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Mozilla: 1.6 million downloads and counting

By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews

June 17, 2008, 7:17 PM

Early Tuesday evening, the Mozilla organization gave BetaNews an update on its quest to have posted the single most downloaded (tracked) software item in a single day, having exceeded Firefox 2's single-day mark in just five hours' time.

As BetaNews confirmed this afternoon, the worldwide usage share of all Web browsers declaring themselves as Firefox 3.0 in HTTP requests, catapulted by 265% between 11:00 am and 6:00 pm EDT today, according to independent data compiled live by analysis firm Net Applications, from 0.96% to 2.54%. That means nearly one Web browser in 40 worldwide is using Firefox 3, as of Tuesday evening.

However, another analysis firm, Netcraft, confirmed what we were seeing ourselves at mid-afternoon: Servers for Mozilla.com and the SpreadFirefox.com marketing arm of Mozilla were sporadically unavailable for a period of time extending from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm EDT. By 7:15, however, both appeared to be operational; and a Mozilla spokesperson told us "they are all up now and serving a tremendous amount of traffic and downloads."

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By ir0nw0lf

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 10:13 AM

http://downloadcounter.sj.mozilla.com/

Download counter, showing ~6.9 million as of this post, ~6,200/min!

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 10:39 AM

When that counter first started (not the official counter, AFAIK), it was getting ~15k/min.

Score: 0

By orizng

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 7:54 AM

>5m already

Score: 0

By orizng

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 8:03 AM

6 million

Score: 0

By Diam0nd

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 7:50 AM

Opera > *

Score: 0

By Daddy_Spank

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 6:19 AM

Since they are trying to set a world record, I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the previous record was...?

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 6:43 AM

There wasn't one.

They could have had 6 downloaders and still set the world record.

Score: 0

By zenarcher

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 12:45 PM

That's probably why they stated that they were trying to "set" a record, rather than "break" a record. Any record has to begin somewhere.

Score: 0

By Daddy_Spank

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 10:56 AM

Yeah... kind of my point :)

Score: 0

By ajayseo

edited Jun 20, 2008 - 7:42 AM

We are also the user of Firefox and the new version is more faster than the old one.

http://www.maharashtradi...com/busby-seo-challenge/

Score: 0

By leoz_99

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 8:42 PM

Excellent Firefox 3.0. I've tested it with my javascript. It's about double faster than Firefox 2.0 and IE 7.0.
Great work! Thank you and kudos to the Firefox 3.0 team!

Score: 0

By cyrus7

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 11:23 PM

mozilla.com is down again. :-P
Loading...
infinitely...

Score: 0

By AsianAngel

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 11:18 PM

Go Firefox!! Woohoo!! ^__^

Score: 0

By Leonard Ryan

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 10:05 PM

Love it! Fast, simple. I really enjoy reading the newspapers and page zoom which does everything, text and pictures, makes it a pleasure. Oh, so fast and crisp. Thank you Mozilla people worldwide.

Score: 0

By DakotaSunRunner

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 9:26 PM

LOL, the way Mozilla is acting and some of the people on here, you would think God just spoke to the nations. It is a browser, not a matter of life and death, this is turning out to be such a farce over software..

Score: 0

By ostrakon

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 10:34 PM

Hey, Dakota! Welcome back! I don't mind the trolling, as it entertains me.

It's a fair assumption that if the title of the thread is something about a prominent piece of software setting a record, that many fans are gonna come comment about it. I really hate to point out the bleeding obvious, you being a well-established internet user and all, but your comments are akin to cursing a lit stove burner that you knowingly put your hand on, for being lit.

That you don't care is none of our concern (other to post replies to your comments), and since it seems as though you don't care you could always (you should sit down for this) GTFO, just as PC_Tool kindly suggests.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 10:38 AM

*laughs*

here's a thunk:

Don't want to see people discussing a browser?

GTFO

Seems pretty straight-forward and logical. People tend to avoid things they dislike. Are you dense, or just trolling?

(That was rhetorical, we all know you're trolling)

Score: 0

By hoogabooga

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 8:51 PM

On Tiger after upgrade from 2.0 to new 3.0 Firefox on start was not responding. Tossed prefs .plist and everything was fine. 3.0 does seem faster than 2.0 on most everything.

Score: 0

By jduraes

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 2:35 AM

where is that located? could not find it on my system and I too find that after upgrading it takes forever for FF3 to load up.

Score: 0

By pc_creator

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 8:51 PM

WOOOHOOO!!! go Mozilla! hopefully, with all the Hype, Mozilla will be used on 1 in 5 or more by months end! Down with Slow, unreliable, Buggy IE7!!!!!

Score: 0

By artfuldodga

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 9:23 PM

and Safari, and Opera, Flock.. etc =P
FF3 FTW.

