Its all over the blogosphere: 25,105,560 downloads in just 99 days! Even Scoble’s congratulated the project: “In just a few months your app has become one of the most used Windows applications in the world. My hat’s off to you!“
25 Million Firefox users
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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It’s amazing what people will do when they have a viable alternative too IE. Gosh soon people might actually believe there’s an alternative to “Windows” too…
PMSL 😉
downloads != users
I have downloaded Firefox 4 times. But I don’t use it! I still use Opera (after 3 days using Firefox)
And I have downloaded Firefox about 3 times in the last 99 days. I do use it, but I’m pretty sure I only count as one user, not three…
Of course not, but to deny any correllation is silly.
OT: why would you download it 4 times?
and of course the counter example is huge lans where only one download is made and multiple installs…
I downloaded it several times, for use on different computers or to have a different language version. It would be more interesting to see some market shares.
I downloaded it at work and have installed it on 20 or so PC’s.
I downloaded it for different PC’s … => I downloaded it 4 times…
OT: why would you download it 4 times?
Too many reasons, format HDD, new HDD or computer, cluster build for FreeBSD that download Firefox too many times, upgrade Firefox and more reasons.
I downloaded it once and installed on 2 computer (my + my gf’s) and gave out to friend.
I’ve never downloaded it from their website, but have been using it for a long time. It’s included in most distros.
In the last 99 days I have probably download it 4 times and I don’t use it that often.
I am sure many of them are the same users updating, reinstalling etc.
Still a big win for Firefox though.
What is cool about this number is that most of these are Windows users. Linux users would probably apt-get or yum install or already have it.
are browser usage statistics.
Yes,the number of downloads doesn’t equal to the number of users but it gives a rough estimation of userbase since there’s no way to actually measure it. So grow up and move on.
It’s difficult to quantify the number of users, because one may have downloaded it and never used it again. Others like myself have downloaded the Windows and Linux version and installed it on more than 20 clients computers. Also various Linux distros ship with firefox, so all those people who used the version from their distro probably don’t count in the download stats. Also there are people who pass on their copies to friends etc. Personally I think the number of users is probably more than the number of downloads.
Completely agreed that this could not be the real number. You have to take in count dynamic IP addresses, or addresses under VPN. This all leads to somewhat innacurate number, with off course people that did not find FireFox to their taste. I myself downloaded FF more than few times with each consecutive release and still can not find a reason to switch from Opera.
One other thing is that FF will come and comes with variuous magazine CD’s, so this would also affect the final number of people who are actually using FF
It is good though that finally there is some interest in other browsers other than IE.
OT: why would you download it 4 times?
Personally I’ve downloaded it 5 times, twice for my two machines at home and three times for my machines at work (I have a Windows, Mac, and FreeBSD system at work)
I also use Opera as my primary browser.
I’ve downloaded it once off the website and installed that on four machines. Three others have it installed via package manager in Linux and probably haven’t gone near their server.
This only covers about three users, but still it’s only one download.
All in all I think it’ll average out; some will download it more than once per user, some less. I prefer to focus on the fact that it’s been downloaded 25 million times; that’s a bloody impressive number and shows that the Firefox team have done a damn good job, regardless of whether there are 24 million people using it or 26.
Would be interested to know how many of those 25 million have been downloaded to somewhere at microsoft.com 😀
I’ve downloaded 1.0 once and put it on 6 computers at work.
At home I use both Opera and Firefox, with Opera set to block block ads, pics, javascript, etc. and Firefox only blocking popups and ads. It works out well to run both at the same time, using Opera to load pages very fast and securely, and FF to load pages where I need to have the extras.
Oh yeah, I happened to click on the Internet Explorer icon a few months ago, and it wanted to run the internet connection wizard! Funny that I’d never used IE in the 3 years that I’ve had this computer…
Number is simply nice. Every one know downloads doesnt equals to user. Users may be more or less! In company like us we download only once and use the same download with 42 people! We are all Linux users. Also most of the new linux dstros include latest version of firefox so those people dont download Firefox.
