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Mozilla The Internet Software

Firefox Downloads Reach 75 Million 343

Posted by CowboyNeal from the look-out-mcdonalds dept.
WindozeSux writes "Today Mozilla Firefox has reached its 75 millionth download. The Mozilla staff find this a morale booster since recent security vulnerabilities have slightly lowered the browser's growth rate. 'We're beefing up the management on the project. The project is still very healthy. We're seeing continued corporate interest and have a lot of large organizations that want to do deployments,' said Chris Hoffman."
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Firefox Downloads Reach 75 Million More

Firefox Downloads Reach 75 Million

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  • This is a Good Thing. Not because everyone has to use Firefox instead of IE/Opera/Safari/whatever, but because this forces authors to create more standard compliant sites which work on multiple platforms.

    Good stuff.

  • relevance (Score:5, Insightful)

    by R.D.Olivaw ( 826349 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:31AM (#13193159)
    What is the relevance of the number of downloads? Someone might download it 4 times to install it at his 4 PC an another might download it once and install it on his company's 200 stations.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:relevance (Score:4, Insightful)

        by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:45AM (#13193212)
        Many millions of Debian users will get their FireFox packages as a .deb, this counts as a single download.
        There is quite a bunch of Gentooites, RedHatters, Susians, Fedora-wearing folk and so on...

        On the other hand, aware Windows users will re-download FireFox every time that icon in upper right corner of the browser flashes.

        Just as you say, the download count is simply useless.

        • Re:relevance (Score:5, Informative)

          by A beautiful mind ( 821714 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @06:01AM (#13193425)
          It's important to note, that the counter DOES NOT count if it detects a download from a firefox browser (user_agent), so generally the firefox update stuff doesn't count...

          • Re:relevance (Score:2, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            It's important to note, that the counter DOES NOT count if it detects a download from a firefox browser (user_agent)
            +3 Informative, but wrong, I'm afraid. The counter doesn't count software update-triggered downloads, true, but it does count direct downloads from Firefox UAs through the 'Download' link on mozilla.org.

    • It's a big number. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MarkByers ( 770551 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:40AM (#13193193) Homepage Journal
      And when I install I from portage it is also not counted. In fact most Linux users are probably not counted, since most use things like apt-get, emerge, or whatever.

      What is the relevance? It gives an idea of the popularity of the product. The number is big, and still increasing. That is all that matters.

      • Re:It's a big number. (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29, 2005 @05:11AM (#13193303)
        The number is big, and still increasing.


        Well, I for one would be really surprised if it started declining.
      • I guess emerge will download the source from one of the mozilla mirrors. same for 'lin' in lunar linux.

      • Re:It's a big number. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DenDave ( 700621 )
        Well it is significant because linux users mostly on some form of Mozilla anyway. This figure represents the result of advertising campaign and signifies growth in the non-linux market.

        Soon there will be more non-linux firefox users than linux users and that will represent a change in target audience and usability requriements. The product will evolve to serve it's new market. It's out of the geekzone...
      • and not counted either are private distibutions, or retail distros which bundle the app . . . i often have a mirror on private ftp, just in case some IE diehards i know have a weak moment when i'm uploading another file for them to grab;)

        you can improve the single user, many downloads stat usefulness by writing a decent version upgrade system. i used Moz 0.82a "forever" just out of laziness ;)

        but - like it or not - free software is at a disadvantage when it comes to compiling persuasuve user statistics - th

    • Re:relevance (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SimilarityEngine ( 892055 )

      What is the relevance of the number of downloads?

      Well, that's a valid point but short of requiring every Firefox user to register, how do you reliably gather usage statistics?

      • To gather statistics the Mozilla FOundation should include a small program with Firefox.

        This would monitor what browser you are using on your system, and would not collect any personal information to be sent back to the foundation. :p

        This software could be required to make the browser work, just liek the stuff that is required for software you have paid for.

        Don't forget some silly EULA to go with it too.

  • Can Firefox be marketed? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ReformedExCon ( 897248 ) <reformed.excon@gmail.com> on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:33AM (#13193167)
    What I mean is, is there some valuable component or application of Firefox that can be used by product or service companies beyond the basic browser application? IE, for example, is a modular browser component that can be reused in private applications. Linux is useful in a broad range of products/services that aren't simply desktop and server operating systems.

    Is Firefox modular enough to break out valuable, reusable parts and implement something new out of them?

