anyone.

They didn't "take Netscape down." They included a browser with their OS, something that's standard-practice now but they were trend-setting to some extent. Netscape sued over this, then took themselves down by deciding to not actually release any web browsers for several years.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[negRo_slim]

Last I saw, Firefox didn't come with Windows Live Search set as the default. Yeah it defaults to Google last I checked. On IE8 you have to goto a webpage and actively seek to enable Google search.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[S.O.B.]

They currently give out IE for free ...

No, they don't. If you run Windows, you paid for IE.

That's a very good point. People pay for IE, it's just not in their face.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[slyn]

Sounds like a lively datacenter.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[hpoul]

I suppose so, but that chicken's already left the roost-- sites already work in non-IE browsers, if only to support Macintosh users. 8 million euros for switching back to windows tell me something different :( - (this wasn't really the best advertisement for linux or ... vienna (imho))

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[TemporalBeing]

Microsoft will always pay people to develop IE because it's their single most important app. They recognized a long time ago that the Web was the gateway into the Internet, and that the Internet was the future of computing. So why did they let it languish for years, and only pick it up again when Firefox started to be a pain in their market penetration numbers?

Microsoft sought to become the main gateway into the Internet by developing IE. If you're using IE you had to buy Windows, right? I hear you can run IE under WINE just fine. So, not necessarily though highly likely.

This is why Apple has to keep developing Safari. Apple probably kept developing Safari to guarantee a minimum level of web functionality on the MacOS, so user's can get to higher profit things like iTunes, etc; and to do so without relying on Microsoft or anyone else. It just makes sense to do so.

Now it's completely viable to get on the Web without giving Microsoft a dollar. I'm not sure they expected that to happen either, despite their best efforts to the contrary. It's been completely viable to get to the web without Microsoft since before the IE existed; and has always continued to be. Anything to the contrary is just a dillusion on your part (and Microsoft's).

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[clampolo]

hey didn't "take Netscape down." They included a browser with their OS, something that's standard-practice now but they were trend-setting to some extent.

They did a little more than that. They got in a secret meeting with Netscape and attempted to divide the browser market between themselves and Netscape. Collusion is a big no-no.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[Dan East]

Of course the IE team likes the Firefox team. If it wasn't for Firefox there wouldn't even be an IE team. Microsoft wouldn't have touched IE ever again if it wasn't for Firefox stirring things up.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[CastrTroy]

The real WTF is that the kindergarten students have to use a computer to complete a language test. That's the stated reason for spending $8 Million moving back to windows. Why not just commission a new testing program. It would certainly cost less than $8 miliion. Or you know, they could go back to good old paper tests.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[bigstrat2003]

No, they don't. If you run Windows, you paid for IE. No. Unless they start offering a version of Windows without IE, which is cheaper, you paid for Windows. You get new versions of IE for free, after all, and they used to offer it for the Mac for free.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[quanticle]

The main concern is that, if web sites are coded in a cross-browser compatible manner, it makes the OS that the browser is running on irrelevant. After all, if your web-apps don't require IE, then is there any reason for you to be running Windows?

Couple the above sentiment with the growth of web based apps and the migration of existing applications (like word processors, etc.) to the web, and you've got a pretty serious threat to Microsoft's OS monopoly in the long term. After all, you can use Google Docs equally well from your Linux based EEE and your Windows based desktop.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[ArsonSmith]

I paid a lot for this car radio, but they threw in a car with it.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[commodoresloat]

Well, der. If Ballmer personally sent a cake every single time a competitor (or potential competitor) released a product, he'd do nothing all day but send cakes. Yeah, that would really cut into valuable chair-throwing time.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[roca]

It's about controlling the development platform, which grants enormous power:

-- The Windows monopoly is strong because so many applications only run on Windows. If all apps were Web apps that worked in Firefox, the "applications barrier to entry" is gone and it's suddenly much easier for users to switch away from Windows. That is Microsoft's greatest fear.

-- Controlling the platform means your apps will work first and best on the platform.

-- Controlling the platform lets you be the gatekeeper for all kinds of innovation. For example, if someone invents a new kind of hardware device it's not much use unless you support it in your platform so that applications can use it. By adding or denying APIs and components you can bless or curse all kinds of initiatives.

-- Controlling the platform lets you decide what software will be preinstalled. For example, you can favour your own media codecs.

It's not directly about money; it's about power. But power can be monetized.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[Auckerman]

I'm not sure what your definition of free is, but in order for me to get a copy of IE, I would need to BUY a copy of Windows. It's like saying DirectX 10 is free. It's not free, they are charging for it.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[dedazo]

Similarly, the use of a non-Microsoft core product like a browser on a Microsoft OS (since most FF users run it on Windows anyway) tends to chip away at the FUD related to the bundling of IE and the various irrational claims that Microsoft somehow sabotages applications that are not theirs.

So who's winning the marketing war again? The price of some browser market share is a small price to pay for that.

As for your claim that Microsoft has pushed the idea that "they alone" can build software solutions for Windows, try again. Microsoft's greatest strength is in the platform they've provided for other companies to write software on, and most normal people recognize this as the truth.

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[ATMD]

Hahaha, I just had the mental image of Ballmer sitting behind his desk writing gift tags on endless mounds of cakes... Very surreal, thankyou :)

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[hairyfeet]

Ummm.....because the know that computers have long passed "good enough" for most folks and they need to get into the Web in a big way to keep profits from declining? You have to remember that MSFT got used to having folks throw out their machines every 3 years because the speed improvements would blow you away. And whose OS was on every one of those? know I myself traded up from a 200MHz to a 400MHz to a 1.1GHz in a little over 3 years time and of course they all came with MSFT software(the last with WinME...shudder).

But once we passed the 1GHz mark the things that a big portion of the home users do works perfectly fine. I am still typing this on that old formerly WinME 1.1GHz that has been happily running an OEM of Win2K Pro for these last 8 years. For what I use this computer for,downloading software,web surfing,checking my webmail and watching the occasion Youtube video, it runs like a dream. And while I used to always have at least one machine running the latest MSFT OS so I could stay ahead of my customers problems Vista took my 3GHz Celeron with 2Gb of RAM and made it feel like a 486 trying to run WinME.

True funny story about Vista. My mom who knows squat about computers asked me the other day "What is Vista and why does it suck?" When I explained I asked where she had heard of it. She said she was browsing the cameras in Wal Mart killing time while my youngest nephew picked a game for his birthday and overheard this conversation next to her: "Customer(CR)..I want to buy this laptop. Salesman(Sm)..That is a good choice sir it is a very powerful laptop.(CR)Which Windows comes on it?...(Sm)..Vista Home Premium sir...(CM)WHAT! Vista sucks! No way! Just forget it!..(Sm).Don't worry sir,it comes with Vista but we'll be happy to give you a copy of XP on CD to go with it..(CM)What am I supposed to do with that? I don't know anything about building computers!..(Sm) Don't worry sir,if you simply leave it with us for an hour I'll take it in the back and install XP on it myself. It'll be all ready to go.(CR)..OOH! Wonderful! I'll take it then!".

As for me most of my customers are either avoiding Vista like the plague or are bringing Vista machines and asking for XP to be put on them. So whether you love Vista or hate it(I vote hate but YMMV) perception is reality and the public says Vista sucks. So the have to keep extending the life of their old OS,which has already sold on countless millions of machines still in operation, so they can't try to sell machines based on their new OS this time. Which is why IMHO they wanted Yahoo so badly. That would have made them the biggest webmail and given a big boost to their search.

Speaking as a PC repairman I can tell you that most folks over 1GHz are quite happy with what they have. Instead of buying new they simply bring it to me to clean up and back up on occasion. Since in business if you aren't growing you're dying MSFT needs new revenue streams to keep forward momentum. If everyone is using Firefox which defaults to Google search that is tons of folks who will never see a Live search ad. Heck,my of my home customers whom I've switched think "Firefox search" is the greatest thing since sliced bread,as they can just type in that little window to the right and find whatever they want. Those folks will likely never know that Live search even exists. So while I am sure the developers of IE are nice and like competition,I can see management being worried. But that is my 02c,YMMV

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[PhxBlue]

And you think the IE developers work for peanuts? How, pray tell, do you think Microsoft pays their salaries?

Re:Cause found, not to worry.

[Trogre]

Hmm I see your point. Though I wonder if perhaps he's been eating a cake every time a competitor releases a product.

What a relief...

[Dale549]

I thought it was my browser ...

Re:What a relief...

[amazon10x]

Have you tried using Firefox? It works great, and they just released version 3 which is supposed to be nice, but I haven't tried it yet.

Sorry, that was us.

[Anonymous Coward]

We slashdotted their site.

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[jollyreaper]

It isn't a stretch to think about it. Tens of thousands of employees upgrading their browsers...still, Mozilla's servers should be able to handle that.

Download Counter

[magister159]

As unwise as it may be to post a link to the download counter on slashdot, you can find a real time counter here.

By my calculations, they won't be able to hit the 10 million mark in time.

Re:Download Counter

[ToriaUru]

I hope they do break the record. They do deserve it.

Re:Download Counter

[pdusen]

What 10 million mark? Their stated goal was 1.5 million, and now they're over 6. They've well-surpassed their mark.

Re:Download Counter

[magister159]

What 10 million mark? Their stated goal was 1.5 million, and now they're over 6. They've well-surpassed their mark. I thought I had read their stated goal was 10 million downloads. I must have misread it somewhere.

Re:Download Counter

[paroneayea]

True, unlikely they'll meet the 10 million mark. But originally they were setting a goal of 5 million. Seeing as how it's well over 6 million when I'm writing this, I'd say they're doing a damn fine job.

Re:Download Counter

[elrous0]

Well, since there *was* no actual Guinness Record for this thing before, I'd say they actually broke it with the first download.

Re:Download Counter

[phoenixwade]

By my calculations, they won't be able to hit the 10 million mark in time. I don't remember seeing a 10 million Dl target stated anywhere, but the BBC report mentioned a 5 million Download number as being "awesome" [smile].

There apparently is no current record, so this may actually set the bar, and my estimates at the current rate and count will mean FF3 finishes the day around 8 million or so.

The marketing and publicity have been pretty awesome, that's for sure.

Re:Download Counter

[Slimee]

Bah, I totally forgot to DL a copy yesterday...I guess I'm getting chalked up to the bastards who DL it after 1 pm...maybe I'll DL it on this work computer so I can say I was a record setter

Re:Download counter

[antiZ]

WTF is Turkey doing on the counter updates? It's not scoring particularly well (~50k downloads). There are many countries that kick its ass like Italy (~200k+) or Poland (~160k+) and are growing much quicker. I bet it's due to a mozilla turkish employee who hacked the counter! ;)

Re:Download Counter

[zeromorph]

Up to now the record broke them ... or at least their servers.