Score: 0

By Beekeeper60

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 8:41 PM

I've used Firefox and Thunderbird for 5 months now without a single hitch. Nothing has gone wrong.

Score: 0

By STruC

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 8:29 PM

Nice! I'm starting to like firefox even more with "fast dial" add-on. Set my homepage to fastdial and NICE!

Score: 0

By feystorm

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 8:20 PM

I contributed one hit to their download count for firefox 3, and then within a few minutes contributed a hit to their download of firefox 2.

I like my browser efficient and slim, the new firefox is neither compared to the previous one.

Score: 0

By ostrakon

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 8:30 PM

While lesser weight and efficiency may be a preference of yours, the average new system sold these days can more than easily support the requirements of the latest version. Sparing 20-30 megs of program memory footprint is akin to worrying about where to safely empty a glass a water in the Atlantic.

Score: 0

By feystorm

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 11:04 PM

I wasnt referring to computing efficiency, but usability efficiency.
If I wanted computing efficiency I'd stick with IE6

Score: 0

By ostrakon

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 10:55 PM

With your clarification, I will ask the same question as PC_Tool: How has usability suffered? I can still enter URLs in the address bar, and pages load fully, faster (indicating here an *increase* in efficiency). The shortcut bar is there, like it was last time. The drop-down menu on the URL bar adds but a few more lines of information to URL history.

In fact, the de facto install of 3, with the possible exception of a larger "back" button, is, to me, identical to that of the FF 2 de facto install. (The back button is merely cosmetic, but ergonomics experts might argue its efficiency due to its larger size.)

Dictionary.com defines efficiency as the ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort, and given that I could access that very site faster just by entering "diction" into the URL bar, FF 3 is *more* efficient for me than the previous version.

That being said, how has your usability efficiency suffered while having used FF 3 for what was it, five minutes? Other than the previously mentioned example, it would take me a great deal longer than five minutes to determine accurately whether version 3 is a detriment to my usability, but you may be able to provide a view point which I have yet to consider.

So again, how had your efficiency suffered?

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 10:36 AM

How has usability suffered in 3.0?

Score: 0

By ostrakon

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 10:56 PM

Must you really be so damn concise? =-)

Score: 0

By iamtux

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 8:15 PM

Sweet! Go Firefox!

Score: 0

By dikbozo

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 7:51 PM

By 7:50 P.M., total over 2 million.

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 7:37 PM

Now does that count all the failed attempts that blew up in the middle because the servers were c***ed up and had to be restarted? I am quite sure (read: hope) Mozilla will properly document how this is being measured.

Score: 0

By orizng

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 7:46 PM

no, it has to be a full package, partial download does not count.

Score: 0

By ghostface147

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 7:36 PM

Firefox crashes on a regular basis on my MacBook Pro 10.5.3. I will be staying away from it. The Safari 4 developer preview is more stable on my machine than Firefox 3. Garbage I say!

Score: 0

By bousozoku

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 1:58 AM

Awww, you shouldn't call Safari garbage. It's not that bad. ;-)

I've been using nightly builds of Firefox 3 for months. It's fine.

Delete the .plist file first. If not that, then verify permissions.

Score: 0

By EricTetz

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 8:25 PM

"Firefox crashes on a regular basis on my MacBook Pro 10.5.3."

Since when did anything crash on a Mac?! I thought His Holyness (Steve Jobs) anointed each one with blessed oils to ensure flawless operation?

Anyhoo, go Firefox!

Score: 0

By ostrakon

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 8:20 PM

Like Morsel said, do a check. Runs on my iMac with no issues. Then again, you may be the exception that proves the rule.

Score: 0

By Morsel

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 7:46 PM

Dude, do a Verify Disk or something cuz Firefox 3 runs like a charm on my Mac Pro, both under OS X and XP. Actually, I haven't seen anything wrong with it since Beta 1.

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 7:38 PM

Suggest you get a Windows based PC (any version...)

Score: 0

By ostrakon

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 8:23 PM

Read his post again. He says the issue's with the program, not the OS. If he moves over to Windows, everything will crash.

Score: 0

By cactua2872

edited Jun 17, 2008 - 10:33 PM

He won't have anything to move since they don't make any software for the mac! XD

Score: 0

By ostrakon

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 11:01 PM

That being the case, what software is not made for the Mac, that should be? Every program i used when I was a PC user, I have on my Mac, and many times those programs are cheaper or free.

Score: 0

By Secret Agent Man

posted Jun 17, 2008 - 10:03 PM

Yeah, because on a Mac "it just works."

Score: 0

By ostrakon

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 11:02 PM

And given my experience with Apple this far, the phrase rings true!

Score: 0

By testman

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 9:02 AM

Clearly not in this case!

Score: 0

By ostrakon

posted Jun 18, 2008 - 11:03 PM

I'll happily take exceptions that prove the rule.

Score: 0

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