So 82-year old are baking cookies and 11-year old are getting tattooed to promote a browser? This is a joke right, or are people really that stupid? I'm a NetCaptor man, but use FF when it feels good.

Who knows there are a lot of crazy people in the world.. A Firefox tatoo may atract attention ;)

Firefox is teh bomb.

Somebody set us up the bomb.

Ive found that without the current extension system, Firefox would have not much more to offer than IE. I use several very must have extensions that make whole browsing a lot easier.

Also im using FF "out of spite", if you will. IE has been sitting on its *** for too many years. Suddenly it started showing signs of life in the development when Firefox emerged.

IE 7 and tabbed browsing, anyone?

Microsoft can only blame them selfs for complete lack of interest in developing the most used browser in the universe. I doubt funds were the issue when deciding if they should have people designing and thinking better ways to make IE better.

Mystiqq, I agree with you 150%, Microsoft has been asleep for too long on IE... since they knew that they had the edge. That's why i'm glad that firefox has come in to give a buzz and a competition. Competition is always good for us. But I can say that firefox it's not as good as many claims.. Hopefully they'll keep the competition so they don't let Microsoft rest and they keep bringing updates and new versions of IE... but then again we'll have to wait for Longhorn for it's new technology on IE...

If everyone thinks that every download from their computer bloats the counter, then it doesn't make sense for firefox to be at only 50 million. Think about how many people worldwide use the internet, and if you believe that it's only 5 million people downloading it 10X over, something tells me the number would have been much higher by now.

I'm not one to defend or believe any statistics, and I'm sure there is some bloating, but whatever, I like the browser and still use IE for the active-x websites. What should impress people more is the timing of this article and the other one describing Mozilla's market share slowing up... Pretty coincidental?

25 million for FF 1.0
15 million for FF 1.01
10 million for FF 1.02
? million for FF 1.03
? million for FF 1.04
???,000 for FF 1.05

Not add to that all the folks whove gotten it on CD...

That'd be myself and those who've gotten it from me. I've alo been using the update feature, since it started working (1.01?) which doesn't count towards the "bloat" to which you are referring.

I downloaded firefox about 5 times. Every time i use it for a day and un-install it because I really think it is not that great a browser. Not to mention to upgrade to a new version of firefox is a new download count, which makes the stat bogus. Firefox doesn't show the css styles for links which is rather annoying. It takes about 10 full secods to start up for the first time, which IE never took. I simply use a wrapper for IE (Maxthon) and find it quite ok.

You've admitted to using the IE rendering engine, so let's not complain about Firefox and CSS, OK? :)

Seriously, if it wasn't doing something as simple as link styles, there's something wrong. With the page. Either that, or they're using IE-only code or something. (What pages are they, by the way?)

God forbid your beloved browser not be able to handle something! Or have a *Gasp* flaw *gasp*!!

No, RobertM's point was that Firefox can handle (lots) more CSS syntaxes that IE. IE, for the most part, can only handle the most basic types of CSS and supports hardly any CSS 3.

So PKKid's comment that he uses IE "because of CSS" is totally and utterly senseless :)

I develop web pages and wherever a CSS-decorated link appears differently between IE and Firefox, 99.99% of the time it's because a flat-out flaw in IE's CSS handling, so you end up having to write a workaround that displays the same in both.

Fair point about the number of downloads though. Though I've always thought it's fair to assume that the number of people who download the setup files say 5 times cancels out people like me who download it once and install it on 5 PCs ;)

If you don't like it why downloading it 5times?
"first time ... this browser is bad
later, second time ... really bad
again later, third time ... very very bad"
More than three time ... I think that the bad is not the browser but the user.

The reason Firefox takes longer to load than IE, is due to the fact that IE is integrated into the OS, and thus is practically already running when you boot your PC. Firefox has to load from scratch, so takes a little longer.

In addition, does IE offer ad-blocking? Even pop-up blocking (without SP2)? Download managers? Advanced cookie controls? Not to mention things like tabbed-browsing, 90% less spyware infections (average-joe-type user), etc .

Use IE if you like. I couldn't imagine going back to it again!

Actually, the 50,000,000 counter is probably low. They dont include downloads from places like Tucows, Download.com, etc. It also doesnt include downloads from sources like aptget, rpmdrake, etc (Linux distros that have it included).