I used Firefox 3 beta for quite a while now and it's great. Nice to see that a flagship of FOSS has such a sustained success.

(BTW - yes I missed a chance for a "in soviet russ..."on purpose.)

Re:Download Counter

[Wisconsingod]

As unwise as it may be to post a link to the download counter on slashdot, you can find a real time counter here. Aren't you a little liberal with your use of the term "Real Time". I refreshed 20 times in 30 seconds and didn't get any updates. Then I waited and refreshed again and it jumped 5,990 downloads. If it was real time, that would tell me that for almost a minute, no one downloaded, then suddenly, at the same instant, almost 6,000 people did. No wodner the servers are crashing with those kind of bandwith bounces. ----- Oh wait, while I was typing this the javascript finally kicked in to make it real time.... took long enough.

Re:Download Counter

[The MAZZTer]

I read on a Hlash guy's blog who was blogging about this that Flash gets 12 million downloads a day sometimes, and that's just normal days, not launches. I don't think Mozilla is going to break any records... unless the record counts for manual downloads (most Flash downloads are automatic updates as I understand it).

Still good PR though.

Re:Download Counter

[WaHooCrazy7]

Its now over 6.8 million, almost 6.9 million. Not bad considering their servers were down for a while. Chalk another one up for FOSS.

Re:Download Counter

[bunratty]

And not only are users downloading it, they're installing and using it. Usage of Firefox 3 has gone from under 1% to over 4% in less than 24 hours. That's a quarter of all Firefox users already using the latest version, or many million new Firefox users.

Re:Download Counter

[jamesh]

Microsoft automatic updates are another potential record candidate. Even if you only count applications, IE7 was distributed that way.

Re:Download Counter

[KGIII]

I suspect that if they do get a record it will be short lived or very specific. I'm not sure that they'll even get a record for it. (I've had some experience with the record people through a third party a few times. The most recent was the construction of a giant snowwoman. They can be a pain to deal with I understand.)

Re:Download Counter

[ngdbsdmn]

You're right. 8 mil. downloads sais looooooser.

Re:Download Counter

[Dak RIT]

According to Mozilla's own FAQ, There's currently no official record (for the Guinness Book of World Records), so whatever number they end up at is going to be the record.

However, as many people have pointed out several times already, there's probably a lot of things that get more downloads.

It's worth noting though that one of the requirements for the record is that all the downloads should be human initiated (so turn off your download bots).

Re:Download Counter

[JCSoRocks]

In Soviet Russia, chance misses you!

Re:Download Counter

[SydShamino]

Maybe. I downloaded it yesterday, installed it, spent and hour trying to make the location bar work the way it should, and uninstalled it. I hit a number of websites in that hour, scouring for tips on various settings or addons that could make it work, before I determined my best choice was Firefox 2.0.0.14. =p

I think they'll be a bit of a leveling off as some people decide that the arbitrary changes are just not suited to them, and move back to something else for a while until things settle out.

Re:Download Counter

[Ctrl-Z]

Give it a try for a week and you'll get used to it. I've been using Minefield for months and I absolutely hated the awful bar the first time I saw it. Once I figured out how to make it work for me it became much less annoying. Being a wikiholic, the most annoying change was that I needed to start by typing "wiki..." instead of "en.wiki...".

Re:Download Counter

[ThePhilips]

There is a difference between automatic updates and N million people going to some URL and knowingly and willingly downloading some piece of software.

Re:Download Counter

[ThePhilips]

If we exclude automatic updates, I think than a million in a day is already a record.

Re:Download Counter

[ThinkWeak]

I'm a new Firefox user. It just so happened that my IE decided to not allow me to edit items on my company SharePoint site without crashing EVERY TIME. I spoke with my TR department to see what options I had and they were as follows...

My possible solutions were:

1.) Install IE 7.0
2.) Install XP SP3
3.) Migrate to another web browser

TR had the following responses:

1.) You can upgrade to 7.0, but we cannot support it.
2.) We are not deploying SP3
3.) FireFox 3.0 is being released today, you could download that and see if it solves the problem.

Sure enough, after a quick download and install, everything is working fine. I'm still not sure what was causing IE to crash every time I tried to open a link in Sharepoint, but at this point in time - I don't care.

Re:Download Counter

[Kamokazi]

Hmm, if I keep replying to my own -1 Trolled posts, I bet I can knock my karma down a couple pegs.

Re:Download Counter

[ThePhilips]

You posted to wrong story. Was the comment posted for Opera release story, then any bashing of FireFox for whatever is different from Opera would be modded up thru the roof.

The story here is essentially not about browser - but about a new Guiness record. Not much to discuss, expect the slashdotted mozilla.org servers ;)

Re:Download Counter

[quizzicus]

I project 8.3 million, assuming the current rate is sustained (though it's likely to vary).

Re:Download Counter

[initdeep]

is that why they've killed the ability to update from within a previous version of FF while attempting to set the record?

Re:Download Counter

[Tubal-Cain]

It is real time. I left it alone for a few minutes and the numbers started moving.

Re:Download Counter

[0232793]

http://www.onflex.org/ted/2008/05/mozilla-world-record-problems.php is the blog entry

Re:Download Counter

[SydShamino]

So my option is to invest a week of time with lower productivity (I know, posting on Slashdot at work != productivity har har). In exchange, the software will go from "awful" to "less annoying"?

That doesn't sound like a good deal to me.

Re:Download Counter

[greed]

I downloaded it, tried to run it on Red Hat Enterprise 4 and discovered you need the New Hotness from Red Hat Enterprise 5, and had to recover my ~/.mozilla/firefox directory from the NetApp .snapshot directory. (It wiped out all my cookies and settings. Not cool.)

I'm fundamentally not impressed with something that needs the bleeding edge of cairo, glib, gtk+ and all that rot. I actually have all that stuff compiled for Red Hat Enterprise 4 (not in my default paths, though), but damnit, don't we want the most possible users? Heck, they support an older version of Windows (XP)!

Oh yeah: Opera still seems happy on this version of RHEL....

Re:Download Counter

[felipekk]

Change. It's good for you every once in a while. Try it.

Re:Download Counter

[MidKnight]

You might not have searched enough. You may be interested in this plugin, which, to quote the page, is ... specially designed for those that dislike the AwesomeBar.

The memory & performance improvements are more than enough to convince me to upgrade. And personally I think the new location bar is a step up, but I can understand how others might dislike it. HTH.

Re:Download Counter

[MidKnight]

As a webapp developer, I'm still amazed how many companies are still refusing to support IE7. They do realize that IE6 is circa 2001 technology, right? Right?

Software in general, and the Internet in particular, is changing so fast not even the VC companies can keep up with it. I wonder why migration to IE7 (or any browser released in the last, say, 2 years) is taking so long.

Re:Download Counter

[PitaBred]

No. It'll go from "awful" to "better than Firefox 2.0". It's just a slight change with how you interact with it.

Re:Download Counter

[Talonius]

Had the same problem, found the solution at http://geekswithblogs.net/redwards/archive/2007/06/18/113287.aspx. Not sure if your problem is the same, but it helped out several of us here after one of the automatic updates my employer pushed down.

Re:Download Counter

[johnw]

Something wrong with the timestamp at the bottom of that page. It says it's in GMT but in fact it's 8 hours behind GMT - perhaps somewhere on the west coast of the USA?

Re:Download Counter

[SiChemist]

What's wrong with the location bar? (not a snark, I'm curious. It seems to work fine for me unless there is something I'm missing.)

Re:Download Counter

[gbjbaanb]

well, perhaps you could use the 'Awesome bar' in the way FF2 uses it - as a place to type urls in.

You don't have to use the extra features of it, but you'll get used to it pretty quickly, and then you'll start typing in the address bar (on other browsers, inc FF2) expecting it to work.

Re:Download Counter

[mattwarden]

> By my calculations, they won't be able to hit the 10 million mark in time.

Close enough that it is almost certainly their own fault if they don't make it. Still baffles me how they could be so unprepared for something they prepared so long for.

Re:Download Counter

[Koiu Lpoi]

I really don't understand the hate for the "Awesomebar". You do know that if you start typing a URL, it WILL look up that url? For me, the functionality is identical. To get to gmail, I type "g" hit down, hit enter. Facebook, f, down, enter. Slashdot happens to be s or sl. As far as I can tell, it has all the old functionality and a bunch of the new. How is this a problem?

Re:Download Counter

[rand0mbits]

The counter crashed my new FF3 installation...

Re:Download Counter

[slapout]

"Give it a try for a week and you'll get used to it"

That's exactly how I became an Opera fan. I set it as may default browser for a month. I don't have anything against FF, I use it too. I think if more people would try different things for a week, we'd all be better off.

Re:Download Counter

[brentonboy]

I have been looking for statistics that plot time vs. browser version market-share. Specifically, I'd like to see data on how many people are using Firefox 1.5, 2, 3, etc...

Sure, you can easily get charts pitting IE against Firefox (w3schools etc) but these charts, while distinguishing IE versions, lump all Firefox versions together into one clump!

Does anybody know where I could find a chart like that?

Re:Download Counter

[bigstrat2003]

FOSS has nothing to do with it, and you know it. What matters is the software being free (as in cost, not freely modifiable), and good software. Closed-source software can achieve such things just as easily. Hell, didn't someone just say, in this discussion, that Flash player gets 12 million downloads a day?

Re:Download Counter

[jez9999]

No, it changes the old functionality significantly, especially for people who would use the first few letters of (sub)domain names to identify a URL. For example, I used to access Wikipedia links by typing 'en'; it would ALWAYS come up with a Wikipedia URL. Now, typing 'en' comes up with an AMO URL, and numerous other URLs with 'en' in the name. And just now, I wanted to visit the Wimbledon tennis champs website so I typed 'wim'; with the previous URLbar, that would give me wimbledon.org as the first address. Now, it comes up with 3 before it, like a Wikipedia entry on Wimbledon.

I'd say it's better in some ways, and worse in some ways. I kinda preferred the old bar. But anyone who says the new bar is always better is wrong.

Re:Download Counter

[edxwelch]

No problem, they just have to add a qualifier... world record for most downloads of an application that starts with the letter "F"... err, wait a minute

Re:Download Counter

[dedazo]

Cool, a plugin to fix a core element of the application, as opposed to provide added functionality like AdBlock.

