Firefox nears 50 Million Downloads

bluephone writes "Firefox hit 49,000,000 downloads last night. Today, as we approach 50,000,000, SpreadFirefox is offering prizes for photographic proof of your most amazing spectacles to celebrate. To quote: 'We have a handful of unique prizes that you won't find anywhere else, and we're asking you to do one simple thing to claim one: impress us. As we drive toward 50 million downloads, do something so cool, so unusual and so spectacular to spread Firefox that we can't help but scurry around the Mozilla Foundation to tell every one.' But you don't have long. The Infocraft Firefox Counter shows just over 800,000 downloads left at the time of this submission!"

Swimming?

Any devs volunteered to swim the Pacific over this?

Re:Swimming?

Hey, Firefox can't go swimming, because the flames will go out. Which sucks. Maybe the Opera guy could find it and snuggle up to it for warmth if it lasts long enough.

Re:Swimming?

Hey, Firefox can't go swimming, because the flames will go out.

Ah, now I get the joke on this link: [spreadfirefox.com]
"Should we lower Mitchell, our fearless president, into an erupting volcano?"
It's a parody of the Opera Atlantic swim, Firefox style!

BTM

Firefox and the Slashdot set

The subset of people who visit Network Mirror are showing 75% Firefox & 22% IE.

Re:Firefox and the Slashdot set

Here's the whole list. IIRC, Opera can be configured to say it's either IE or FF, so their numbers are probably a little low.

75.72% Mozilla
22.50% Microsoft Internet Explorer
0.22% Opera/8.0 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)
0.13% Opera/7.54 (X11; Linux i686; U) [en]
0.12% Opera/7.54 (Windows NT 5.1; U) [en]
0.10% Opera/8.0 (X11; Linux i686; U; en)
0.09% Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)
0.09% Opera/7.54 (Windows NT 5.0; U) [en]
0.07% Googlebot-Image/1.0
0.04% Opera/8.0 (Windows NT 5.0; U; en)
0.03% Opera/7.54 (Windows NT 5.1; U) [nb]
0.03% Opera/8.00 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)
0.03% Opera/7.23 (Windows NT 5.1; U) [en]
0.03% Schmozilla/v9.14 Platinum
0.03% Mediapartners-Google/2.1

Hmmm.

Did the article just ask me to go on a mass shooting spree while wearing a firefox shirt?

Re:Hmmm.

Did the article just ask me to go on a mass shooting spree while wearing a firefox shirt?

Yes. In Redmond.

GNU is a virus = X rated photos?

Well, I'm told GNU is like a Virus, and FireFox is open source, so I can think of a great way *I'd* like to spread it!

Of course, they may have trouble posting the pictures on spreadfirefox!

--LWM

Re:GNU is a virus = X rated photos?

This is Slashdot.

Infecting your hand doesn't count as "spreading it".

Like this?

#!/bin/bash
:start
wget http://www.mozilla.org/Firefox1.0.3Setup.exe
rm Firefox1.0.3Setup.exe
goto start

Besides, real men use Opera.

Re:Like this?

Pah! Real men put the Cat5 in their mouth and interpret the tingling.

Re:Like this?

I doubt it. Real men aren't going to do fellatio on a cat5 cable (how else are you going to do a GET?) to read a web page.

Don't rest on your laurels

The best things keep on getting better.

quick.. someone pull this off

All you need to do is hack paris hiltons new blackberry, put in a folder called pics, include firefox.exe in it.. release details on slashdot as a troll. BAM. 2 billion installs.

Does it have to be legal and ethical?

I'm kind of torn between spamming Microsoft's internal network and the historically accurate, Texan outlaw approach (download or say yer prayers!)

flaming foxes

I just dipped a few dozen foxes in lighter fluid and set them scurrying around the park aflame, but those damn firefox people just called me a sick bastard.

Over on...

...RubyForge [rubyforge.org] it's mostly Mozilla/Firefox too:

gforge=> select browser, count(browser) from activity_log group by browser;
browser | count
---------+--------
OPERA | 240
OTHER | 167539
MOZILLA | 251311
IE | 73724

Weird...

