Firefox Hits 400 Million Downloads

Owen Dansley writes "Firefox hit another milestone this past Friday, when it passed the 400 million download mark. From its launch in 2004 it took one year to reach 100 million downloads, hitting 200 million downloads just one year later. According to figures released by US consultancy firm Janco and the IT Productivity Center, Firefox currently has 17.4 percent of the browser market — up 5.6 percentage points in the last year. Also within the last year, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser dropped 9.6 percentage points to a market share of 63.9 percent."

Interesting

How many of those downloads were downloaded using Firefox? :p

auto-update doesn't count

auto-update is not count as download. The 400 million number doesn't include auto-update.

Re:Interesting

Or were installed as part of a Linux distro? Or were downloaded from PortableApps.com? Or were downloaded as part of some 'open source CD for Windows'? Or were just copied from a friend? How many are installed as part of a standard corporate desktop image?

How many were updates? How many were downloaded to replace another copy after say, a wipe-and-reinstall? How many were downloaded, but never installed?

Anyway you look at it, counting downloads doesn't reveal much about the number of Firefox users?

Safari

It is interesting to note that the release of Safari for Windows has had zero (or negative) impact on its market share. At the time there were a number of naysayers suggesting that Safari would steal market share not from IE but from Firefox.

I'm guessing the quality issues surrounding the Safari for Windows beta have put pay to this concern.

Also, outside of Windows, I thought I'd switch from Firefox on my Mac to Safari following the introduction of tabbed browsing in version 3 but, several months later I'm still Firefox.

Re:Safari

It's a version of Firefox for smug people.

Thats not really so impressive......

Unfortunately I'm responsible for at least half of those....once for each time I've had to re-install.....

Re:Thats not really so impressive......

Unfortunately I'm responsible for at least half of those....once for each time I've had to re-install.....

And I'm responsible for none of those despite the fact that I did Linux install 200 million times for the last three years, so we kinda cancel each other out.

Which means?

Numbers like these are essentialy meaningless. They don't readily translate to installed copies or active users. I've dowloaded Firefox and Thunderbird at least 10 times in the process of setting up new OS installs for family PCs. But that only equates to three users. And of those, I am the only one who actively uses Firefox.

Re:Which means?

Sure, the numbers are not precise. 400 million could translate to only 100 million users, or even less, but there is still some level of information in there. That is, we know that the ballpark figure of a program which had 400 million downloads is likely to be higher than a program which only had 10.000 downloads. It is called uncertainty. Some numbers ( such as important physical constants ) are known to a very high precision, other numbers may be more difficult to measure, and are accurate within maybe a factor of 10 or so. As a friend of mine put it. "To a mathematician pi can be expressed as a converging series of fractions, to a physicist it is close to 3.14, to us engineers it is roughly 3, everything is linear, and 3inches of steel ought to be enough, so make it 10 just to be sure..." He was joking of course, but even if only 1% of downloads translate to actual use, 400 million is still a large number, and different uncertainties cancel ( i.e, many users get their copy of a mirror or dedicated repository. Companies download it once and push it to 300 computers etc ... ). 400 million is a "rough" number, but it isn't completely meaningless.

Downloads vs. Active Use

Wow, what a big number. But even with all of those downloads the logs from our server shows that only 17% of visitors are actually using it. Over 80% are IE variants.

Congratulations Firefox, you've managed to get a boat load of people to download your browser, but somehow most people reject it after trying it.

It's the porn

Everyone knows that Firefox is the browser of choice when surfing for porn, the extensions and plug-ins (no giggling at the back) make it much better than IE.

Down Them All is the dedicated Hand-Shandyist's best friend.

I wonder.....

....if this number is just for the stable release or does it include the nightly builds? How about other browsers build on Firefox like Seamonkey?

Google Desktop?

Since when was Google Desktop a browser? And why would Firefox need to be "looking over it's shoulder" because of it?

IE isn't down and out yet

Despite Firefox gaining some popularity (and Safari showing up in random places, like your Grandmother's house) IE still has a sweaty, firm grip on the market.

Mozilla Firefox has a journey ahead of them before the numbers start to show in their favor.