It will be interesting to see how many users switched from IE to firefox or Opera to Firefox on Windows platform. Linux users have very limited choice between brosers [ Netscape | Mozilla | Opera | Firefox ]
Translations are downloaded from other websites. For example. Nobody will install Firefox in Debian from the oficial website. They will use the automatic tool. The same can be said for lot of others Linux distributios.
And translations are sometimes in other pages. It is the case of the spanish version.
I will like to know how much people use Firefox on google.
i agree that browsers stats are much more interesting to see.. but of course, it depends a lot on the website content.
i manage the website of our students union at school, the school is equiped with lots of windows-only PCs, but in a few months the firefox stats have raised to 18% with Opera reaching almost 2%.
This article starts with mentioning about the blogosphere and links to a blog which I found interesting. Blog lines:
So, I’m gonna try to unplug all my blogs for a few days.
That should give you some time to go through the link blog
find some new bloggers that you like
that are cooking around the blogosphere right now.
Oh, my boss moved his blog
continues doing excellent blogging.
Why don’t you start a blog?
Blogging is quite addictive.
I’d be doing anything I could to get bloggers
just start a blog.
Now, do that for five of your favorite bloggers.
Need help finding five bloggers?
Read my link blog.
You might even start a blog
Don’t want to start your own blog?
Five bloggers is all it takes to spark something.
In fact, pitch five bloggers a day every day
“But don’t bloggers get mad at getting pitched?”
But, demonstrate you read our blogs
scripting this to 1,000 bloggers
we do compare with other bloggers behind the scenes
It is appreciated if you have your own blog.
Hey Martin Taylor, please don’t start a blog!
“get these guys to blog.”
Oh, I don’t want anyone else to blog.
understand the relationship-building power of blogs.
Don’t start a blog.
400 comments left over on the IE Blog yesterday?
I will go and blog about the exploding popularity of blogs now, thank you!
For the people saying how they downloaded more than once, there are also situations where someone downloads it once and then distributes it to a number of users (think linux distros, company it, university it, etc.). Really there’s no way to know how many people actually use firefox.
Also, on a firefox note, every site I use now works with firefox except for online billing with verizon wireless. wtf is wrong with them? Anyone else have success there? It’s lame that I have to boot to Windows to pay my bill.
i have downloaded firefox both for linux and win and in 2 languages. No problem though, firefox is great! I have downloaded thunderbird and the suite many times too, only sunbird is missing now :-). Go for 100.000.000 now!
While you guys are arguing about the value of stats, you’re missing something more interesting : the blog. You should read it. It’s funny, with a hint of bravado. Here is my favorite part :
“there’s a better browser available today, one that puts the power back in the hands of the users rather than the web badguy flavor of the month.”
I can’t comment on usage stats for every site, but at our site for the Privateer Remake, the stats are as follows:
Mozilla/Gecko Core 6585 46.68%
MSIE Core 5764 40.86%
Opera 866 6.14%
Other Browsers 825 5.85%
Netscape 65 0.46%
Mobile Browsers 1 0.01%
And by browser version:
MSIE 6 5252 37.23%
Firefox 1.x 4738 33.59%
Opera 7 854 6.05%
Mozilla 1.x 844 5.98%
Firefox 0.x 738 5.23%
Safari 404 2.86%
MSIE 5 362 2.57%
Konqueror 3 334 2.37%
Netscape 7 175 1.24%
Firefox is still second to Internet Explorer, but throw in Mozilla and Gecko takes the lead. I was rather surprised to see that
Digging a little deeper
If we look only at windows users,
52 percent of our visitors who use Windows use an MSIE core
39 percent of our visitors who use Windows use a Gecko core
So Gecko still has a bit to go to catch up on windows. All our *nix visitors make the difference in the overall stats
It shows how popular it is in comparison to other software programs. It isn’t a gague of users – a lot of people have said they have downloaded it multiple times – but it is still important. It is also important to note that many users who have downloaded Firefox aren’t counted in those statistics as they have downloaded it from other places – this is probably the most common method of distribution on Linux as most people use the built in package management tools to get them from their distribution provider and not Mozilla. It goes in both ways, but the number of additional downloads would be about equal across all programs so it is still important.