Anyone find it odd that the spreadfirefox image galleries don't display properly in firefox (e.g. http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=image/tid/42 [spreadfirefox.com]). Maybe 1600x1200 is just too much for the page? Who knows?

20/20

your most amazing spectacles

Sorry, I just got contacts.

I got it!

I will celebrate by rounding up 50,000 actual foxes and setting them all on fire!

And to really turn it in to a spectacle, I will call PITA and give them advanced warning of the event, so they can round up whoever they can find to try to stop me... and then I'll do it an hour earlier than I said I would.

MWwaaah-hahahahaha!!!

Re:I got it!

You mean PETA, but I'm sure a lot of people consider the a PITA. :)

Re:I got it!

BREAKING NEWS

FOXES SET ON FIRE

Man sets entire population of foxes on fire in the woods of California, as he was arrested and taken away by the authorities, he was heard saying "spreadfirefox.com fools, now where's my prize?" The deluded man was promptly beaten with a night stick several times, as he made his way to his new home, the state penitentiary, according to several eye witness reports. PITA arrived on scene, and was outraged by the incident, declaring war on the man. The United States government quickly rose the terror alert level to red, and President Bush later commented "The quick brown fox jumped over the.. uh... damn I forgot it again" confusing the press, and consequently creating havoc on TV stations world wide.

Details developing.

Not wanting to be pessimist...

but, I alone, have been responsible for at least 20 different downloads? Why? I don't carry around my USB stick all the time and when I want to install it somewhere, I just re-download it. Also this can't be the downloads of a single release: it's the total downloads since version 1.0? If yes, how about the people that redownloaded just because a new version came out?

Of course, often a download my indicate more than one install: at my parents, I downloaded the program once and installed it on all machines (4 in total)

So, we cannot say much from download numbers about the spread of the program. We still have the risk that we geeks/nerds download it for people and those people stick to IE. Case in point: I'm a teacher and all my pupils use IE. Even though, I always tell them to use Firefox. Why? Don't ask me... I'm only doing this job since january.

Re:Not wanting to be pessimist...

Yes, but while there are people like you who download it many times, there are other people who download it once and deploy it many times, or use a package manager to install it. 50 000 000 is a pretty big number, so everything pans out eventually.

Usage is the best metric of Firefox's success; however, you can't measure it, as different sites have different hit rates, no doubt many have already been mentioned. Downloads is the best count we have because it's actually measurable.

Dyslexia

Anyone else read this as, "Firefox nears 50 Million Dollars"?

How about 2^26?

Binary milestones are for nerds. They are what matters.

No contest...

Seriously... Zonk won because he posted this on slashdot...

Hmmm...

I suspect that a few of the responses to this campaign will have the hapless promoters throwing their hands in front of their eyes, whimpering, "I really didn't need to see that..."

Thanks for the /.ing

I can now download Firefox at a blazing 6.7kbps.

And it looks like every /.er is downloading Firefox just to make the counter go up.

As if this wasn't expected.

The Opera CEO challenge...

The Opera CEO announced he would swim from England to the USA for a mere fraction of firefox downloads.

Accordingly, perhaps Firefox users could tell Microsoft to take a hive dive into a shallow pool.

Spectacular way to spread Firefox?

DL source... check
Add a couple of bits of code from Bagle and Netsky... check
Compiles... check

Crack the server, upload the new release...

Welcome to 100 million Firefoxes overnight!

Too bad that doesn't translate to users

I've downloaded 1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2 and 1.0.3 (well also 0.3-1.0PR1 but that doesn't count in the total). I've downloaded them at work and at home and to my laptop at separate times. That translates to 12 downloads but only two users.

Conversely, I put the Windoze installer on the server at work and everyone at work installs it from there (and it's the preferred browser of everyone at the office, even Windoze users).

So downloads != users.