But spending a few minutes changing some settings to turn off the Office 2007 bar is UNACCEPTABLE, I bet.

Re:Download Counter

[Denis Lemire]

More likely its because the RC3 and final release are identical. Hence no updates were required.

This is typical of past releases... The Mozilla team actually uses the term 'Release Candidate' to mean what would be expected 'This release is the final build if nothing else is discovered'.

Re:Download Counter

[tonycheese]

anybody else notice if you try to open this in ie it displays incorrectly? did they do that on purpose?

Re:Download Counter

[SydShamino]

Hmm, I hear Opera just released an upgrade.

Re:Download Counter

[SydShamino]

jez9999 below sums it up nicely. No need to repeat what he said.

Re:Download Counter

[gbjbaanb]

I didn't repeat anything. Check the times dude.

Re:Download Counter

[SydShamino]

No No... There's no reason for ME to repeat what HE said. He summed up the problems well.

For the record

[WiglyWorm]

Isn't this one of those "there's no record yet, so anything we do is a record" records? Or is this the record book's attempt to record a genuine record and best the record of a previous record holder?

Re:For the record

[Enleth]

It is.

On the other hand, for EVERY record in the record book there was the first time. So we either allow new records to be "invented" to be later beaten, which makes sense, or we stick to the current set indefinitely, which would get a bit boring sooner or later.

Re:For the record

[elrous0]

I myself claimed the "most automobile wreckage ever recovered from a human rectum" record last year. Though the attempt wasn't intentional, I'm damn proud to be in such noteworthy company.

Re:For the record

[Anonymous Coward]

Goatse guy, is that you?

Re:For the record

[mctk]

Go on.

Re:For the record

[elrous0]

Did you know that every emergency room in the southern U.S. now how a Guinness representative on staff? I didn't until last year.

Re:For the record

[Hatta]

Rectum? Darn near killed 'em.

Re:For the record

[X_Bones]

Also, record record record record record record.

:)

Re:For the record

[Convector]

But does every emergency room in the southern U.S. now have Guiness on tap?

Re:For the record

[mollymoo]

I agree, car analogies are the Ford Edsels of the English language.

Re:For the record

[rrkap]

I myself claimed the "most automobile wreckage ever recovered from a human rectum" record last year. Though the attempt wasn't intentional, I'm damn proud to be in such noteworthy company. Pics or it didn't happen!

Doing well so far

[FoolsGold]

As of now, 6.5 million downloads - http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

Re:Doing well so far

[silgaun]

I wonder who the 1 person in Chad that downloaded Firefox is

Re:Doing well so far

[WeeLad]

His name is also Chad.

Re:Doing well so far

[badpazzword]

They could have caught a botnet doing massive numbers of downloads... or removed IPs that downloaded more than 10 copies... or maybe numbers are just projections that are updated with the real figures from time to time.

Re:Doing well so far

[psycho sparky]

Hang him quick ... before the election.

Re:Doing well so far

[Machtyn]

According to your link, here are some interesting stats (as of 20080618 11:22 EST)
Iran has more downloads than Canada
Central African Republic has 3 downloads
222 (servicemen?) downloads are recorded in Iraq
Germany has almost doubled all downloads of any other European country (and as far as I can tell, comes in 2nd to the US's 2.3M downloads)

Re:Doing well so far

[pintpusher]

You'd think with a name like that, the Liberians would have downloaded more than two copies... rimshot!

Re:Doing well so far

[ubuwalker31]

Its interesting how the download numbers per country reflect that countries economic development. Chad has only 2 downloads, and Central African Republic has 3, while South Africa has 18,000. North Korea has 0, while South Korea has over 44,000.

And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[nweaver]

I'm quite sure Amazon would have been delighted to host mozilla.com temporarily on the EC2 cloud, or Akamai on their service, just for the bragging rights of supporting the most downloads EVAR!

Victoria's Secret learned a LONG time ago when broadcasting their "Fashion show" online for the first time: If you want to deal with massive hordes of salavating geeks, you need to use a CDN.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[christopherfinke]

Yeah, because Amazon *never* goes down.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Amazon is a pregnant wife?

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[jrumney]

Mozilla does have a content distribution network. www.mozilla.com is an alias for www-mozilla-com.geo.mozilla.com, which resolves to several different addresses at different times even from the same location. The downloads are further passed off to various mirror servers around the world.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[o1d5ch001]

with massive hordes of salavating geeks, you need to use a CDN.

I am sure a New Zealander or German would have been just as helpful as a Canadian. But thanks for the complement.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[elrous0]

You dumbass! Don't you know that a "CDN" is a Canadian form of currency? He's saying they should have paid in Canadian dollars instead of those worthless American ones.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[gad_zuki!]

I dont think this even remotely compares to Akamai. Everytime I download something from Mozilla as opposed to going to a known ftp site, I get sent to a random country's university ftp site. Err, what exactly is the advantage of sending my packets across the globe at 1/3rd the speed when the local university ftp site is sitting there unused?

Mozilla doesnt have localization and a slew of other features that Akamai and Amazon use. From what I can tell its just a random mirror. That's a fine strategy for delivering the software but not for something like trying to create a new download record.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[jrumney]

I'd assumed that the geo in www-mozilla-com.geo.mozilla.com implied that the mirror site was chosen geographically, but maybe I'm wrong. Randomization itself is not necessarily a bad thing, as there may be many more users than the FTP server can cope with geographically (or network topologically) close to a major ISPs server for example, while other FTP mirrors not attached to ISPs are reasonably traffic free despite having a fat pipe available and not being too far removed from the same users.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[Anarke_Incarnate]

How can my wife read slashdot from her spot in the kitchen?

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[Orii]

It seemed pretty random to me. I'm in the center of the US, and my two downloads were from machines in Japan and the Netherlands.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[Zarquil]

I'm sorry, but you need to apologize to those poor people south of the border. There is no way they're going to believe you're polite and friendly starting off your comment with, "You dumbass!"

You should know we have to carefully craft our backhanded compliments.

Now let's sit down and have a beer. I hear the Russians are catching up to our downloads now that their hockey team has finished practice.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[bograt]

She's using the Jura F90 coffee maker, apparently.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[Blakey Rat]

Assuming you're being sarcastic...

Amazon has gone down once, a couple weeks ago. Once ever, as far as I'm aware... it was rare enough that it made it to the news! When your downtime is so rare its on the news, I call that pretty damned good, personally.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[jrumney]

If it's peak time in the US, and the middle of the night in Japan and Netherlands, then that may not be such a bad thing. There are more factors to consider in load balancing than physical proximity, and the pipes between Japan and Europe and the US are pretty fat, so could be faster (download time, not latency) than local servers at times.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[PitaBred]

Twice. They were down twice a couple weeks ago, not just the one time.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[Maian]

Actually, only the main site went down. EC2 and their other services were always up and running. They run on different sets of servers.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[assassinator42]

No, the site also went down on Thanksgiving 2006 when they offered Core 360s for $100. I'm not sure how many people were trying to get that, but I'm guessing it was well over a million. All trying to connect at the same instant (although the site was down for a couple minutes before the target time as well). The Firefox downloads were a lot more spread out, so perhaps it could've handled that without problems.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[furrydave]

You need to use a Canadian??

I know we're polite, but sheesh, do I have to walk this file to everyone's house now too?

I will write a very strongly worded letter to my MP about this...

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[jeffstar]

made my day!

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[o1d5ch001]

I think you have hit the nail on the head Zarquil. Canadians are polite, but still cruel when handing you your hat. I can't count the number of times I have had to translate a conversation with a peer about what he was really saying.. it sounded so polite! But he was really telling me to take a fucking leap.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[Anarke_Incarnate]

That's why god intelligently designed flexibility and knees.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[markjhood2003]

Usenet's store and forward system over a network of NNTP servers would have been perfect for such massive simultaneous downloads. It's really too bad it's not viable anymore.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[wickedskaman]

Wow. Is there any way to change the scoring system just this once to pump this one to 6... or maybe 11. This one goes to 11 because its humour is just that much more powerful. Brilliant.

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Odd :). I got called a humorless dick by some not long ago and got a bunch of -1s. Oh well. Thanks :). I don't know where that came from. Oddly, and TOTALLY coincidentally, my wife is pregnant with our first child. Wow, just all kinds of ironic, eh?

Re:And THIS is why you use a CDN of some sort...

[danomac]

Actually, the code/symbol for Canadian currency is CAD.

Pointy Haired Wisdom

[Junior J. Junior III]

I understand the promotional impact that the record attempt has, but it still seemed dumb to me to invite the entire world to try to melt your servers by manufacturing a download spike.

It'd be nice if they could use bittorrent to help with the load they're putting on themselves.

During the outage, I was still able to find a mirror ftp site that had the 3.0 install, and download it, but it wasn't as easy as it should have been, and lots of other parts of the mozilla site went down at times, too, making it difficult to find extensions, or just information.

Re:Pointy Haired Wisdom

[mgblst]

You can't easily count bittorrent downloads, especially since they are only counting completed downloads.

But you are correct, it is silly of them to not host the file somewhere else. Even if they build up the hardware sufficiently, which they didn't seem to do, what are they going to do with it afterward?

Re:Pointy Haired Wisdom

[AmaranthineNight]

From what I remember of the discussions during their 2.0 release, they actually have a ton of mirrors all over the place that they cycle through to have you download from when you click that button on the first page.

In this case, their own servers shouldn't have been handling much of the actual download traffic, so they shouldn't have been buying a ton of extra hardware to deal with the spike. That said, I'm not sure what DID bring their servers down, could enough people just loading their front page at the same time have done that?

Re:Pointy Haired Wisdom

[burris]

You can't easily count bittorrent downloads, especially since they are only counting completed downloads.

As soon as a client completes a download it makes an HTTP connection to the tracker and says it is complete. This is why every BT tracker/index-site is able to display a counter for complete downloads. Are you sure you know how BitTorrent works?

Re:Pointy Haired Wisdom

[virgil_disgr4ce]

Yeah, it's really frustrating. I can't help but think that BT is so well designed exactly for this kind of application, and yet... ppptthh. I was all set to spam all my friends with links to participate in the download, try to throw my few cents in there, but nope, server's down. I mean, come on. Sigh.

Re:Pointy Haired Wisdom

[TheSeer2]

I've been wondering, what promotional impact does it have? Compared to a newspaper ad, I don't see this having too much of an impacts except amongst people who already use it.

Re:Pointy Haired Wisdom

[mgblst]

Are you sure you know how BitTorrent works?