And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast firefox and thunderbird upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.
from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15
Its even more fun to type about:mozilla in IE.
“downloads != users ”
exactly. i downloaded it once and installed it on 5 machines for 5 different users
1 download = 5 firefox users
Nothing against Firefox, but I’m still finding Mozilla to be a wee bit more robust than anything else. (I’ve seen some sites that Moz handles fine that whack Firefox. It is a 1.0 release after all… Linux version’s mailto: link not yet working for example). You also get email, IRC and an HTML editor with Moz.
I’m expecting Firefox to rule soon, but I’m just kind of wondering why Mozilla never got this kind of attention. And in the linux /BSD world it was our standard browser for years, no? The windows flavour is still an excellect candidate IMHO
if you actually use everything in the mozilla suite, then its awsome. if you dont, then its alot of overhead for stuff you just dont use. also, the ui on firefox is extremely well thought out and designed. not to mention that there are many people who were around during the “browser wars”, and have very strong emotional responses to anything netscape.
anyways, theres many reasons, some good, some not so good.
not really sure how moz can rendor a page correctly, and ff bork it, as they use the same rendoring engine. is there anyone here who can answer that? does ff use a modified gecko, or is it pretty much the same thing as in seamonkey?
I have downloaded FireFox about 7 times in the last 3 months. And I only count as one user. I think the writer of this article is jumping the gun a little and when that happens it only leads to a misconception that can only hurt FireFox in the long run.
I’ve downloaded FireFox probably twice on my Windows box, once on my iBook and a couple of times in FreeBSD.
I personally think that the count of the same people downloading FireFox multiple times on the same machine, and the figure of how many times one person has downloaded it on more than one computer cancels each other out.
Non-savvy users nornally aren’t known to download an application many times (if at all). Mostly computer enthusiasts will be downloading it many times, and guess who has more than one computer entirely to himself? That’s right, Mr. Geek does.
although the download count doesnt equal the number of users if you compare Firefox’s download count to the download count of another browser then it will give u an indication of the browsers popularity, something which should be done straight away witht hese downlaod count stats but never is. one problem with this however is the fact that internet explorer is bundeled with windows so you cant really compare the stats
Some Linux users install FF via apt-get or something similar…so they don’t count.
Some Windoze users install FF via local unofficial mirrors…so they also don’t count.
Some more Windoze users install FF via bonus utility CDs coming w/ their favorite PC magazines…so they also don’t count.
Some users download FF multiple times in SAME IP ADDRESS, so their download count might not be counted. (hopely so.)
Of course, there’re some users out there who downloaded FF multiple times in SEVERAL DIFFERENT BOXES.
So, while number of downloads is not exactly same as number of actual users…they at least give people some idea of usage base of FF.
Warning!! Minor Trolling Ahead!!!!
I don’t like watching opera of any sorts.
I’ve downloaded it once, and I’ve installed it on several machines. What’s your point?
IMHO: The tally being multiple (or single) downloads still show there is alot of interest and that people are sharing it and going back to snag it again just in case.
Been a long time user since the FireBird days.Merchandise looks nice too.Trying to get the fox for a girlfriend of mines..
25 million downloads doesn’t mean 25 million users. I’ve personally downloaded it at least 10x and after each test I’ve stop using it. Of all the people I’ve downloaded it and showed it to, not one wanted to use it. That counts as at least two dozen more attempts. So count me as about 30 downloads with 0 sustained usage.
And since Firefox is also available for Linux and Mac OS, what percentage of the total downloads have been for those two platforms?
Nothing beats skewing statistics huh? 25 million downloads does not mean 25 million IE switchers on Windows.
I’m sure google would know what the usage stats are, as the default webpage is customised google page for firefox. When firefox loads first time it will go to that page. It’s not the bees knees of stats but as they are one of the most visited sites on the internet, I’m sure they have a farily big idea of the true number of users.Google have logs of this stuff, so I’m just wondering what they are doing with all the information.