Does Mozilla/Netscape really make up 29.01%

10% still using Netscape? Who'da thought it?

Ahem...

Somebody explain what "market" Firefox is occupying, and why it matters.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp [w3schools.com]

If you look at those usage statistics, Firefox is only a fragment below IE6, and quite a bit above IE7. Of course, I have no way of knowing how accurate these are, but I tend to trust W3 content.

So, when they say that IE "still" has over 60% of the "market share", why does that matter? Usage statistics are the only ones any web developer should care about, I have IE installed, because it came with Windows, so I'm assuming that my IE is part of those market share statistics, but I do all my browsing with Firefox, so as far as I can see, this is useless information. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:Ahem...

If you look at those usage statistics, Firefox is only a fragment below IE6, and quite a bit above IE7. Of course, I have no way of knowing how accurate these are, but I tend to trust W3 content.

1. w3schools.com is not operated by the W3C.
2. The page you linked mentions that the usage stats for a site geared toward web developers will be skewed toward alternative browsers

Firefox is Better

Really, its just that simple. IE is prone to locking up, and when it does, it brings down your whole Windows desktop because it is "built into" Windows. Firefox doesn't have that problem. First off, it tends to work more often, and on a wide variety of sites.

problems with firefox running slowly lately

I've been a fan of Firefox for about a year now. In the last few months it has been running really slowly on every machine I use it on. I've spoken to my coworkers and they've noticed the same thing. I tried switching to Opera after reading on slashdot that it runs faster then IE7 and Firefox http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/07/044243/ [slashdot.org] It does seem to run noticeably faster. Has anyone heard if Microsoft did to Firefox what it did to ICQ? (slowed it down by patching Windows to benefit MSN and detriment ICQ) just adding my two cents

We've won!

Not that we can rest on our laurels, but Firefox has reached the market share level that really matter; "adequate penetration".

Misquoting the Supreme Court, I can't define exactly what that is, but I know it when I see it.

Firefox is a real force in the realm of web browsers. Even if it hovered at 17-18% forever, that would be enough to insure that most websites, and most webapps support Firefox. Even Microsoft's latest web offerings work on Firefox (Windows Live, Silverlight, etc. . .). That's a huge deal.

We don't need to dominate the market (OSS). It's nice when we do, but its not necessary. All that is necessary is for OSS software to have enough of a toehold to remain relevant in the minds of web developers. Few companies are willing to discard 1/5-1/6 of their customers.

If Linux could ever get to 15-17% desktop marketshare, we would see tons of Linux games. Not 100% of games would be ported, but many, many games would be.

Gratz Firefox! Gratz Mozilla Foundation! You did it.

Re:We've won!

Browsers are like girls. As long as your get adequate penetration you are pretty much ok.

Not to take anything away from the numbers, but ..

Since well over a year now, Firefox by default has been automatically checking for updates and downloading the new version when available on nearly every install. On networks this can be compounded because even if you are not an "Administrator" Firefox will still install download the update although the user cannot install the program. These download numbers are still probably counted.

On the upside, Mozilla does not count the number of installations on GNU/Linux systems (which would probably easily overtake the amount of "false downloads" that may be counted).

Anyway, to combat this on the networks I manage (and because I am a lazy SOB) I created a "Network Installation Utility" that remotely installs Firefox on the Domain Computers (or A.D. computers if you aren't using Samba). If anyone wants it you can find it at: http://www.pcc-services.com/kixtart/firefox-script.html [pcc-services.com]. (I adjusted the default behavior of Firefox to not check for updates.)

But of course using this utility will totally mess up Mozilla's numbers since you can install Firefox on a few hundred computers in a few minutes (depending upon network speed) without even downloading Firefox once.

slownewsday

I can't tag because I'm on Links, but I think it should be tagged slownewsday. While knowing how many people use a given browser is only mildly interesting, except for people who have a website (but who might yet prefer to rely on their own browser usage statistics since they're more relevant of what their audience uses), there is little we can deduce from this 400M figure.

Therefore, it's hardly newsworthy.

Questionable data

I run several web sites and I would question the 17% share figure. The results I get from my weblogs are pretty consistent and indicate that Firefox's share of the market is closer to 11%, and that this figure has remained fairly static for the last six months at least with no real growth evident. In fact the only major change in browser market share during 2007 seems to be IE7 steadily replacing IE6.