Samson for the win

Even Old Testament folks were getting down with Firefox: "And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails. And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing Corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives." "Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire." (Judges 15:1-6 KJV)

Great job!

If I open the page on IE it shows the number os downloads after maybe 20 Seconds...
If I open it in Firefox 1.0.1 the counter never starts, keeps showing "Loading..."

Goatse, anyone?

Redirect all traffic from the Goatse.cx domain to SpreadFirefox.com?

Now make it easier to deploy in LAN

OK, now that so many home users have Firefox, and that it works really well, maybe it is time to tackle the corporate front?

FF could be made much easier and practical for administrators to deploy.

There is FFDeploy [dbltree.com], but I would hope for something better and easier.

A possibility would be to allow some .ini file as argument to the install, specifying:

- profile location (with the possibility to leave out that stupid random directory name in the profile path),

- a cache directory separate from the profile folder and/or the right registry entries so the cache isn't copied over the network at every logon/logoff.

- extensions to be installed straight away,

- etc.

That .ini or whatever should also expand environment variables like %username%, %userprofile%, etc. (and $HOME etc. on Unix).

If you are deploying FF on your network, have you found a way to do it without going to every machine and setting it up manually?

bluephone wins.

game over.

okay...

I'll probably get trolled for this, but I think it has to be said:

This article isn't news, and it doesn't really matter. Most /. articles fall into at least one of those categories. Its not like Firefox released a new version, or was offering new services. This article is advertisement encouraging people to visit the website and brand themselves for some 'secret prizes'.

50 million of 1, 1.01, 1.02, 1.03 .. right?

Almost every one is notified of the availability of new minor releases, right? and those who are savy enough to install firefox are savy enough to update too. So, You can pretty much divide 50 mil by 4.

Prize is mine

"your most amazing spectacles" Oh man, I got the sweetest pair of glasses, they got these curly things aroudn the eyes, and oh yeah, they like shoot lasers, and they have sonar. That prize is mine!

The real reason Firefox is succeding

Is that according to a friend of mine, it's just the best browser to use for porn surfing.

*cough*

Downloads All Updates?

Firefox asks me to update when a new version is released but it really just downloads another version. It would be cool if they did something that just updated it self instead of just downloading a new version.

Re:Downloads All Updates?

This is answer to your question:
Slashdot comment #12352325 [slashdot.org]

No, they don't count updates from FF as downloads in spreadfirefox.com counter.

Do your part

An effective method would be to offer to sleep with all members of the opposite (or same, whatever) sex who download Firefox. That should let Firefox spread faster than herpes!

a-la-Golden-Palace

Do what this guy did: [www.cbc.ca]

Step 1: Paint SPREADFIREFOX.com on chest

Step 2: Wear baby-blue tutu under clothes

Step 3: Attend Olympic sporting event

Step 4: Remove clothes

Step 5: Dive from Olympic diving board

Step 6: uh... profit?

My Most Amazing Spectacles

SpreadFirefox is offering prizes for photographic proof of your most amazing spectacles to celebrate.

That prize is as good as mine [chickenshop.co.uk].

Get your free porn here!

Free Porn! [tds.net]

What data is this conter based on?

How does it count all the countless downloads from unofficial mirrors? And shippings with Linux distros? Downloads through the Gentoo Linux distfiles repository?

I know what I'll do!

As we drive toward 50 million downloads, do something so cool, so unusual and so spectacular to spread Firefox that we can't help but scurry around the Mozilla Foundation to tell every one.'

What if I put a link to mozilla.org in my Slashdot sig! Then Millions of Nerds (who have already DL'ed Firefox) will see it!

FireTalk or FireFriends extension idea

There was a story a while back about flaws in Firefox and that it should integrate an instant messenger client. Kinda...

My idea is to have a IM/IRC panel that automatically shows other Firefox users with their windows open to the same page or maybe site. Just think how cool it would be if you read some comment on Slashdot and it says the author is online; you can chat and followup a discussion without having to post lots of +0 Noise posts that nobody else really cares about anyway. Or maybe you're reading some technical article and see a few other Firefox users on the same page -- you can ask them some question specific to that page (one might be the author with the page open in firefox to answer questions, ask readers what they think of the wroiting, etc).