Not to such a great extent, no. You win!

Re:Pointy Haired Wisdom

[Junior J. Junior III]

The record attempt got a lot of free publicity, got the name out, and probably increased word-of-mouth by people who decided to help try to set the record, passing the word on to everyone they know.

Unfortunately, many millions of people ended up not even seeing the release until 1PM local time. And then, at 1PM, the site quickly went down. So the actual experience probably was a negative for a lot of people. Someone should have told Mozilla Foundation that June 17 starts at 12:00:01 AM in every time zone.

So was the exercise a net gain or net loss in terms of public awareness of Mozilla and public perception of Mozilla quality? I'm thinking the execution could have been quite a bit better.

Re:Pointy Haired Wisdom

[ThePhilips]

That what is called "crash test."

Any experience can contribute positively. Especially negative one.

Re:Pointy Haired Wisdom

[LordSnooty]

Just visit any of the major news sources (I tried BBC, Guardian, SMH), they are all running stories on the launch. This is how you generate buzz when you have little to no marketing budget.

Re:Pointy Haired Wisdom

[cervice]

Well as per the rules mentioned on the website, downloading from the ftp site does not count towards the record

Re:Pointy Haired Wisdom

[Junior J. Junior III]

Good to know, but I could give a crap about the record. I just want to download the installer, and the Mozilla Foundation (MoFo) to keep cranking out good versions and keep the damn site up when they're available:)

Re:Pointy Haired Wisdom

[vain gloria]

...and lots of other parts of the mozilla site went down at times, too, making it difficult to find extensions, or just information.

What's particularly irritating there is that pressing F1 now takes you to their support.mozilla.com site, meaning that the Help menu is worthless if your connection or their servers aren't functioning.

Not impressed with the way this was conducted

[Metasquares]

It seems like they really botched this, from not knowing when the date would be until last week to starting the day at 1 PM without getting the word out and now to their site going down in the middle of it.

Re:Not impressed with the way this was conducted

[GarethSwan]

You're right. Except that their site went down right at the beginning of it.

Re:Not impressed with the way this was conducted

[tlacuache]

For a few minutes yesterday I reloaded http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ and was greeted with:

<<<<<<< .mine

I clicked "View Source", and yup, the HTML for their FRONT PAGE had an svn merge conflict in it. Oops.

Re:Not impressed with the way this was conducted

[RiotingPacifist]

Not giving a time doesnt bother me, youve got a whole day to download it, probably people rushing to be the first that caused it to crash

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true - if you RTFA you'll see that netcraft confirmed it !!!

I'm waiting for Netcraft confirmation...

[Anonymous Coward]

oh wait. Oh and next time use UTC for your times.

missing tags

[v1]

whatdidyouexpect (followed by haha) come immediately to mind.

Those tags alone would negate the need for most comments.

Re:missing tags

[PhxBlue]

But it won't negate most of the comments. :)

Hard to read

[Mateo_LeFou]

Sorry, the font on that page is so small I can barely read it.

Re:Hard to read

[neuromancer23]

>> Sorry, the font on that page is so small I can barely read it.

Try it in firefox

Re:Hard to read

[Anonymous Coward]

OH ho! Yes, is funny because font is so big!

Re:Hard to read

[MyLongNickName]

If only they made a browser where you could somehow increase the font size.... I think I am going to patent that idea.

Re:Hard to read

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you are supposed to read the download counter with Firefox3 using its shiny new Zoom feature!

Re:Hard to read

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder they are having such a hard time with bandwidth. Use a smaller font next time!

Re:Hard to read

[ThePhilips]

View > Zoom > Zoom Text Only and then "Ctrl-+", "Ctrl--" (^-) and "Ctrl-0"

About patent... Do not forget to file it in Texas.

Re:Hard to read

[emag]

It's as screwed up there as elsewhere. Maybe they should try creating valid HTML and/or CSS at some point, as neither the HTML nor the CSS seems to validate.

Re:Hard to read

[psycho sparky]

It's still a bit hard to read ...

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/8710/ff3counterdebb0rkedix7.jpg

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/7513/ff3counterdebb0rked2zl4.jpg

Good old Debian ...

Re:Hard to read

[DriedClexler]

Funny? You think this is funny? This is not funny. We are going to LOSE our ability to resize text.

Remember the dot-com era? Remember the overdone, NON-user-friendly, Flash-overloaded websites?

Well, we are going to get more of that. Flash lets you circumvent the principles of the Web, one of which is: I get to decide how YOUR data streams are rendered into graphics for ME. I can ditch everything in italics tags if I want to! I can make it bigger, smaller, different font, no pics, no ads, YOU NAME IT.

Thank your lucky stars that you can still manipulate part of the websites you see.

Because "content" providers don't like that. They want YOU to take it as a whole, and that means locking it all in Flash. Flash that you can't change text size on or remove ads from. (Yes, I know it's possible to figure out OCR programs that can find text in Flash graphics and change its size. But let's not kid ourselves. NO ONE will bothere to actually program that. Think about it. We can't get anyone to write a simple color transform plugin to help color-blind people read pictures such as maps that have poor red/green coloring schemes. You think someone's going to give you a LireSux plugin? HELL ****ING NO.)

You're EXCITED about all your webby functionality, and all you're going to do with LireSux 3? I'm not.

I'm not looking forward to my bookmarks and javascript whitelist being deleted again. (Yes, I know how to recover the bookmarks ... still not acceptable.)

I'm not looking forward to deleted functionality (like making addresses in the drop-down address bar not load instantly when I click on them) and then the LireSux folks deleting evidence that this functionality ever existed, all while Internet Exploder happily carries it, and then hearing LireSux fanboys gush about how DANGEROUS that feature was and how it should be removed and HELL NO I shouldn't have the choice to bring it back, even in the buried-deep options list.

I'm not looking forward to fill-in lists popping up on web forms, which cover up stuff I want to see and aren't even convenient to invoke! (Thanks for making me move my right hand that far, morons.)

I am, however, looking forward to the neat feature that lets you load sites in IE. That's pretty cool.

Re:Hard to read

[gbjbaanb]

Forget the font size, just zoom out of the page (ctrl + -)

Re:Hard to read

[neuromancer23]

Web developers supporting HTML and CSS standards? That's just crazy:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/idealism

Re:Hard to read

[Omestes]

That joke just flew straight over your head.

That really is an ugly ugly page, with massive numbers.

Back on topic, 8 million downloads in a day isn't something to sneeze at. I wonder how many individual people downloaded though. I grabbed 3 copies once the server stopped being wonky and serving me version 2 (or just not loading). And I wonder how many missed downloads there were because of aforementioned problems.

I do find it interesting, though, that about an hour in ALL of Mozilla was down, meaning no finding add-ons for you new shiny browser, especially annoying for people like me who decided to clear the cruft and decided to uninstall/reinstall (had detritus from 1.0 beta sitting around still)

Re:Hard to read

[gbjbaanb]

no, I got the joke, but that joke was made many posts ago. I was referring to the zoom function replacing the old font size functionality that lesser browsers might have. That and the fact that you had to get FF3 first.

Yes, 8 million downloads is a great achievement, getting 259,000 downloads to Iran - more than Australia and Russia together - is pretty cool too!

Now we just need a few favourite themes and extensions to get updated.

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[lyml]

paranoia
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek, madness, from paranous demented, from para- + nous mind
Date: circa 1811
1 : a psychosis characterized by systematized delusions of persecution or grandeur usually without hallucinations
2 : a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others

Not counted

[HyperQuantum]

Only those who download Firefow from the website will be counted? That would be pretty much only the Windows users, I guess.

Lots of people just use Synaptics or whatever package manager their distro provides. In my case it will be typing "emerge -avuDt world". I'm not going to download from the website just to get counted, you know.

Re:Not counted

[luserSPAZ]

Not to burst your bubble, but Linux users only account for a tiny percentage of total users anyway, so I don't think it will make much of a difference.

Re:Not counted

[frission]

If you wanted to be counted, you can download it and NOT install it.

Re:Not counted

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using it since Beta 3, only found one or two bugs. They could have just released it a long time ago. In fact, as of Beta 5, a long-term release of a certain popular Debian-based Linux distro was shipping with it.

Re:Not counted

[badpazzword]

What are 5 Betas and 3 RC releases for anyway?

Re:Not counted

[ProfessionalCookie]

"Use Small Icons" goes a long way toward making it look better. On a Mac the only thing it changed was that silly round back button. On Window I'm waiting for a nice plain theme. The world doesn't need everything to be glossy.

Re:Not counted

[p0tat03]

That would be pretty much only the Windows users, I guess.

And Macs... and Linux users who want to use the tarball...

Re:Not counted

[Omestes]

Actually, I think the flamebait mod was deserved.

Linus IS, in fact, occupying a very small percentage of total OS installs. This has nothing to do with "fanboi"ism, its just a stated fact. As such, even if every Linux user lacking a sense of fun decided to synaptic/apt-get/etc... it wouldn't have too big an influence on the record count. Granted it might be disproportionate to the actual Linux install base, but still not a large number.

How about you huge percentage of non-Linux users go back to your nice little world of closed operating systems and closed source applications by pretending that we're not here then? Oh, and give us Firefox back, by the way..

Are Linux users the new hybrid owners? I use two closed source operating systems daily, AND Linux, and all of my apps are a nice mix of closed/open source (depending on how good they are). I like to evaluate the performance of all of my apps, using OSS as a secondary consideration, or tie breaker. Right now I have OpenOffice (almost as good as MS), Firefox, and Pidgen open, not because I think using them will save the world, but because they are good software, better than their closed competitors.

A lot of people here on /. use windows at work, and Linux at home, or visa versa. Many people here have more than one OS sitting on their various computers, this isn't black or white, closed or open. Look at how much of Gnome and KDE's modern developments owe to OS X, and Firefox wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for the closed source Netscape Navigator.

OSS main strength is that it COMPETES with the big guys, making them better, and the various OSS bits better. It also serves as a laboratory for good code to emerge, and ideas, which then get merged into both closed and open projects, making the full software ecosystem better/more rich. Just look at the things that Microsoft had to do because of Linux/Firefox, the new ideas are good for all.

I wouldn't want to live in a world where you had a choice between Firefox and Konqueror, and were limited to Gnome or KDE. The more players (open and closed) the better.

Re:Not counted

[pandrijeczko]

With all respect, you have entirely missed my point. I am fully aware of the "competition" that exists between Open and closed source and you are treating my post like it is an attack on closed source. Actually, it isn't because I use both Linux and Windows XP and definitely a handful of closed source apps on the latter.