    I use Firefox on most of my computers, so I'm responsible for about 5 of those 75 million downloads. 30, if they are counting each patch too.

    • Re:Can Firefox be marketed? (Score:5, Informative)

      by BlueLightning ( 442320 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:48AM (#13193225) Homepage Journal
      Well, there is the Mozilla ActiveX project [www.iol.ie]. You can embed the Mozilla ActiveX control into any application to add built-in browsing functionality, just like you can with the IE one (shdocvw).

    • XUL (Score:3, Informative)

      by Trevelyan ( 535381 )
      Firefox is built on xul, so any os that runs firefox can run your xul app.
      http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xul/ [mozilla.org]
      http://www.xulplanet.com/ [xulplanet.com]

      Also as to components you can use in your apps. There is the render engine:
      http://www.mozilla.org/newlayout/ [mozilla.org]
      http://www.mozilla.org/projects/embedding/GRE.html [mozilla.org]
      Or the script engine, rhino
      http://www.mozilla.org/rhino/ [mozilla.org]
    • I use Firefox on most of my computers, so I'm responsible for about 5 of those 75 million downloads. 30, if they are counting each patch too.

      Don't worry... If you use the built-in update feature of Firefox, your security upgrades are not counted in the total number of downloads. Only downloads via the website are counted.

    • Is Firefox modular enough to break out valuable, reusable parts and implement something new out of them?

      Quite simply, I think this depends on the developer community. For the most part, Firefox plugins tend to be "niche" in nature; that is, they appeal to a core group of users instead of a broad audience. Two examples that I can think of quickly are:

      User Agent Switcher [chrispederick.com] (Only applies to geeks who want to misrepresent their User-Agent, like me)

      Farkit [fark.com] (Only applies to Fark users, like me)

      Certainly there are mo


    • > Is Firefox modular enough to break out valuable, reusable parts and implement something new out of them?

      Eh, Firefox is build *from* valuable, reusable modules. The same modules that are used in Mozilla, Sunbird, Thunderbird, and a lot of other applications.

      Firefox is very little in itself. Kind of like asking if the SUSE Linux distribution can be broken up in modular, reusable parts.
      • I won't argue your point, but why isn't it *packaged* as valuable, reusable modules?

        I'm one of those folks still using the "classic" Mozilla, because my family and I spend a fair amount of time in each of the browser and mail clients.
        First off, under Linux there's some non-trivial configuration to be done getting them to work together properly. (ie: send link)
        Second, those valuable, reusable modules are not separately packages, and then used by Firefox and Thunderbird. Instead, installing Firefox and Thunde
    • Currently you can't deploy Firefox in the enterprise and lock down its features and settings, but that is expected in 1.5. The basic rendering engine [mozilla.org] of the Mozilla browser Gecko [wikipedia.org] is used all over in browsers (Wikipedia's list):
      • Mozilla Application Suite [wikipedia.org] - Mozilla the web browser, mail client, etc*
      • Mozilla Firefox [wikipedia.org] - The mentioned applications, never browse the web without it*
      • AOL [wikipedia.org] for Mac OS X uses Gecko, why doesn't AOL for Windows is the eternal question.
      • Aphrodite [mozdev.org]* Renegade project working on UI tweaks
      • Be [wikipedia.org]

  • The competition isn't coming. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ckwop ( 707653 ) * on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:36AM (#13193179) Homepage

    And guess what, Firefox is going to keep growing! Why? Because IE7 is a rubbish. Before you mod this flamebait, let me explain why. Here [ckwop.me.uk] is a screenshot of IE7 beta. Examine it closely. Here are my issue with it:

    1. Where the fuck is the refresh button? After ten minutes you work out it's the little button next to the right of the URL entry bit.
    2. Why is the menu Below the tabs. I find this inconsistent and confusing. Worst of all, there's no way to put it in it's proper position.
    3. Have Microsoft dropped it's entire design team, the tabs look simply awful. That little grey bit to the right of the tabs allows you to create a new tab by clicking on it. That's fairly cool, but holy shit it just looks wrong.
    4. The home icon on the left hand side of the screen is in that default position, unexpanded, where did my Favourites go or everything else go?
    5. If this is it, what took so freaking long?

    Seriously, this looks like it was designed by an amateur software development team. This is meant to be the Firefox killer? Firefox is showing that a monopoly doesn't guarentee you a browser monopoly. Is IE7 going to stop the rot? I doubt it very much. Firefox looks and feels better. Hats off to the Firefox team.