If done right this could be pretty darn cool IMO. It has to be done with the browser because basically it should be a system that applies to all websites. This would also be a great social aspect to help build the Firefox community. The server load could be balanced by hashing the site or URL and thereby dividing the load on the browser end.

Gonna get arrested

Thinking I may write "firefox" on my penis to represent small and sleek, versus IE on my bloated stomache and run through the streets of London naked. That's a promotional tool thats sure to satisfy

all the patching can't hurt the stats

the worst part of the update process is the way you have to re-download the whole works and slog through the installer again. you even have to fight the firefox homepage checkbox.

Yeah...but...

Firefox users tend to download new versions of their browser more than users of other browsers...I suspect...

Some statistics from my site:

Average unique visitors per day: 5455 (users range from video game players to video game modders) Internet Explorer 6.0 - 66.3 % Firefox - 24.8 % Internet Explorer 5.5 oder älter - 2.19 % Safari - 1.64 % Gecko - 1.42 % Netscape - 1.07 % Opera - 0.77 % Mozilla - 0.27 % (entries less than .27 removed)

firefox-tan

someone (preferably female0 could cos-play as firefox-tan http://images.google.com/images?q=firefox-tan&hl=e n&lr=&sa=N&tab=wi

Amazing Spectacles

Amazing spectacles like these? [tinyurl.com]

Instability

I have noticed a marked increase in instability with the 1.0.3 release. I have sent in bug reports of a particular news website crashing firefox consistently (stuff.co.nz, try http://go.fark.com/cgi/fark/go.pl?IDLink=1458241&l ocation=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stuff.co.nz%2Fstuff%2F0%2 C2106%2C3258588a10895%2C00.html), and in the web application I work on, I also get relatively frequent crashes.

In the case of the web application I work on, this is pure W3c compliant code. It does not appear to be terribly consistent, but it seems to happend while a number of frames are loading, then clicking another link that will change to load a different frameset.

It is possible that this is happening as a result of the extensions I have installed or the custom stylesheet I sue to limit ads. I haven't yet had a chance to test against a vanilla install of firefox.

Anyway it is an unwelcome surprise to have firefox crash on me regularly.

pictures

Some pictures of (fire)foxy girls will probably be in the top 10.

Prizes for amazing spectacles

SpreadFirefox is offering prizes for photographic proof of your most amazing spectacles to celebrate.

Hey! It's a good job Elton [google.co.uk] John [impersonators.com] doesn't read slashdot!

Accidentally Posted Before Right Time.

Congratulations! Firefox 50 Million Commemorative Coins At 5:47 AM PST this morning, we rolled over the 50,000,000 line. Thanks to the hundreds of you who have regaled us with your heartwarming and often hilarious tales of spreading Firefox. We're featuring some of the best in the right column, and those members are taking home one of 50 limited edition coins celebrating this milestone, along with other goodies. Even the coins themselves were designed by one of our most talented volunteers, graphics designer Jamey Boj. Along with coin #1 in the series, we are also awarding a very special prize--the biggest we've ever given out--to the lucky SpreadFirefox affiliate who delivered the golden click that went with the 50 millionth download. We have identified this person and will withhold her information until she accepts the prize. Check back early next week! In the mean time, we've got 39 more coins to give away, as well as some signed gear. Keep those great spreading stories coming to [e-mail].

Re:Did they calculate the 49.000.000

Joking aside, is this just 1.0+ downloads, or all downloads ever?

Re:Did they calculate the 49.000.000

That's a screenshot of Firefox with the RSS watcher looking at the download counter (mentioned in the article). Asa just happened to have perfect timing, to catch it, unless he was just watching it all day. :)

Re:Counter

I opened up two copies of the spreadfirefox counter page, and the counts differed. That is odd.

Re:misleading?

