That's great , now for that many Ubuntu downloads.

The number of downloads is an entirely meaningless statistic.

I know of at least a couple dozen computers where Firefox is installed, but those IE users haven't opened and browsed with it a single time. And of those, at least a half-dozen specifically requested it, but have yet to use it.

And let's not forget Opera. However many downloads it touts, I can't recall the last time I encountered someone using it.

I think half those downloads are from me!! I now minefield though, I'm not sure if those d/l count or not.

BTW, I still use IE7 also. I like some FF features like the search bar, but IE7 is faster.

Great news. Even if Firefox never poses a serious threat to IE it still takes market share away from Microsoft and that encourages development of IE. No competition means stagnation and non-development of IE and that is bad for users. I use Firefox myself but I don't knock those people who use IE.

I have had no problem with firefox. Anybody using IE I would recommend you s*** to firefox immediately. First thing I see with firefox is it is less vulnerable to spywares as way less is targeted towards firefox browser than IE.
www.worknplay.net

Since Opera 9.5 alpha arrived I have stopped using Firefox. The latest Opera is the best yet. Although only an alpha I have been using it for three days with no problems. Big plus is it is the fastest browser I have ever used.

Had a few probs with Opera 9.5 myself, but Opera is the only browser I have every truely been 100% happy with.

Had to go back to 9.23 for the moment, will try the next weekly, see if some of my issues are resolved.

Either way, even Opera 9.23 is faster and more secure than anything else out there.

The problem here, is how many people downloaded it, thought it Firefox was s***, slow, and buggy, and either went back to IE, or tried Opera?

The stats don't show that. Nor do they account for multiple downloads. I have downloaded Firefox about 20 times, to see if they ever fixed the bloat or memory leaks (they never have).

The downloads themselves are not an indicator of usage, it's impossible to tell from that. The percentage of user's from a specific country is gathered by special web-software that records the IP addresses of visitors and detects which browser the visitor is using. The IP address allows the software to determine which country the visitor is from. Every Internet provider gets a pool of IP numbers, which number in the thousands and even millions (depends on the size of the provider). The software uses databases which include these number pools, and the provider and country to which they belong (AT&T is in the USA for example). I'm explaining this in very simple terms so that the layman can understand. I work in the IT sector, and we use these methods all the time. We gather all types of statistics, but the browser and country of origin are usually most important. You can even gather information that will tell which operating system the visitor is using you and if they are surfing via a military or government network. The trick here is to actually collect the data and share it with others. Small webmasters either won't collect the data or bother sharing it. It's usually larger organizations, like Google, who will do this. They also have a financial interest in doing so. At the same time, they receive massive traffic, therefore they provide the best opportunity for gathering accurate statistics.

Screw you Opera, you sissy.

Here's the Firefox usage in Europe..

http://www.xitimonitor.c...006/index-1-1-3-21.html

I might be wrong, but that looks like it's from January 2006.

Yes, you're right, it's from Jan 2006. Here's a more recent one, from July 2007:
http://www.xitimonitor.c...07/index-1-1-3-102.html

Firefox will never become the #1 browser, and here's why. Those of us who read this site and comment on it's articles, are very fortunate. We represent probably less than 10% of the PC users who really know what they are doing. I'm not saying we are better than the rest of the population, we tend to understand and comprehend more about our PCs. I build my own and I am very anal about what goes in or what it outputs. I'm sure if you went into any one of our homes you would find a well oiled, streamlined, and fully tweaked machine. The rest of the users turn it on, check their e-mail, surf the net, and shut it off. They have no clue or may not even be interested in the browser wars. For them, IE5,6, or 7 will suffice. I use Firefox and you all know why, end of story.

That is the very truth of things, and as long as IE comes bundled with Windows it will keep on catering those people who don't know/care enough about browsers, security and efficiency. We should just let them be and not think of desperately trying to spread our word, whatever it is.
Besides, i guess IE7 is already a huge leap in security (but barely anything else), which is enough for regular people.
Forget the wars, use/do what you like and share your opinion, just that. It'll make your life easier.

400 million times download is an impressive number no matter how you look at it. Were talking about something the risen out of the ashes of netscape.

They have single handedly got microsoft to release ie7, brought RSS mainstream and made the idea of browser extensions/add ons mainstream as well. Firefox by itself is nothing special except for the spell check. Now add in all the add ons, for book marks, ad blocker, gmail notifier. It's infinately customizable and in that sense no other browser can do that. You don't want something or don't need it? Get rid of it.

I love firefox and the integrated spell checker has made me look at a whole lot smarter haha.

Think IE will ever get that idea and allow people to make add ons in such a mainstream way and for free? I think its called Active X which has single handedly made IE the security problem it ended up becoming.

Keep it going firefox, you got my vote, now if we can just get the people who could care less what browser they use to use it.

"I love firefox and the integrated spell checker has made me look at a whole lot smarter haha."

"Were talking about...."

We're talking about....

Not that much smarter :)

Mozilla themselves probably know quite close to the exact number. They are the source for the auto-update checks.

Australian adoption of FF sits around 26% whilst Asia is around 24%.

It's FF FTW!

Being a Linux user -- FF is the default browser and it's extremely rare that I use IE (mainly for Intranet apps that are in the process of being converted across to cross-browser compatible).

I am currently using FF almost EXCLUSIVELY... It's even replaced my default browser in Linux! In fact, I don't even use IE for windows updates anymore!! Technically even though im using FF for windows updates (when not deploying over many systems), its still the IE "engine", but still! Ever since I went FF, I have never ever EVER looked back.

since I start using FF, I d/l at least 100 times. That's included down from every days. Fresh installation. I have 5 computers.

Slovenia? Come on now. How much is the market share in the US? If it's only 6% like mentioned earlier, than 400 million downloads just doesn't mean much as an indicator, it would seem.

"How much is the market share in the US? If it's only 6% like mentioned earlier, than 400 million downloads just doesn't mean much as an indicator"

So according to your savant calculation, the population of the US reaches a grand total of 7 billions folks. Mmmm 'k.

Oh, ok. People don't update their Firefox installations in the US.

It's not like there's been 6 versions of Firefox 2 alone.

According to this article it's well over 6%...

http://www.betanews.com/...ercent_in_US/1152556792

Personally I can't stand to use anything but FF. I am glad to see it on the rise. Back in the day there would be several websites that would not display correctly with FF. But the more its' popularity rises the more the websites are starting to cater to it. I am hard pressed now days to find a website that will not display correctly in FF.

This is great news - but are 400 million people using it? I download a lot of software that I may look at and play around with - but never actually use 100% or even 40% of the time. Firefox happens to be one of them in my case.

I looked at echoecho.com and they show Firefox having a 6% market share - which is definitely up from ever before and it's nice to see it gaining ground.

But has the % of use gone up as largely as the % of downloads? That would be an interesting statistic.

Is Slovenia having a 50% usage is that really all that large? They have a population of 2 million and it's smaller than New Jersey. 70% of the population is between 15-64yrs of age - out of that - how many own a computer? If we assumed 50% of those did and 50% of those used Firefox - we're looking at roughly 350,000 people. That's quite a lot of users.

The only downside is they have a negative population growth (like much of Europe) - meaning that more people are dying than are being born. :(

I think it works the otherway around as well. Ive installed Firefox, which i downloaded once, to 3 other machines.

Yes I too have one downloaded copy, which I've installed on probably a couple of dozen machines. Of those couple of dozen users, probably three quarters or more use it almost exclusively and prefer it to IE.