However, as I said earlier, Windows and users of other OSes have benefitted greatly from Open Source and, quite rightly, applications like Firefox, The Gimp, OpenOffice, etc. etc. have been ported across all platforms. That's a good thing because it introduces open standards to a wider audience which in turn makes it less important what underlying OS you actually use - because when everything is running on open standards then any OS can talk to any other.

And, again, I repeat. Even though Stallman and his ilk gave birth to the idea of Open Source, it did not receive prominence in the public eye until Linux came along and drew the world's attention to what Open Source actually is - in turn, that drew more programmers into the whole Open Source movement with the result that just about anyone who uses a computer can benefit.

And finally, can we have less of the silly idea that Gnome and KDE owe anything to OS X - the fact is that modern GUIs share ideas with each other and I could equally argue that OS X stole ideas from the Commodore Amiga Workbench by virtue of the fact that it also used a mouse and you could click on an icon to start a program.

Unfortunately, many Apple users consider themselves a breed apart and refuse to accept that without the BSD core to OS X, Apple would have had a much more difficult time to get to a modern desktop environment - but, hey, that's the type of thing BSD and Open Source licensing are designed to do so what's the problem? Just recognise that a lot more people that JUST Linux users owe a debt to the Open Source movement.

So, by all means, be the fanboi and mod me down because you think I'm criticising OS X and can't deal with it.

Re:Not counted

[Omestes]

And finally, can we have less of the silly idea that Gnome and KDE owe anything to OS X - the fact is that modern GUIs share ideas with each other and I could equally argue that OS X stole ideas from the Commodore Amiga Workbench by virtue of the fact that it also used a mouse and you could click on an icon to start a program.

But they DO owe ideas to OS X. This wasn't meant to sound disparaging, just an example of borrowing good bits from other things. Apple did borrow good bits from other places as well (NeXT, PARC/Xerox, etc...) and thus people borrow from Apple. Apple grabbed virtual desktops, and an odd subversion clone from the *nix community, most recently, just to make this seem fair.

Unfortunately, many Apple users consider themselves a breed apart and refuse to accept that without the BSD core to OS X, Apple would have had a much more difficult time to get to a modern desktop environment - but, hey, that's the type of thing BSD and Open Source licensing are designed to do so what's the problem? Just recognise that a lot more people that JUST Linux users owe a debt to the Open Source movement.

BSD is what sold me on OS X, I wouldn't touch anything before it with a ten foot pole, to be honest. OS 9 made WinME look good.

The Linux movement owes a lot to Unix. :) But seriously, I didn't mean to sound like a fanboi either, its just a simple case of misunderstanding. I give massive love to Linux (and OSS in general). I seriously think Linux is among the high points in modern computing, and think that with some current trends it will actually be a contender in the market (things like Ubuntu, and the current version of Gnome and KDE are definitely noteworthy).

I guess my point is that everyone owes everyone some credit. :)

Re:Not counted

[pandrijeczko]

But they DO owe ideas to OS X. This wasn't meant to sound disparaging, just an example of borrowing good bits from other things.

This works both ways. If you're going to nitpick my statements then I reserve the right to nitpick yours. So make your statement "OS X has influenced other GUIs and borrowed from them also". Then I'm happy :-)

And you also need to know that I'm not, in any way, an eye candy person for GUIs. If some people like eye candy then good luck to them - but I find the default XP interface totally patronising and child-like and am happy working with the "Classic Explorer" view.

As for Linux, I've not touched KDE in years because (again) I don't like bloat. Generally I use Gnome and if I don't need all the useful desktop notification stuff in Gnome, then I go to XFCE.

As for Apple, I've never convinced myself that I have a reason to buy a Mac because I get all I need to get done in XP and Linux. But if people like them then, again, so be it.

AUS: Connection timed out

[burgundysizzle]

Checking for updates doesn't seem to be working too well, they may be going for a record but I can wait.

Did RC3 become the final release?

[khendron]

I was confused because when I installed on my Windows box, when I first started Firefox it took me to the RC3 welcome page. When I checked the digital signature of the setup exe, it was dated June 11th.

So did RC3 become the final release, and they were just slow to change the welcome page?

Re:Did RC3 become the final release?

[glorpy]

Yes and yes.

I would just like to say

[eclectro]

Greenland, you're slackin' off about this.

Re:I would just like to say

[JasterBobaMereel]

And who are all the Iranians who are downloading it ...?

Re:I would just like to say

[cordsie]

Greenland is beating North Korea, Western Sahara, and the Falkland Islands COMBINED!

Re:I would just like to say

[JasterBobaMereel]

The Falkland Islanders are simply protesting about being left off the downloaders map .....

Re:I would just like to say

[ACDChook]

I noticed that too. I went to check out how we're doing here in Australia, and at the time, Iran had double our downloads. Their population may be triple ours, but I was under the impression we had significantly higher internet usage.

Re:I would just like to say

[cptsexy]

Who is the 1 person in Chad that has downloaded it?

Re:I would just like to say

[Slashidiot]

C'mon, 85 people from greenland, you cannot say there is no interest. However, Chad, with just 1 download is winning the "Lowest number of the record number of downloads" prize.

Re:I would just like to say

[brunascle]

it's there. 1 download. zoom in if you're having trouble mousing over it.

Stale mirrors

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately their numbers are going to be off, too. I had to download it several times before I got to a mirror that didn't still host RC3..

Re:Stale mirrors

[ThePhilips]

RC3 == Final == FireFox 3.0

The difference is only in name.

Re:Aren't these guys supposed to be better?

[maxume]

It doesn't matter. How many of the 6.5 million downloads do you think are people who are trying it for the first time?

Maybe a few hundred thousand, but that isn't enough to matter, and the high or low quality of the release (beta4 has been fine so far...) will quickly have a much larger impact on the number of users.

Re:Aren't these guys supposed to be better?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, 'cause the guys making the browser are the same guys running the servers.

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[CDMA_Demo]

Makes sense. The IE team at MS loves firefox: http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2008/06/17/the-cake-is-a-lie-ie-team-bakes-a-treat-for-mozilla

Re:firefox should be about quality not hype

[djones101]

So you're blaming the browser developers, who developed a quality product, for addons not working. That's quite...naive.

Wally Thought

[martin_henry]

Is it conceivable to think that there are mozilla fanatics out there downloading
just to run up the numbers?

Re:Wally Thought

[phoenixwade]

Is it conceivable to think that there are mozilla fanatics out there downloading
just to run up the numbers? it's "inconceivable!" (but the word may not mean what i think it means...... heh

Re:Wally Thought

[n3tcat]

I see your tricks! You failed to close your parenthesis in an attempt to break Internet Explorer and encourage further Firefox downloads!

Oblig.

[martin_henry]

In Soviet Russia, downloads count you!

Actually, it's 2:16 p.m. to 2:16 p.m.

[Robotech_Master]

The Firefox people decided to start counting the 24 hours at 11:16 a.m. Pacific, after they got their servers back up and everything straightened out.

So take heart, frustrated downloaders: you have 76 more minutes than you thought.

Re:Actually, it's 2:16 p.m. to 2:16 p.m.

[The MAZZTer]

Unfortunately, direct FTP links that would not have counted the downloads were floating around over an hour before then. :( I imagine many clicked on them thinking they would be counted.

Re:Actually, it's 2:16 p.m. to 2:16 p.m.

[Culture20]

The download count doesn't matter. It's individual website access log counts that matter. If FF is over 20%, the devs might stop using "IE only" tricks.

Firefox 2 for a while

[glorpy]

At 4PM Eastern, they were downloading Firefox 2, because that's where the links went. Lessons learned: Heavily mirrored global hosting, a week's notice with the exact times and a thorough double check to confirm that you're presenting the right version are all really important when trying to achieve an arbitrary download record.

How to take market share from Apple.

[Lussarn]

I'm sure the Mozilla people used the Safari auto-download feature to put Firefox on everybodys desktop and downloadfolders.

Too bad Apple can't do the same since Firefox don't have that particular feature yet.

Re:How to take market share from Apple.

[mgiuca]

Firefox does have an auto-update feature, and the world record attempt is not counting downloads using it.

Re:How to take market share from Apple.

[The MAZZTer]

Firefox 2 will not auto-update to 3 for some time, also 3 RC3 probably won't update since 3 final IS RC3. So this is only an issue if you ignored the auto-updater until yesterday anyway.

Re:How to take market share from Apple.

[mgiuca]

I think RC3 is the same as Final anyway. Like, not just rebadged - exactly the same (same hash). (Hence the RCs show no version information besides "3.0").

So there is no upgrade from RC3 to Final.

Question

[pdusen]

Why is it that 24 hours after the crash happened, we're now hearing about how the servers were down 24 hours ago?

The REAL news: According to the download counter, Firefox has long surpassed their stated goal of 1.5 million downloads, and is now over 6.5 million. This is cause for frontpage news, not the stupid server crash.

Re:Question

[f8l_0e]

Why is it that 24 hours after the crash happened, we're now hearing about how the servers were down 24 hours ago? Because this is Slashdot, where describing servers engulfed in flames is a type of fetish pr0n.

Re:Question

[jaysones]

Why is it that 24 hours after the crash happened, we're now hearing about how the servers were down 24 hours ago? They should have posted it in advance!

Re:Question

[pavon]

The reason for the post is to tell people who were unable to download it yesterday, because the servers were down, that the window has been extended and they can still download today and have it count for the record. Since slashdot will most assuredly be posting the final official numbers when they come out, posting numbers now would just be a predupe.

Is this the same as the release candidate?

[wile_e_wonka]

I asked my Firefox to check for updates and it tells me there are no updates. But I last installed the release candidate.

Re:Is this the same as the release candidate?

[Matthieu Araman]

Yes, the last release candidate become the release.
No need to download anything except if you wan't to increase the counter.

Re:Is this the same as the release candidate?

[IBBoard]

And RC2 became RC3 for everything except OS X.

I guess it does make sense as to why I don't see any updates, although I had thought there might be some build number change somewhere or something. Probably best not to even change something that small, though, in case something else accidentally changes as well and your previously fine RC becomes a broken release.

Who currently has the record?

[MMC Monster]

No mention of it anywhere I looked on the mozilla site...

Re:Who currently has the record?

[vdgmr1213]

According to the Mozilla Download Day FAQ [spreadfirefox.com] the record has never been attempted before, but they are trying to get enough downloads to be officially given the record title.

Either way, the real winner is Guinness...