They are only counting downloads that people get directly from their server, and not from any other source, so most likely its over 50mill.

First of all congatulations and a big thanks to developers, artists and everyone else who make it possible for us to use this awsome browsers. Firefox is simply the best. Fast, secure and a lot of very nice modern features. Extensions and themes are also a great thing. I don't even use anything else for browsing. Well from time to time I check out Opera which is also quite OK. Ie doesn't even come close to these two browsers.

personally I downloaded it 12 times already. but congratulations Mozilla looks like the fox is here to stay.

It may not be what people think.

http://poptech.blogspot....-update-conspiracy.html

give it up that guy is a jackball its still 50 million downloads if people didnt like it they wouldnt update it. nuff said

...unless of course they downloaded it, tried it and tossed it. There are a LOT of browser users out there. Some of these downloads will be repeats to see how the browser is doing. Some will be referrerals who may or may not like it and either keep using it or toss it. Some will be updates.

The most that can be said about this statistic of rather dubious informational value is that the browser is getting a lot of trials. Whether those trials remain users is anyone's guess.

Now of course, "The Faithful" (clouds part, trumpets sound and the self-styled "Army of Light" marches forth) will do everything in their power to discredit this line of reasoning and that of course is where the entertainment starts. However, the fact remains that this line of reasoning can't be refuted because there's really no way to find out.

Best to note the anouncement for what it actually is:

An Exercise In PR.

Exactly, downloads doesnt necessarily mean USERS. Not bad mouthing firefox, but the stats are kinda tainted. Now, let the flaming against me begin!

IMO they release the updates not to hype the download number but to preserve Firefox's perceived distinction of being a "secure" browser. After all, they'd never get people to switch from IE if Firefox had as many unpatched exploits **as IE** :D

Agree that a tiny patcher to patch only the updated files would be *far* more sensible tho.

PS gotta admit the current system works - only 4 (YES, FOUR) known unpatched exploits for FF atm : good page to track it here
http://secunia.com/product/4227/

I have to laugh at the whole "perceived" nonsense.

I have *NEVER* been hit with an IE exploit (I run Maxthon) and my job requires that I continuously visit "questionable" sites (I'm an IT Forensics analyst and part of my job is tracking and documenting inappropriate use of the Internet within my company as defined by company policy).

If anyone was going to get hit, it would be me.

In short, it's pretty much all hype, especially if you run an ad / popup blocker and anyone buying into the whole "secure" rubbish is basically being sold a wonderful bag of goods.

But Maxthon doesn't equal IE. Granted, it uses the IE rendering engine by default. (It can also use Gecko.)

In many ways, it's better than plain vanilla IE as far as security. It disables BHO automatically. Plus it uses its own implementation of SP2-like features, most likely sidestepping SP2's exploits, whatever they might be.

I tend to agree with you about the false bill of goods with FF, though. I wouldn't have prior to 2005; but, much to my dismay, what I predicted has come to pass. Selling FF on security has just proven to be tantamount to waving a red flag. Before all the hoopla of switching over to FF based on security reasons, I, for instance, never had a single ad popup. Not one. Now I seem to get atleast one a day. All the benefits of being an untargeted, obscure minority seem to be rapidly eroding.

Uh...

Tucows, Download.com...etc. None of these are added into the downloads from Mozilla. The actual number is probably much higher than 50 mil.

Using Firefox ase we speak ;)

I've been using it since v0.3 and I can safely say that I'm delighted.

Congrats Mozilla Foundation! I've been using Firefox since it was Firebird 0.7! Keep up the good work!

I'm happy for them really. Firefox has been my default browser for almost a year now and I love it. Even Thunderbird mail client is beautiful too.

Love the browser..If it wasn't for windows update, I wouldn't even use IE

lol. me too

me too.

ditto

Personally i'm a big fan of the themes... put Noia on here and i like it so much more than the default tan color that i got hooked...

almost dropped it from looks when i first tried until some friends told me you can get themes so it looks nicer...

as far as exploits, i've never been hit with any from IE or firefox that i haven't outright asked for (knowing full well not to click, but just too curious and then spending the time to clean up...)

:lol:

Welcome to the minority, my friend. Too few net users knwo what to expect when they click those lame, but all too enticing "shoot the monkey" banners...