    Simon.

    • So your saying that IE7 is rubbish because it doesn't look nice? It's still in beta FFS! I know a lot of people on Slashdot hate Microsoft but this is getting ridiculous.

      • Re:The competition isn't coming. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Ckwop ( 707653 ) * on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:47AM (#13193221) Homepage

        So your saying that IE7 is rubbish because it doesn't look nice? It's still in beta FFS! I know a lot of people on Slashdot hate Microsoft but this is getting ridiculous.

        Anybody can write a program, writing a program that is easy for a non-literate person to use is a real challenge.

        We live in a world where people judge everything by the way it looks. People buy Ipods because they look and feel better than the competition even though there are high capacity, longer battery life alternatives.

        Even if we discount the visual side of IE, it's still rubish. It's so far away from standard compliance that it might aswell be considered it's own platform. It delivered full PNG support half a decade too late. ActiveX needs no introduction. It's crap, and this version is no better.

        Simon.

        • I think the point the grandparent is trying to make is that IE7 is a beta product. We can discuss firefox's superiority to any UI shortcomings in a beta product of IE all we want, but it will become moot if the production release of IE7's UI is imporoved. Ditto for any feature of the IE7 beta. I'm speaking in general here, but I can't see any software project along the magnitude of IE7 making it to production without the developers and UI designers recieving tons of disgruntled feedback like you've alrea
          • I think the point the grandparent is trying to make is that IE7 is a beta product.

            As the original poster stated, why did this take so long to make? Even if it's a beta, can't they have made it a bit nicer looking in the about-4 years since the last IE release?
            • Wild shot in the dark here - but my best guess is that most of the MS camp hasn't seen Firefox until very recently and the UI you are seeing is their first crack at actually trying a slim user interface (read: using someone else's idea in their own products).

              Also, as someone else who replied to the original post stated, beta software can contain lots of work that is not GUI related and is definitely not apparent from one screenshot.
              • Blockaquoth the poster:

                but my best guess is that most of the MS camp hasn't seen Firefox until very recently and the UI you are seeing is their first crack at actually trying a slim user interface (read: using someone else's idea in their own products).

                Ah, you mean "innovating" (Microsoft style). And then in two years, they'll be claiming they invented all of this anyway.
            • Because they haven't been working on it for four years. They only reformed an IE group months ago, AFAIK.
        • At least give it a chance. All products are terrible in first beta, and if they were working on the back end then the GUI has taken a hit, big deal. When the betas progress, I think everything will get sorted out. May not be a good product, but you can't judge the final release on that screenshot alone. FYI: I believe IE has W3C perfect PNG compliance. The thing it misses out is alpha transparency, which isn't required.

          In other news: That they got 75 millions downloads is great, but it doesn't tell you mu

        • Many people make the mistake of thinking that "look and feel" of any product is just some shallow cosmetic thing that only ADD afflicted 14 year olds care about.

          The thing is, on average, something like the issue of a 15 hour battery and a 24 hour battery only affect the user once or twice in a long period of time, but a horrible interface affects end users every single time they use the product.

          I've seen people complain about how their "computer is broken and sucks", only to find out their trackball mouse i

    • Stupid Firefox fanboy! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Winckle ( 870180 ) <{ku.oc.elkcniw} {ta} {kram}> on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:51AM (#13193236) Homepage
      I'm trying to look at your screenshot, but IE6 doesn't even say there's a picture there, what the fuck is png, everyone knows pictures are .jpg!
    • Um... The menu is clearly intended to be movable. It's got the "movable" thingy on the left. If it's not now, it will be at release.

    • Re:The competition isn't coming. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Max Romantschuk ( 132276 ) <max@romantschuk.fi> on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:59AM (#13193254) Homepage
      Let me guess: you don't write software?

      Minor interface issues like where to place buttons by default (which can probably be customized anyway) is the least of your problems when developing a browser. The big issues are things that you can't see without examining the code, like how the rendering engine decides which layout algorithm to use depending on the CSS display and float properties. Etc. etc. etc.

      In short: You're reacting like you are saying a house is crap because it's ugly, at the stage the walls haven't even been painted yet.

      • Minor interface issues like where to place buttons by default (which can probably be customized anyway) is the least of your problems when developing a browser. The big issues are things that you can't see without examining the code, like how the rendering engine decides which layout algorithm to use depending on the CSS display and float properties. Etc. etc. etc.