[jpellino]

If they make it, everyone goes to Guinness' book site to see the record.
If they fail, they'll be drowning their sorrows in pints of Guinness...

Re:Either way, the real winner is Guinness...

[tooyoung]

If they make it, everyone goes to Guinness' book site to see the record.

Yes, I'm sure that the stampede of people flooding to the Guinness site to read about a web browser download record will be deafening.

Re:Either way, the real winner is Guinness...

[jpellino]

Yep. Makes about as much sense as people trying to be part of the record attempt for Firefox. How long before we start seeing it on resumes, and will it be above or below the National Geographic Society membership?

Not news.

[kevind23]

How the hell is this news? Anyone who's tried visiting the site within the past ~24 hours has already experienced this "groundbreaking" outage. I'd much like to hear how many downloads they've racked up already, or at the very least links to alternative mirrors that are up and running. Plus, this release isn't any different from what I've already been using. And to think I wasted 30+ minutes of my time compiling it.

Re:Aren't these guys supposed to be better?

[TheLinuxSRC]

You are absolutely right. I would never trust a company whose site goes down.

Potentially harmful?

[urcreepyneighbor]

Ugh. What the hell?

Attempted to download Firefox (Safari on Windows XP) and I get this message when the download is complete:

Windows found that this file is potentially harmful.

To help protect your computer, Windows has blocked access to this file.

Name: Firefox Setup 3.0.exe

Re:Potentially harmful?

[Albanach]

You might want to read this from Microsoft. In particular, take a look at the setting for DefaultFileTypeRisk

Re:Potentially harmful?

[AgentFade2Black]

What else is there TO say? Competition's a bitch. :)

Re:Potentially harmful?

[The MAZZTer]

Didn't happen to me when I downloaded it with 3 RC3 which supports Windows' Parental Controls, automatic anti-virus scanning, and has the ability to mark files downloaded from the internet. Usually I just get a popup when I run it asking me if I'm sure I want to run a program I downloaded from the internet.

You can try going to the file properties and seeing if there's a thing at the bottom of the main tab that lets you unblock it. That's how the security popup I described works, although yours seems a little different.

Re:Potentially harmful?

[ukemike]

Windows found that this file is potentially harmful to our business model.

To help protect our bottom line, Windows has blocked access to this file.

Name: Firefox Setup 3.0.exe

Re:Potentially harmful?

[urcreepyneighbor]

DefaultFileTypeRisk That's what I thought at first, too. However, after grabbing a copy of Stellarium (Windows executable) under the exact same conditions without any problem or warning, I'm still... confused.

Then again, that box does have problems.... ;)

Re:Potentially harmful?

[urcreepyneighbor]

Speaking of What the hell?...Safari on Windows? Got a problem with that? How about bashing the Wine team?

OK, we get the whole "fuck off and die IE!" vibe you're putting out, I didn't mention IE. At all. Don't have a problem with it.

*cough*Projecting.*cough*

but damn, just pick a browser already. I'll use whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want. Sometimes, I feel like using Off by One.

I suggest one called Firefox. I like the name Gran Paradiso.

You might have heard of it. Nah. Never. ;)

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[elrous0]

I suspect the IE team set their own Guinness World Record for "most human urine ever baked into a cake."

Holy kneejerk, Batman!

[MasterOfMagic]

No, he's just not upgrading until all of the pieces are there instead of half-assing it. The "authors" he's talking about are the authors of the extensions, so it looks like he's being reasonable about this. It is the fault of the authors of extensions that their extensions don't work in Firefox 3. Nowhere does he blame the Firefox devs for this.

bittorrent ...

[Lazy Jones]

'nuff said.

Ah yes, and that's something that should be built into Firefox.

Re:bittorrent ...

[mebrahim]

You might want to take a look at FoxTorrent (although sill not ported to Firefox 3)

Re:bittorrent ...

[neqael]

There is FoxTorrent, you know, an extension integrating BitTorrent client into Firefox. Doesn't support 3.0, though..

So rather than having a set time frame

[mgiuca]

Why not just pick the best 24 hour period after the fact ...

Hence if the site was down for an hour, just collect your data from 11am - 11am instead of 10am.

(I think someone already posted to that effect - but still, they don't have to commit to the first 24 hours, just the best 24 hours).

Re:So rather than having a set time frame

[halcyon1234]

The pre-determined time might be part of the rules laid out by Guiness.

If you wish to try something that hasn't been done before or have already attempted a potential record then we'll need to pass your suggestion on to our research department first. They'll decide if it's something that we're interested in establishing as a new record category. If we are, they'll draw up the necessary guidelines and send them to you. If not, we can always suggest other records that you may wish to attempt.

- http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/member/faqs.aspx

Mozilla hasn't published the exact guidelines they were given, but there are some hints in their FAQ

What does Mozilla have to provide Guinness to validate the record?
We will provide the following:
Signed statements of authentication from our judges showing that we've followed the rules and confirming our numbers.

And to address other posters who were mentioning the whole HTTP thing, it's in the rules, too:

What is Mozilla doing to make sure the record attempt is valid? Mozilla will only count downloads that are fully and completely transmitted, not partial or complete updates. We will also discard duplicate downloads with the help of a cookie system. We will be logging our downloads using Apache and these logs will be made available for audit to Guinness World Records(TM), as well as two judges - Corey Shields and Paul Vixie.

Re:Netcraft confirms it...

[AmaranthineNight]

I was going to yell at you for using the old, tired meme, but then I decided to RTFA (I know, I know) and noticed that... well, netcraft really does confirm it.

The Real World Record

[Crock23A]

The record isn't how many downloads, but rather how many slashdot articles there can be about the same friggin subject.

Direct FTP counted?

[molo]

I couldn't hit their servers yesterday, so instead I hit the releases.mozilla.org ftp mirrors directly. Will those count towards the record? Anyone know how they are counting? Thanks.

-molo

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[compro01]

\Joke\, n. [L. jocus. Cf {Jeopardy}, {Jocular}, {Juggler}.]
Something said for the sake of exciting a laugh; something
witty or sportive (commonly indicating more of hilarity or
humor than jest); a jest; a witticism; as, to crack
good-natured jokes.

Re:OSS Incompetence

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck does developing your software with an open license have to do with having an outage. I guess Amazon is open source too because they were down for an hour. I guess we can't trust those ass clowns either. I'd like to see you accomplish 1% of what the Mozilla dev team has accomplished or even great closed source applications can do. Die in a fire troll.

Record launch?

[radarsat1]

Cool, I didn't know they were starting a record label. What kind of music are they into?

Re:Record launch?

[mattwarden]

Well, they were embarrassingly unprepared for the event and left the stage after the first few minutes of the performance. So... 50 Cent?

10,000,000 downloads a day

[MarkH]

10,000,000 * 7MB file over 24 hours = 8gbit/sec sustained or 16gbit/sec peak.

Small fry for a CDN but pretty hefty for anything centrally hosted. Although in this case it looks like they a DNS mapping to mirror servers around the world.

Re:10,000,000 downloads a day

[BZ]

Peak (right after release) was about 14Gb/s.

Which matches the likely 8m download count.

Re:firefox should be about quality not hype

[Candid88]

No, he's pointing out the inherent problems staging a "download day" publicity stunt for a piece of software who's true potential isn't yet ready.

World download map

[MassEnergySpaceTime]

Looking at the world download map at spreadfirefox.com, the US is the leading country at 2.3 million downloads, but surprisingly to me, Germany is in 2nd place at nearly 475,000. I wonder why Firefox that popular in Germany. Anyone got any ideas?

Re:World download map

[meringuoid]

surprisingly to me, Germany is in 2nd place at nearly 475,000

Who would you expect to be ahead of Germany? There are countries with larger populations, but they're substantially poorer per capita; fewer of their people will be downloading Firefox today. Germany is the most populous country in the EU, it is very rich, and very technologically advanced.

To my mind, the only country that might have a chance of outFirefoxing Germany and taking second place would be Japan. And they're not so far behind (at time of writing, Germany is on 499,014 and Japan is on 369,364).

The big surprise here for me is Iran. 207,816 downloads, comparable to Britain, France or Spain. I suppose their wartime baby boom is now a generation of internet-savvy students. Can't imagine hardline fundamentalism keeping hold on that demographic for too long.

Re:World download map

[initdeep]

same reason as why its big in the middle east?
servicepeople?
you know
"AHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRMY MEN SIR!"
(obligatory Stripes reference for you young bastards)

Re:World download map

[a.ameri]

I'm not saying IP-based geographic detection is perfect (and I'm not sure about the exact algorithms Mozilla used to determine country), but Middle East's connections certainly don't go through Iran. Indeed, Iran has significant problems connecting to the rest of the world's backbones (due to all the political sanctions and embargos) and pays hefty fees to Turkey and Kuwait for its backbones' connection. The best analogy to describe Iran's Internet connection is a "dead-end alley"; no one connects through Iran.

Firefox is extremely popular in Iran, and a huge part of that, as the GP rightly pointed out, is due to the very tech-savvy nature of its very young population. You'd be surprised to find the number of Iranian Linux distros on distrowatch (and unlike China, these are real homebrew efforts and not government subsidised).

Portable Apps

[flyingfsck]

Three cheers for Portable Apps!

I'm happily running Firefox 3 on my locked down corporate laptop.

W00t!

Re:Portable Apps

[malanoche]

If you're running an application other than the ones marked on a white list, your laptop is not really locked down...

Re:1pm - 1pm eastern time is not really a day

[TheThiefMaster]

Depends where in the world you are. It's midnight to midnight in Thailand. I think.

There's not really such a thing as a worldwide "day". Either you choose an arbitrary 24-hour period, or you use 00:00 to 24:00 UTC (i.e. an arbitrary 24-hour period).

Install over Firefox 2?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the proper way to install FF3? Overwrite FF2 installation or uninstall FF2 and install FF3?

I would like to keep all the passwords, cookies, history and extensions...

Re:Install over Firefox 2?

[Rhapsody Scarlet]

You could just install Firefox 3 to a different directory and keep Firefox 2 where it is. Firefox 3 should find and use all of the the same settings (i.e. everything you listed) that Firefox 2 did. I operated the two in parallel for a while with no problems, though I got a problem recently where Firefox 3 ended up messing up a Firefox 2 install. Not sure what happened there.

Re:Install over Firefox 2?

[Flooded77]

I uninstalled FF2 and then installed FF3 and all of my cookies, passwords, etc. were still intact. Most of my extensions and themes were updated to work with FF3.

If you're paranoid and using Windows, you could also back up your profile with MozBackup.

