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Firefox Breaks 8 Million, Gets Into Guinness

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the right-next-to-the-worlds-fattest-motercycle-twins dept.

Punkster812 writes "Mozilla has gotten the results back from the Guinness World Records and the official number that will be set as the record is 8,002,530 downloads. The day started out a little rough for them, with server troubles during the initial launch, but once they got everything going, they were able to transfer 62,419,734 MB in 24 hours. You can get more information, including a breakdown of how many downloads each country did from around the world, by visiting spreadfirefox.com. Congratulations, Mozilla, on the new record."

9 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Arbitrary but impressive by jbarr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It appears that this is the first recorded record by Guinness Book, so it's kind of arbitrary, however shuttling 62TB of data is pretty impressive. Now that the gauntlet has been thrown down, it'll be interesting to see if other software companies will try to compete. If nothing else, this gave Firefox some much-needed press.

    --
    My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
  2. Congrats on breaking the non-existent record by TheRedSeven · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously, this is a great thing. But considering that no record existed previously, it's not exactly earth-shattering. I look to see this record broken with subsequent launches, as more and more people have access to the internet, and as Mozilla gains more share. Also, 7.7 million of the total came from the US. It would be great to see a larger overseas distribution, especially considering the pledges that were signed in places like Africa.

    1. Re:Congrats on breaking the non-existent record by ergo98 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Also, 7.7 million of the total came from the US

      I don't think the map below the entry charts just the downloads on download day, given that simply adding Canada (at 790,624 actually comprising more per capita than the US) puts it far over their record count.

    2. Re:Congrats on breaking the non-existent record by Slashidiot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, you are right. Also, talking about per capita, is there somewhere a list of downloads per capita en each country? That would be nice to know, as total downloads mean very little (yeah, of course here in luxembourg we had very few downloads, the country is tiny!)

      Some random (a bit biased) selection of countries with downloads per capita (x1000). Data comes from the Spread Firefox webpage and population from wikipedia

      Canada 23.74
      US 25.40
      Germany 30.00
      UK 19.79
      France 15.19
      Spain 17.90
      Luxembourg 36.72

      Now, this tells me more than just downloads per country. Now Luxembourg looks better :).

      --
      Tis women makes us love, Tis Love that makes us sad, Tis sadness makes us drink, And drinking makes us mad.
  3. Good work! by gparent · · Score: 3, Insightful

    An excellent move for Mozilla. Although I'm sure a lot of these downloads were from existent Firefox 1.5/2 users, I'm sure some of the people using Internet Explorer jumped on the FF bandwagon. Less spyware, better browsing, less bullshit. Good work.

  4. Re:lame by gparent · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Considering Internet Explorer ships with Windows and most often is forced on users with automatic updates, this is hardly surprising. At least Firefox users choose to download it. (And yes, I know you can turn auto updates off).

  5. Re:lame by __aamnbm3774 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    yea but seriously, what does this number even mean??

    I doubt exactly, 8,002,530 people installed it and are using it. You know there were plenty of anti-microsoft nerds who downloaded it 50 times each.

    We might as well just stick to bandwidth measurements, in which case YouTube would smash the above record.

    I'm happy FF 3.0 is out and all, but I don't really see the big deal in this number.

  6. ^__^ by WoggyMumma · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Someone make a map like that but base it on percentage of population.

  7. Thanks for the arrogance by kiwimate · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If people are still using Internet Explorer, it can only be explained as ignorance or complacency.

    Or personal preference. I downloaded Firefox about a year ago, tried it alongside IE for several weeks, determined there were parts I liked, parts I didn't, and ultimately made the decision that I preferred IE. It's nice to have a choice, and I have made my pick. Others picked something else, whether it be Firefox, Opera, or something entirely different. Fine. Good for them. I don't care because I have my browsing experience the way I want it and that's all I really care about.

    If Firefox works for you, hurrah. I'm not so smug and condescending that I'm going to start calling you names. Just let me have what I prefer and we're all happy. I don't care if you think I made a poor or even stupid decision, in much the same way as I don't care if a Honda driver thinks I shouldn't be driving a Toyota. Isn't that the whole point: for people to have choices and be able to choose what they prefer?