        I do write software, professionally, and it's that type of thinking that leads to some of the horrible interfaces we see in OSS. It may be PH

        • I do write software, professionally, and it's that type of thinking that leads to some of the horrible interfaces we see in OSS. It may be PHYSICALLY easy to move a button on a screen but arranging the buttons so that a novice can deduce their function is very difficult.

          This point is very often missed on developers. OSS zealots are the worst for this; "if they can't figure it out, they're too stupid to use it". Congratulations, you've lost 90% of the market.

          My point was that the interface of a product in a
          • I agree that the User Interface is critical in a finished product. But that is not true of an alpha version.

            Untrue.

            The user interface is a fundamental part of the the design. If you haven't finished the design of the app when you've released a beta then there's something seriously fucked up somewhere. Tweaking is OK, but major UI changes?? No.

            The purpose of an application is to do something that the users want, hopefully in the way they want it doing. Anything else is secondary, and the way an app looks
            • The user interface is a fundamental part of the the design. If you haven't finished the design of the app when you've released a beta then there's something seriously fucked up somewhere. Tweaking is OK, but major UI changes?? No.

              IE7 hasn't hit beta yet.

              In any case, if the UI of your app is detemining it's design then your design process is flawed. The design of an application should be determined by it's use cases. This is true both for UI design and feature design.

              If the UI determines the features or the
    • 1-5) Everything is movable . . . see that little grey thing at the left side . . click it and move it . . it's been like that since IE5
    • Geeze, talk about jumping to conclusions. It looks like someone fucked up their customizable toolbars to me.
    • Am I the only one that notices the difference between the IE7 'home' button and the one from FF? Examine it closely, the only 'real' differences are the makeshift chimney and the absence of windows. I - for one - wouldn't trust a home with no windows and a chimney. This is especially disturbing for the elderly!

      In conclusion: IE7 makes you go bald and infertile. Your wife *will* leave you and your cat will most likely vomit on your keyboard. (can I have a cookie now?)
    • you missed out
      0. It shows ads.

    • That little grey bit to the right of the tabs allows you to create a new tab by clicking on it. That's fairly cool, but holy shit it just looks wrong.

      By the way, if you want this in firefox, right click on the tool bar, go to "Customize...", and grab the "New Tab" button, drag and drop it into the button row.

      The default button for this action looks ghetto, but if you install another theme like phoenity or pinball, it looks a lot better.

      ~Will
    • Is it me or is IE 7 upside down mirrored? What a horrid interface.

      I get the feeling that the placing of the tabs is more about not following suit with Opera/Firefox and all the addons for IE wich implements tabs. IE7 will be an empty marketing ploy as usual. They should toss that ugly baby out the bathwater and follow apples lead as the usually do.
    • "Because IE7 is a rubbish. Before you mod this flamebait,"

      Yeah, because around these parts, you need to choose your words carefully when criticizing Microsoft.

  • Security is so backwards sometimes (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:38AM (#13193184) Journal
    Where I am currently working at, they tried to get rid of all the firefox on all the systems. Even if you upgraded to current, they did not want anybody on it, unless you had a business reason. So what was the browser of choice? MSIE.


    Funny thing is that in 6 months that I have worked here is the only time since 1993-94 that I have been on Windows. I have seen no less than 5 system be massively infected because of MSIE (in a group of 20). Huge amounts of work had to be discarded (can not have virus/spyware getting into this software), which probably cost this company no less than 100K (and that is just what I am aware of. I have heard that it happens here constantly).


    Yet, they discard Firefox, which I heard that they can not prove infected even one system (but they can prove that those 5 system were through MSIE, and the sys ads think all the others were as well).

    Insane.
    • Huge amounts of work had to be discarded (can not have virus/spyware getting into this software), which probably cost this company no less than 100K

      The software was discarded? Were there no backups? I assume that the software was developed in-house, so don't you have the source code? Or did the viruses infect the source-code too? That would be some neat trick! Don't blame Microsoft for your company's incompetence.

    • Same here/ (Score:5, Interesting)

      by aug24 ( 38229 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @05:47AM (#13193398) Homepage
      At my last contract we were not permitted FF, and had to use IE on the grounds that the IS team had not done a security review of FF, but they had of IE. The policy was simply 'better the devil you know'.