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[Macthorpe]

whoosh /wu, w, wu, w/
-noun 1. a loud, rushing noise, as of air or water: a great whoosh as the door opened.
-verb (used without object) 2. to move swiftly with a gushing or hissing noise: gusts of wind whooshing through the trees.
-verb (used with object) 3. to move (an object, a person, etc.) with a whooshing motion or sound: The storm whooshed the waves over the road.

Debian

[RAMMS EIN]

I suppose the number of downloads does not include people who will install it from Backports once somebody creates a package for Debian stable...

Don't bother if you use ubuntu - fonts issue.

[jchandra]

The fonts of the FF3 looks really bad on Ubunutu - which is a known issue for sometime. I have no idea why they went 3.0 without fixing that.

Hopefully it will get fixed when it's packaged by the Ubuntu guys.

Re:Don't bother if you use ubuntu - fonts issue.

[PJ1216]

dunno how widespread the problem was, but my "home" button on firefox 3 (using hardy heron if that makes any difference) was nowhere to be found. ends up it was somehow part of the bookmarks toolbar (which i don't use). had to move it back into the navigation bar. i know it happened to others because i wasn't the one who figured out how to fix it. i never would have thought to look in a different toolbar.

Re:Don't bother if you use ubuntu - fonts issue.

[cpuffer_hammer]

It should be back. But even in version 3 it could be found in the bookmarks toolbar. With the bookmarks toolbar open go into toolbar customization mode and drag the home button to the main tool bar.

Re:Don't bother if you use ubuntu - fonts issue.

[IBBoard]

Much like the "all-in-one bar" and its habit of returning potential junk just because it thinks it knows better than you, I think that's a "feature". I never use the home button (I've got it set to about:blank) but it isn't in my version on Fedora, and that's the official RC2 build.

As for fonts, I've not noticed any problems on Fedora 8 or Fedora 9. Maybe it's Ubuntu that's at fault ;)

Not 12 million new downloads....

[GameboyRMH]

...But nearly 12 million reinstall attempts.

Ok

[Jellybob]

http://www.foxtorrent.com/

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[CDMA_Demo]

That'd be true if it came from Ball'mer ;)

Re:1pm - 1pm eastern time is not really a day

[Mushdot]

I reckon they should have gone for UT+1 - the same time zone as CERN in Geneva, where Tim Berners-Lee created the web.

7 million and going!

[MassEnergySpaceTime]

I just saw the real time counter pass over 7 million downloads at 7:29am Pacific. At this rate, the download record will be about 8.3 million downloads. I think that's a very respectable number considering they were shooting for 5 million.

Re:1pm - 1pm eastern time is not really a day

[xaxa]

Depends where in the world you are. It's midnight to midnight in Thailand. I think.

There's not really such a thing as a worldwide "day". Either you choose an arbitrary 24-hour period, or you use 00:00 to 24:00 UTC (i.e. an arbitrary 24-hour period). If they'd chosen the UTC day then during the 24-hour period it would have been 17 June at some point all round the world. As it was, in places like Japan it wasn't 17 June at any point in the period.

oregon must be a foreign company

[rawdirt]

timed out, here, middle of the day.

succeeded later

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[Drakonik]

Was I the only one who originally thought that the armored bears didn't like Firefox?

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[Jamu]

That's why you should only eat open-recipe cakes.

Re:Oi... reboot?

[Colonel Korn]

This isn't the case on my XP SP3 or Vista SP1 machines, both of which were upgrades from RCs.

Re:Oi... reboot?

[Culture20]

That sucks if you're a student in a computer lab with Deep Freeze but no Firefox.
Install FF3. Reboot. [deep freeze restores previous image state] Yay, no FF3. Why require a reboot? It's not installing a new ntoskrnl.exe... is it?

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[WelcomeOurOverlords]

I, for one, welcome our new urinecake-baking overlords.

Re:Aren't these guys supposed to be better?

[Sloppy]

This can't compare to the time that OpenBSD project's download servers were compromised. Now that was ironic (if you ignored the fact that they happened to be hosted on Solaris or SunOS or something like that).

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[ChrisMarkus]

Firefox doesn't love IE though! At www.webuser.co.uk/firefox Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe, said: "I hope that IE6 will quickly disappears, because it's so limited in terms of standards support. Repeat after me: die IE6, die! ;-) I hope that Microsoft's IE8 will bear fruits and help in this regard, also with the help of the other modern browsers (Safari and Opera)"

Re:OSS Incompetence

[initdeep]

While the poster you replied too was close to the mark, they missed by a bit.
However your response fall right in line with what corporate America expects.

Corporate America doesn't fully trust Open Source.
There are many reasons and they ARE slowly coming around.
However, Firefox is a flagship open source project.
Meaning it is high profile, highly visible to EVERYONE (not just the back end staff running things like PostGres or MySQL, or even Apache), and expected to be a "polished finished product".

The fact that Mozilla ADVERTISED their attempt at a download record and then had these types of what appear to most normal people to be comical and poorly planned errors, lends great credence to the average persons suspiciousness of open source programs.

the true fact of the matter is, if Microsoft had done something like this, or Apple, or god forbid somebody like Red Hat or Sun or Debian, the likelyhood is the errors would not have happened, and if they had for the first two, there would be much crowing and jeering from the FOSS idiots who think anytime something like this happens to the "Big bad corporate entities" it's a good thing.

Your response falls right in line with what the average PHB or average MM would expect from a zealot.

[whine]It's not Mozilla's fault, they are giving this away....
Let's see you do better.....
They don't have the resources.....
etc.
[/whine]

here's an idea.....

SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH THE WHINING!!!!!

it just plain reeks of zealotism and makes the projects look bad.

Mozilla fucked up, plain and simple.
They might have done something stupid like intentionally disallow the upgrading from within a current version of FF (I personally tried all day and all i got was the "Sorry, but here's a helpful link to direct download it" message on several computers.) just so they could better track the direct downloads to give a true figure for their record. They might have also just simply not expected as many as they got.
It happens. /. kills sites all the time, without even trying and they could have just been unprepared for the response they got.

However, going around and whining and bitching and being an ass while trying to defend something that does not need your defense merely plays right into the preconceived notions of many people, and actually does a great disservice to the project.

so please, support the project but don't be the expected "religious zealot" type and further push the corporate types away from this and other very good and very useful open source projects.

I'm part of the problem!

[ukemike]

I surfed over to the download page at 9:58am pacific time, and it loaded right up. I got a phone call and remembered to hit reload at about 10:01. Fully 5 minutes later I was told my connection reset. I tried a few more times during that first hour. I was so

An attempt to make a record for most downloads turned into the record for the largest socially engineered DDOS attack. Do I get my name in Guinness?

Re:so how can i get back to v. 2?

[Just some bastard]

all the images and buttons in firefox are huge- tried changing my dpi settings, etc, but that won't fix it

Right click on the grey area to the right of the top menu, select "Customize..." from the context menu and check "Use Small Icons" in the dialog.

Re:Alittle to concidencental!

[initdeep]

Shhhh.....

you must really be new here.... :D

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[Mox-Dragon]

mmm, yellowcake.

Re:OSS Incompetence

[Ex-MislTech]

A torrent redirect would have served just as well,
and I think total downloads could still be tracked.

With it being a torrent all the ppl downloading would
have taken a LOT of load off the servers.

Re:Oi... reboot?

[ricebowl]

Seconded. The only restart involved for me was closing down 2.0.0.14 (from memory, so the version could be wrong) and then restarting with 3.0. This on WinXP SP2.

Does SP3 make a difference?

Re:firefox should be about quality not hype

[ThePhilips]

Produce a quality product and the masses will adopt.

History has many examples on how you are wrong.

Crappy product with decent PR campaign would outsell cheaper and better alternative which isn't advertised properly. This is given.

In nuts, few people make intelligent decision before jumping on board. Some do that just to try something new.

All these DLs will mean headaches for techies..

[Matheus]

SO.. after waiting so long for FF3 to come out formal I go and add myself to the big counter.

I then proceed to go through the *hell of getting it running. My end solution which has me now reading /. in FF3? Installing to a different directory than the default. What?!?

After cleaning up from several failed installs I decided to watch the install folder as I ran the installer several times. The first time I didn't even get the firefox.exe executable.. after that I got more each time until about the 8th iteration the directory stopped growing each time.

I did a bunch of searching (using IE damnit as FF was now hosed) and found plenty of people having the same problem. I finally found someone who was able to get the installer to work by selecting a diff directory and that solved my problem.

This is idiotic. I'm used to having to debug *real problems but if they can't even get the installer right how can I have any faith in the browser. Seems to be working well so far but really.. this is no way to win a war.

Re:All these DLs will mean headaches for techies..

[SpecialAgentXXX]

Didn't you uninstall FF2 and completely delete the 3 main dirs (program files/mozilla, docs & settings/apps/mozilla, docs & settings/local files/apps/mozilla)? I did that and FF3 installed just fine. (Just don't forget to backup your bookmarks.html)

Re:All these DLs will mean headaches for techies..

[ArtemaOne]

On every computer I installed this, even without putting thought into it, I deleted the contents of the Mozilla Firefox directory before installing. I can't say it helped or not, since I did the same thing on 5 computers, but I had no issues. 3 were Vista Business SP1, 2 were XP Pro SP3.

Re:Oi... reboot?

[tonekids]

Not here, on XP or Vista, and in both cases I had 2.x running when I attempted to install 3.

Don't tell me ...

[psycho sparky]

You have a Jura F90 Coffee maker.

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[UltraAyla]

Blech, ORCs. They're slimy and murderous and you're never ACTUALLY going to audit their recipe anyway! Proprietary cake should be good enough for anybody.

Generic Opera Fanboy Response

[shish]

Several people point out a third party extension which doesn't work in FF3, to which I shall reply: Just use Opera, it's had all these amazing new innovations for years, built in and working fine with the latest version :P

Tried 3.0, downgraded back to 2.0

[SpecialAgentXXX]

The URL bar is so damn annoying in 3.0. I start to type in my URL and all of these suggestions appear in a drop-down box. To make it worse, I can't delete/clear/erase those suggestions. So I just accidentally went to a, um, NSFW website and now I can't erase it!

And the new bookmark "feature" is a pain. I used to just backup bookmarks.html. Now I need to export it from the Bookmark window to an HTML file.

Nah, I'll stick with 2.0 until these bugs are worked out.