But shouldn't it be 50 mil / 4 = 12.5 mil because almost all users automatically updated from 1.0.0.0 to .1, .2 and then .3?

Re:misleading?

But shouldn't it be 50 mil / 4 = 12.5 mil because almost all users automatically updated from 1.0.0.0 to .1, .2 and then .3?

We're not counting those users who updated via our application update mechanism.

- A

too politically incorrect for the metamods?

Amazing that the only off-topic/troll rated posts I've gotten since I got on slashdot over a year ago have been about politics and technology-related subjects that offend Bush's sheeple.

Bashing MS and telling people to download Firefox is offtopic on a Firefox thread?

Starting Score: 1 point Moderation -1 100% Offtopic Extra 'Offtopic' Modifier -1 (Edit) Karma-Bonus Modifier +1 (Edit) Total Score: 0

Re:so what - skype got much more downloads...

Skype doesn't face the compitition Firefox does - there's not vendor installing a similar application with every copy of the OS

Re:50 million downloads

i'm not sure what this is, but i would consider it a godsend if the mozilla team decided to "accidentally" break support for animated gifs, instead only showing the first frame.

i don't need a 900K photo slideshow in gif on every message board. no thanks

Re:If you need another reason to download Firefox.

Taking a break from the typical Slashdot cynicism, I gotta say you just made my day with that one. I'm adding you to my friends list...

Re:you're the perfect Microsoft fanboy.

Oh dear Lord, not the religious right! Oh how eeeeevil! (as opposed to the holy & righteous secular left? Bwahaha!)

Microsoft just donates money to whoever happens to be in power at the time (see opensecrets.org). Your original post was totally off-topic and inflammatory, and is being modded as such by secular, leftist Slashdotters like yourself. Kind of ironic.

Re:When it gets more stable...

/. renders fine on the linux version of firefox and, it seems reasonble to me to assume that many people use linux while on /. I've had several problems with firefox under windows, which is why I filed bug reports and then mostly stopped using windows for internet browsing. I've never had a single problem with firefox under linux, and that could be because the windows version of firefox isn't very stable or because windows isn't very stable.

Re:When it gets more stable...

I'm the world's biggest fan of Microsoft. To me, Microsoft Excel is the best application ever written, and Microsoft C#/.NET is the best programming language and operating environment ever developed.

Oh yeah, that sounds like an objective web page. How much more stable do you need? I only rarely experience problems with firefox, and those typically are attributed to crappy plugin implementations (such as Adobe's PDF Reader - which I've since stopped using, the resource hog it is).

Further, regarding the il rendering of slashdot, maybe if the site code maintainers would update the template to something that actually validates, everything would Just Work. As of now, Slashdot doesn't even validate at HTML 3.2. It includes no character encoding information and the SGML parser on W3 comes up with 114 errors. Maybe they could follow some advice and Retool Slashdot with web standards [alistapart.com].

Re:When it gets more stable...

As many others have repeatedly stated, the Slashdot rendering bug has been repaired already. Until Firefox 1.1, based on Gecko 1.8 (which contains the fix) is released, you can use the Slashfix extension [extensionsmirror.nl], or alternately force a page reflow by changing the font size.

As for Firefox stability in general, did you follow the installation instructions? There are some pitfalls associated with the installation process, especially if you are upgrading from a previous version. The MozillaZine Knowledge Base [mozillazine.org] is a good place to start.

Re:you're the perfect Microsoft fanboy.

congratulations, you wingnuts have your own, Divinely appointed OS.

Even if your bullshit drivel was true (which is debatable), that's still half the population of this country.

But let me get this straight. If I use Windows, I must be a religious right-wing nut... eh?

Jeebus, if that isn't one of the biggest leap of faith (no pun intended) generalizations I've seen from this sorry crowd, I don't know what it is.

I suppose next you're going to accuse Windows users of killing baby seals by running them over with their SUVs. Go ahead, you want to.

Re:If you need another reason to download Firefox.

So... getting consultation from a variety of sources is a BAD thing?