      I could see their point, up till I asked when they were going to do a review of FF - and they said they weren't.

      I think some people just like banging their head on the wall at work, for the feeling of pleasure they get when they stop and go home.

      Justin.
      • I have heard that reasoning before, the problem is they often never did a security review on IE. Its just what they say when they really cant justify using IE. If they had it would have been tossed bits first out the window. If worse, they did a review and let that pile of swiss cheese go unmarked they should really be subject for a truckload of atomic wedgies. Next time, ask for the report they "did" on it ;D

        I know i know, the dog ate it!
  • What makes people think that the discovered security vulnerabiliies and the slowing growth rate have anything to do with each other?

  • About that... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rie Beam ( 632299 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:40AM (#13193192) Journal
    The Mozilla staff find this a morale booster since recent security vulnerabilities have slightly lowered the browser's growth rate.
    ...about that...Seventy-four million of those were me - you see, I've got AOL, and it has a tendency to disconnect me mid-download, so a lot of that was probably me trying to get a full copy. But hey! There's always next month.

  • Promoters (Score:5, Funny)

    by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:41AM (#13193195)
    Don't worry.
    With a huge corporation [microsoft.com] doing everything they can [microsoft.com] to support Firefox, how can it fail?
    The day MS changes its tactics I may start to worry.

  • Some advice to the Firefox team (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pieterh ( 196118 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:42AM (#13193199) Homepage
    Keep it simple.

    The biggest danger to Firefox is that you forget the key reasons people like this browser... compact, fast, and secure.

    It's the "winamp" lesson.

  • It also looks like users not only install (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jurt1235 ( 834677 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:44AM (#13193208) Homepage
    but also seem to use it more often. Downloading installing and then decide to not use it (IE is simpler/used to/plays my favourite spyware better) happens a lot too. However in januari about 10% of the pages was views with firefox on my webserver (mix of restaurants, IT, realestate, blogs ea companies use it), The last two months that has risen to about 15%. See http://totalweb.edusupport.nl/usage_200507.html [edusupport.nl] for the stats (near bottom for browser stats).
    • One of my sites was linked to from boingboing and gizmondo a few days ago. About 48% of the visitors use IE, 38% use Firefox. About 86% were using Windows.

  • Perspective (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Phroggy ( 441 ) * <slashdot3@@@phroggy...com> on Friday July 29, 2005 @04:51AM (#13193235) Homepage
    Firefox has been downloaded 75 million times. Many of these were upgrades from previous versions, which had already been counted.

    Over 500 million songs [zdnet.com] have been purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Music Store. Many of these were purchased by the same person who had previously downloaded other iTMS songs (and often, the songs were part of an album and not purchased separately).

    These really have nothing to do with each other, but it's sort of startling to consider the popularity of Firefox, which many of us depend on all the time and is free, compared to the popularity of something like the iTunes Music Store, which many of us never intend to give a dime to (draconian DRM and all that).
    • In what way is the iTunes DRM draconian in nature? You can even burn the songs to CD.

    • Re:Perspective (Score:3, Informative)

      by ziggamon2.0 ( 796017 )
      Well, actually, no... First of all, as has been said approximately 75 million times, no, the upgrades are NOT included. Not included. No. 75 million is a good approximation on the number of users Firefox has, although it has both false positives (redownloading) and false negatives (one download, many installs, linux users, etc). 75 million is the only number we have and it's about right.

      500 million songs is downloaded songs. Not downloads of iTunes. It's very probable that the average user has downloaded

  • Just this one ststiatic is reliable! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @05:03AM (#13193268)
    And this is: Firefox has been downloaded 75 million times.

    These other inferences are contentious:

    1: Firefox has been installed on 75 million computers.

    2: Firefox is in [regular] use on 75 million computers.

    3: Those who have decided to install Firefox are using it on a daily basis.

    4: And so many more.

    • Firefox has been downloaded 75 million times.

      Even that is not accurate:

      Firefox has been downloaded 75 million times via the web interface . See my earlier post [slashdot.org] to see why I believe he majority of Linux users are not included in this count, due to not downloading it via the website.

      The only thing we can be sure of is that Firefox is popular. As pointed out elsewhere, exact figures are impossible to obtain. The statistic is still interesting and useful though.

  • Firefox Download Counters (Score:3, Interesting)

    by webslash ( 893769 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @05:17AM (#13193319)
    The Spread firefox community has helped to develop firefox download counters [blogspot.com] which can track the exact number of downloads in real time.