Re:Tried 3.0, downgraded back to 2.0

[glorpy]

These are intentional designs, not bugs. The url bar learns your browsing history, so I don't really use bookmarks much anymore. I just type 2 or 3 letters of either the title or URL and -pop- there's the site I was looking for. As for removing sites from the bar, Ctrl+Del still works for me.

Re:Tried 3.0, downgraded back to 2.0

[PhxBlue]

To make it worse, I can't delete/clear/erase those suggestions.

Have you tried erasing your browsing history?

Re:Tried 3.0, downgraded back to 2.0

[Koiu Lpoi]

So I just accidentally went to a, um, NSFW website and now I can't erase it!

Shift-Delete when you bring it up. Generally, however, these things end up everywhere (cookies, search history, etc), so your friend Ctrl+Shift+Del (Clear Private Data) works just as well as FF2.

And besides, FF3 isn't a ram guzzling whore like 2 was. The upgrade is at least worth that.

Unless you like ram guzzling whores.

Re:Tried 3.0, downgraded back to 2.0

[QRDeNameland]

The URL bar is so damn annoying in 3.0.

I didn't like it either. However, I quickly found an extension, oldbar, that pretty much restores the old URL bar functionality.

Past that, FF3 is pretty damn nice, IMHO. JavaScript execution alone is so much better that the improvement in browsing speed reminds me of getting broadband for the first time.

Re:Tried 3.0, downgraded back to 2.0

[sharkey]

That's an outstanding extension. Now to get rid of the IE7 style back/forward buttons.

Re:Tried 3.0, downgraded back to 2.0

[brentonboy]

Why don't you just use the oldbar addon?

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[rrkap]

Open Recipe cake only benefits you if you compile it yourself. Otherwise, you don't know what may have been slipped in at compile time.

Re:OSS Incompetence

[Zero__Kelvin]

"SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH THE WHINING!!!!!"

I can't recall the last time I encountered someone who so desperately needed to follow their own advice ...

How many copies of IE7 went out in the first 24hrs

[ukemike]

Just curious for comparison, how many copies of IE7 were downloaded in the first 24hrs. How many were downloaded in the first 24hrs that it was included as an auto-update?

Patches for windows

[acoster]

I wonder if any FF had more downloads in one day than any Windows service pack.

Re:How many copies of IE7 went out in the first 24

[JasterBobaMereel]

Not relevant - Commercial Software (even free Commercial Software) and Opensource have very different release systems

Most people would not bother to upgrade from IE6 To IE7 immediately ...there was no heavily announced release day ...

That fact that My windows PC upgraded the IE6 I didn't use to the IE7 I don't use is not really relevant...

Every one of the FF3 Downloads will actually be at least looked at .. many people who have upgraded to IE7 have never even run it ... I know I have seen copies where it still opens the first use page ...

Doesn't work with FF3

[Ken_g6]

From a comment on its add-on page, emphasis mine:

It appears the developers stopped supporting this in 2007. Among other things, this means it does not work with FF 3.0. http://code.google.com/p/foxtorrent/issues/list

Impressive?

[vr]

Not really that impressive to make some servers go down... Any information on how many servers they're using, what the specifications are and such?2

Re:Impressive?

[Arimus]

Nope, it isn't - just look how many servers from small mickey mouse jobs to big iron /. manages to bring to a quivering halt in matter of minutes ;)

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[halcyon1234]

Human? None of those at Microsoft.

Re:Aren't these guys supposed to be better?

[BZ]

For what it's worth, that sort of stuff was in fact in place (which is why things recovered in about an hour).

People had made some pretty conservative estimates of expected traffic based on current usage, etc to estimate what sort of traffic needed to be handled. Then the actual traffic was 12x as big. The peak download rate was more than 10x what it was with Firefox 2. The _lowest_ download rate seen so far is 3x the Firefox 2 peak rate....

But what really killed the website at first was the 2Gb/s of HTTP it was pushing out...

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[dvice_null]

It would help Microsoft also if people would use only the latest version of IE.

8 Million

[Archangel Michael]

At 10:39am PDT, the counter went over 8 Million.

Re:8 Million

[Archangel Michael]

8.29 Million as of 11:16:59 PDT when it should have stopped counting.

8 Million mark

[kolbe]

As of 10:39AM PST (-8:00 GMT), Mozilla reported over 8 Million downloads:

http://downloadcounter.sj.mozilla.com/

Re:OSS Incompetence

[legirons]

However, Firefox is a flagship open source project. it has a proprietary EULA.

To get back 2.0.0.14 ...

[j-min]

For all those who tried 3.0 and want to go back, here's a link to save you a lot of searching on mozilla's website: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

Which is why XAML is so important

[theolein]

The reason that Microsoft pushed XAML as hard as they do is because they wanted to once again control the web. Some moron in Microsoft's marketing department must have thought that with XAML being easy to use and implement would stop supporting html/xhtml and slowly move over to XAMl based applications.

This, of course, didn't happen for the same reason activex didn't become hugely popular: it's not compatible with other browsers.

The web has come far enough now, that microsoft cannot really control it realistically.

But then, another goon in marketing thought that Silverlight would be the answer...

Guinea-Bissau still 0 downloads

[MoreDruid]

c'mon... you can make a lasting impression on the geeks around the world by having the bragging rights of being the first (and maybe only) user to participate in the world record...

Firefox-mania

[Jasonjk74]

xkcd/firefox

Re:That's exactly the reason

[Blakey Rat]

The fact that microsoft spent years developing a browser when there was already a much more capable browser available is a pretty sure sign that they care about having a position in the market though, user needs be damned.

Whoa, you're in nostalgia-land here.

Netscape 2-4 were buggy pieces of crap. They crashed all the time. IE didn't crash nearly as much, on Windows *or* Macintosh.

And remember, there was a Macintosh version of IE, which also beat Netscape in market-share-- on a platform Microsoft didn't control, and when both browsers were included on the OS disk. Fair and square.

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[geirnord]

More like short bread...

Re:OSS Incompetence

[ppc_digger]

And what about the people not having a torrent client or not even knowing how to download torrents? How would they get Firefox?

Re:Stop to consider the Math?

[drodal]

Which makes all the previous records less than nothing. :P

Re:1pm - 1pm eastern time is not really a day

[mollymoo]

Except Swizerland is currently on Central European Summer Time, which is UTC+2.

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[Daniel Weis]

What idiot compiles a cake? You sir, need to take a cooking class. ;)

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[Daniel Weis]

Slashdot now doubles as a dictionary. Sweet!

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[dotancohen]

It would help Microsoft also if people would use only the latest version of IE. That will only happen when non-critical patches are given to pirates.

Ctrl+Shift+Del (Clear Private Data) doesn't work

[SpecialAgentXXX]

That's why I downgraded back to 2.0. The URL bar still contained my, um, NSFW sites. The recent bookmark/sites visited also still contained those sites. The Ctrl+Shift+Del (Clear Private Data) doesn't work for me in FF3 but always worked in FF2.

Can I get Firefox 2 back?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

I use LogMeIn Rescue all the time at work and since upgrading it crashes firefox, and there is no version 2 to go back to. I guess I switch back to IE...

Re:Can I get Firefox 2 back?

[brentonboy]

... what?

Re:Can I get Firefox 2 back?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Well, you can get Firefox 2 from other sites, but not from Mozilla directly... seems weird. When I installed 3 it automatically removed 2... maybe you got a different result.

Re:Aren't these guys supposed to be better?

[afidel]

Why would users be worried, every year during the Superbowl websites crash, Windows Update has crashed in the past, various high profile events bring media sites down fairly often, etc. Yet people continue to use these flawed properties, why because people don't expect perfection, they expect general reliability and are mostly willing to let things slid if you mess up once in a while as long as it doesn't kill or maim someone.

Re:Oi... reboot?

[VeNoM0619]

I am using XP Pro SP 2, was upgrading from FF3 RC 1 (maybe 2) and had the browser open during install. It told me to close the browser before continuing install. Then wouldn't let me start firefox.exe until after I restarted the entire PC.

Apparently this can be a rare case, but modding down because other people all upgraded with different setups and did not get the issue is wrong. Seeing how there were was only one person who upgraded from RC and they were apparently on SP3, and quite possibly an admin account. Making a statement of personal experience shouldn't be down "moddable".

Damn, I missed it

[dedeman]

1pm to 1pm only? I was at work for that measureless amount of time. I guess I missed it, I'll wait until FF4 is out.

Installation instructions?

[ClarisseMcClellan]

Obviously I don't close down all 39 of my browser tabs unless I have to, so I have yet to extract the tarball, however, where are the instructions?
I checked Mozilla and the only words I could find were:

Please note that installing Firefox 3 will overwrite your existing installation of Firefox. You wonâ(TM)t lose any of your bookmarks or browsing history, but some of your extensions and other add-ons might not work until updates for them are made available.
Because I have Fedora I do not need instructions. True, it's a bit like Lego - best without the instructions - however, what chance does Linux have of taking over the desktop when the main application does not come with instructions. Even 'tarball' is a bit obscure - tapes, what are they? If only *they* knew.

Re:Microsoft-DDOS?

[Cornflake917]

If only the cake was a lie...

Re:That's exactly the reason

[grendel03]

I know quite a few people who think of Netscape as a golden child that got bullied off the market. I've no doubt that this is partly true because of how IE is bundled. But, I remember how amazing IE was when I switched from Netscape 4 on my mac. For me IE had a far better user experience then Netscape. It was my browser of choice for many years until a friend introduced me to Firebird.

Re:OSS Incompetence

[XedLightParticle]

Download Opera to download Firefox? Just like IE comes with Windows so you can download Firefox :)

Latest statistics

[marijonas]

First link points to a preliminary data. There is the latest update on download statistics: http://ehsanakhgari.org/mozilla/downloadday/stats/pledge-ranking-by-country-population

automatic downloads or voluntary downloads?

[john_uy]

just counting on downloads (voluntary and automatic) probably the guinness world record would probably be microsoft. just count the number of computers downloading files every patch tuesday, that would probably be in the scale of tens to hundreds of millions.

well for firefox, does the figure there amount to the automatic update or just manual downloads? but for voluntary downloads, probably mozilla may get the crown.

Re:OSS Incompetence

[Ex-MislTech]

I think if you provide ppl with a link to bit torrent,
they can download it if the standard download is broken ie. down.

If millions of ppl can download napster to get music,
ppl can download bit torrent to get other things.

I know you might consider yourself one of the few ppl brilliant
enough to download bit torrent, but I think you will find
there are millions of net savvy ppl all over the world.

Alot of the so called digital divide is self imposed.

It is often more about not wanting to read the instructions,
rather than it being particularly hard.