The data I get for browser market share from my visitor logs for August 2007 is:

IE7 - 37%

IE6 - 35%

Firefox - 11%

IE5 (yes really) - 3%

Others (Opera, Netscape, etc.) - 14%

Of course you could argue how closely my visitor profile match the wider population of users, but I'd be surprised if other surveys were markedly different. To my eyes the data seems to indicate that Firefox has reached an equilibrium point in terms of its potential market share. One of FF's biggest early draws was its relative security compared to IE, but these days there have been plenty of security warnings about FF that may have eroded that "comfort factor". Still I'd be interested to hear if my experience is mirrored by anyone else - are 7% of FF users hiding from me, or are the claims BS?

That's horrible!

400 million downloads. Just think of the revenue they're losing due to that piracy. :(

the future

I personally amresponible for ~ 50 downloads, every computer at work, and geting a lot of friends and family
then i discoverd mozilla has taken large sums from google, the next borg evil overlord
no more downloads for me
google is evil, like ANY large corporation, and I won't be associated with it.

How about IE7 versus Firefox?

I'm much more interested in a Internet Explorer 7 versus Firefox download hits comparison. I want to know the latest trend.

at this rate

number of firefox downloads projected to exceed earth's population by 2011

These numbers are WORTHLESS!

I had the same though last week when Steve Jobs was talking about how many people have downloaded iTunes. WHO GIVES A FUCK? These numbers are completely without meaning for many reasons. I'm one person and I've downloaded 1.0, 1.5, and/or 2.0 (plus several other minor versions) for my two main computers at home, my two laptops, and my three work machines. Sometimes (especially at work) I've got to get the newest point release (or point-point, or point-point-point--I'm at 1.5.0.2 on one machine.)

Back in the days of dialup--and less-frequent releases--I used to keep installers but I don't anymore. Anywhere that I'll need one, I just download it, a) because I don't have to look for it and b) that ensures that I'll get the newest version. I've probably downloaded Firefox 50 times for machines that I personally use. And the funniest part is, I don't even use Firefox that much--I literally use it maybe 5% of the time. On OS X I prefer Safari, and I use OS X for everything but testing and a couple odd tasks. Mostly, Firefox+UnPlug is my "get video from youtube" appliance. Other than that, I barely touch it.

Same thing with iTunes--who cares? The numbers are ESPECIALLY meaningless when you consider that iTunes has gone from 1.0 to 7.4 in 6 years, and besides all the major revs--1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc.--there have been many other "must-have" minor versions, either to keep compatibility with the music store, or to gain things like video playback (4.8) or podcast support (4.9). "Number of downloads" has got to be one of the most useless statistics ever, and it gets less and less meaningful with every new version of a program that comes out.

can we get auto-update numbers?

It seems like a better measure of firefox users would be the number of auto-updates that occur after a new version is released. This won't count users that get updated via some package manager (emerge, apt, etc), but it would at least give a lower limit on the number of active firefox installations out there.

Error in the rankings.

Anyone else notice how opera has 0.47% more share than Mozilla in that chart yet still ranks below it?

Opera!

Firefox has never really done much for me. I can't really say why. Some of it is the loading time when you launch it, some of it is how the layout gets under my skin. I've had a few bad experiences with it in the past, too. I just never took to it.

However, I did decide to try Opera 9.23. I hadn't tried Opera in quite some time. I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised, and really happy with the way Opera works. So, yeah, I guess I'm one of those weirdo Opera users now. :P

(No real point to the post, I'm just really digging Opera.)

How many were installed as Spyware

I have had to uninstall it twice already because other packages I have download to try installed it automatically without even asking me. Each time I uninstalled I let them know that this is the worst kind of SPAM and damages their reputation severely!

It was Me!

I downloaded it for the 400 Millionth time after having to re-install windows that many times!

Re:skew

Not necessarily repeat downloads. People like me keep the most recent version backed up come place for use upon reloading windows or firefox so i don't have to download it again. Now my question is how many people download firefox and save it toa cd or jump drive and install it on other peoples pcs when working on them?