  • I use Firefox! Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Saggi ( 462624 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @05:23AM (#13193331) Homepage
    I use Firefox! Why? - is the question we should answer.

    If a browser is going to embrace the market (open source or not) it needs to add value to the users of the browser. If it's named IE, Firefox or something else is a secondary effect. (I know a lot of us here on SlashDot might use it just because it's cool).

    Firefox has in my opinion 3 major advances: Tabbed browsing (when you tried it, you will never live without it again), better security and customization/extras abilities. You may have additional advances, but these are the ones I favor.

    When I say better security, its not only a question about how many security holes there are in the browser, its also a question in regards to how many browsers are out there. To target IE is much smarter than some "minor" browser. Of cause this benefit will slowly decrease as Firefox becomes more popular.

    Customization is an other issue. You may adjust IE, but the extras for Firefox are really good. I'm not even sure they can be made to IE (at least they are not easy to make). My Firefox is loaded with extensions. And the ones I use are of my own choice (you'll probably have your own favorite list). This option is not available in IE in the same degree. Some likes themes as well. I use the browser daily, so for me it's important to have a very functionally theme rather than a fancy one. (I use a very tiny one to get better space).

    When I first installed Firefox I went to my own website (www.rednebula.com), and was disappointed as the layout collapsed... but as I checked the html, I realized that it often was due to errors in my html code that IE simply ignored. Now my website has been tuned to both Firefox and IE, giving better and nicer html... a nice secondary effect.

    • Re:I use Firefox! Why? (Score:4, Informative)

      by zerocool^ ( 112121 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @06:57AM (#13193583) Homepage Journal

      You need to dumb it down.

      When I tell people they need to use firefox, and they ask why?, this is my answer:

      If you use firefox, you'll get less spyware. Spyware comes from 2 sources: downloading it on purpose, and through bugs in internet explorer. Since IE is tied in so closely with windows, any time there's a bug, it usually leaks over into windows, and that's how they get spyware on your system. If you use firefox, it's just a program. I think it has less bugs in it, but even if it does have bugs, they're less likely to get into windows.
      So, 1.) Don't download weather bug or screen savers, etc, because a lot of times, spyware piggybacks on them, and 2.) Use firefox.

      It's technical enough to get across the point that there's a lot of shit going on in the background that they don't need to know about, but it's simple enough that any moron can understand it, and still feel like they know something special, something l33t about computers.

      ~Will

  • Fascinating (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ZeroExistenZ ( 721849 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @05:25AM (#13193335)

    All the people who I've showed FF are superhappy as they feel their PCs perform better now they understand IE brings in most of their nastyware and they tell about it to their friends, or customers. (A friend at the Blackberry / 3G helpdesk of VodaPhone redirects now everyone having some sortof browsing probs to FF's website to get a copy as she herself feels FF has solved alot of her frustrations.)

    I find it a fascinating statement, as were people ACTIVELY go out to find a browser even when there's one preinstalled.

    It's a very strong statement...

  • Firefox market share and versions (Score:4, Informative)

    by webplay ( 903555 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @05:31AM (#13193352)
    Latest data on Firefox market share and versions from a popular (100,000+ unique visitors/day) general-interest site I own, collected in the last 2 days:

    Share of pageviews (including robots): 12.3%
    Share of pageviews (excluding robots): 13.0%

    Most popular versions:
    1.7.8 on XP: 23%
    1.7.10 on XP: 20%
    1.7.5 on XP: 12%
    1.7.2 on XP: 5%
    1.7.8 on NT: 5%
    1.7.x on OS X: 4%
    1.7.7 on XP: 4%
    1.7.9 on XP: 3%
    1.4 on XP: 2%
    1.7.3 on XP: 2%
    1.7.10 on NT: 2%
    1.7.5 on NT: 1%
    1.7 on XP: 1%
    1.7.8 on Win 98: 1%
    1.7.6 on NT: 1%
    1.7.10 on Win 98: 1%
    1.7.10 on Linux: 1%

    Firefox users running the latest version: ~25%
    • Does anyone have the Torrent file for Firefox 1.7.10?? I could not download it from the Fx hompage... I guess it is not yet released to the public...

    • Re:Firefox market share and versions (Score:4, Informative)

      by baadger ( 764884 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @07:08AM (#13193634)
      For those confused by parents version numbers, Firefox actually contains the Mozilla version number (and rightly so).

      Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.9) Gecko/20050711 Firefox/1.0.5

      Measuring statistics on the Gecko/Mozilla engine just makes more sense than tagetting Firefox version numbers.
  • great job firefox team ... thanks to you 2005 is not like 1984 ...

  • Here's how to make it accurate... (Score:4, Funny)

    by wbren ( 682133 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @05:58AM (#13193419) Homepage
    The Firefox team should just use the Windows Genuine Advantage© Program to validate users, allowing one download per licensed machine. That way, only Javascript hackers will be able to fudge the download numbers. Simple. I should be a marketing exec.
  • Actually, the fact that Mozilla has become so popular doesn't surprise me. In Germany over 20% (!) of Internet-users browse through the Net with the Mozilla Browser, each and every one of my co-workers (web-development) uses Mozilla, Greasemonkey scripts and all the other stuff which makes the life of web-users easier contribute to such an enormous development of Mozilla. I wonder, how much time will pass by until IE will lose its dominant position on the "browser-market".

    Vitaly Friedman, Saarbruecken, Ge

  • Meaningful numbers (Score:2, Insightful)

    by JustOK ( 667959 )
    Surely one meaningful number would be the number of downloads via MSIE. This would be the minumum number one could safely assume that are converting.
    Another would be the number of downloads from FF on Windows. That would be the approximate lower limit number of people continuing to use Firefox.

  • Okay then (Score:4, Funny)

    by Coppit ( 2441 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @07:04AM (#13193613) Homepage
    I guess I can kill this process...

    #!/bin/sh

    while true; do
    curl -L 'http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-1.0. 6&os=osx&lang=en-US' > /dev/null;
    done

  • Firefox good, but FAR from perfect (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nmg196 ( 184961 ) * on Friday July 29, 2005 @07:23AM (#13193706)
    Firefox is good, but it's far from perfect. Both Firefox and Thunderbird eat RAM like cheese (turn on the VM column in the Task Manager and take a look at how much RAM it's using. At one stage this morning, I had 8 tabs open and firefox was using over 200mb of memory (on a 512mb machine). I exited and reloaded the same tab group (using an extension) and that seemed to free up most of the ram so it was only using 50mb. I hate to say this but this RAM mismanagement (I won't call it a leak as it is fixed by a restart) doesn't seem to occur with IE 7.

    I think the Firefox and Thunderbird developers need to take a serious look at memory management in both these products. Thunderbird is currently using 110mb of RAM on my machine. It seems totally unsuited to people who like to keep a lot of their email on IMAP servers (a few thousand messages - which I have to, for work).

    It also has several annoying bugs which are marked as "WONT FIX" in bugzilla - despite the fact that hundreds of users find these bugs an irriation.

    I also seem to end up with Firefox opening two windows when I load it. The second window has most of the toolbars missing and is usually displaying the blue update icon. No idea what's causing this...

  • Raise your hand ...... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Luscious868 ( 679143 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @07:25AM (#13193714)
    Raise your hand if your tired of both the Firefox and iTunes "X Million Downloads" stories. Pretty soon other sites will be running "x Million Stories" updates tracking the number of "X Million Downloads" stories that appear on Slashdot.

  • In related news.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by 3vi1 ( 544505 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @07:49AM (#13193821) Homepage Journal
    In related news: IE reaches 75 million security patches.

  • Here comes the beef (Score:4, Funny)

    by Medievalist ( 16032 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:12AM (#13195053)
    "We're beefing up the management on the project" said Chris Hoffman.
    And that ALWAYS helps a software project.

  • 75 Million? Fui! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @03:11PM (#13197937) Homepage Journal
    I promised myself I'd ignore the weekly Firefox micro-milestone story, but I can't let this one go by. 75 million sounds like a real big number. But compare it to the total number of Internet users on the planet, which is probably something like 1 billion. So even if every download represents a user, Firfox is still around 7.5 percent. Where, despite all the gee-whiz stories, it's been hovering for about a year now.

    Let me anticipate the usual flames: everybody who accesses your Babylon 5 fan site uses Firefox. Firefox is a much better browser. Anybody who cares about security should switch. We'll never have standards compliance as long as Microsoft is in the driver's seat.

    All true. But face it, the big switch isn't happening. Time to figure out why and do something about it, and stop living in denial.

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