So come on google cough up the stats
Yes,the number of downloads doesn’t equal to the number of users but it gives a rough estimation of userbase since there’s no way to actually measure it. So grow up and move on.
The title of this news bit is “25 Million Firefox users.” Regardless of whether or not you think we need to “move on,” the title is very misleading and just plain incorrect. We have every right to correct this person. So perhaps if you aren’t happy with readers correcting incorrect news, you should “move on” and go read another thread.
I have a script that downloads FF.. Did I mention the script is forked about 50 times and running on 100 PCs over an OC-48 ?
I don’t have a ton of examples, by my University is currently rolling Firefox out across the whole campus network – and we have 26,000 undergrads and approximately 8,000 computers in labs on campus. That is 1 (or maybe two, for the Macs) download and 8,000 users. I think that cancels out a lot of you guys. I know a lot of other university’s are doing the same (Penn State, maybe? I think it was on /.)
I’ve downloaded it a few times and I wouldn’t consider myself a user. I use opera 95% of the time, with a bit of safari thrown in
I tried FF but ended up downloading and using Deepnet Exployer because it is morr friendly and easyer to install and use. Don’t have to problem of finding and loading various extensions and add ons. Plus I get all website to display properly.
http://www.deepnetexplorer.com try it you’ll like it!
I have downloaded Firefox about 10 times, and have installed it on well over 100 computers, including a terminal server which has about 200 users.
So it may not be precise, but I made up for all of you peoples.
As do installations. You can install on all the machines you like and in the end its meaningless unless the user sitting in front of the machine uses the software.
So get us some stats on usage. Until we see consistent, measurable, and reputable data that can be duplicated, this is all marketing hogwash. I have a Mac Mini Super Computer I’ll sell you too.
I downloaded it and am using Opera to post this message.
…So are how many people out of the 25 M ?
Leo.
Its easy to see that some people download multiple times, others download it but don’t use it.
However, I have downloaded it once at home and that means two users in two different machines (me and my sister), and I also downloaded it once at work, but that means dozens of users in dozens of different machines.
We also have to factor in the Linux distributions, which don’t add anything to the download counts, installs from “shareware” DVDs in magazines, etc.
In the end, 25 million downloads doesn’t show the real numbers, but gets really close.
And installed it over 400 times.
As many people have said, I’ve downloaded firefox a few times but I sitll use opera 99% of the time. (I use ff to get to my gmail.. and thats it..)
Moz 1.8 has a newer Gecko than Firefox 1.0 – if you got a Firefox nightly, rendering would be the same. They’re based on the same rendering engines, it’s just that since the release cycles don’t match, one will have a newer version at any given time. (When FF 1.1 comes out, it’ll probably render better than the current stable Moz).
As for hype – well, Moz is huge, slow, ugly and unwieldy. That’s why it never got any hype. Oh, and BTW, I don’t know what I do different from you, but my mailto: works fine. Maybe I set it up somewhere and forgot.
For some balance – I have down loaded it about 10 times and installled it on about 45 computers. So yes you cant tell who is using it from down loads – but yes it is being used alot. Many sites catering to savy and heavy users report that Firefox use now excedes 20%. Though many sites for casual users tend to be less than 10% Firefox trafic.
I think I’ve downloaded it 10 times and installed it on over 100 computers. It goes to show you that statistics are statistics.
We downloaded *ONE COPY* at our University’s Systems Office and mass-produced 6,000 copies as part of a campus “IT survival kit” for our residents.
I realize this may not be the typical situation… but, in our case, 1 download equaled 6,000 distributions of the program.
There are counterbalances… so, it’s really hard to say how many users there actually are.
I wonder if those people who are so interested in how large a marketshare what they use has, are equally disinterested in having a sense of unique identity and doing things for individual satisfaction.
Oh yeah, I happened to click on the Internet Explorer icon a few months ago, and it wanted to run the internet connection wizard! Funny that I’d never used IE in the 3 years that I’ve had this computer…
Scarier that you’ve never visited Windows Update…
You probably haven’t figured it out, but that program looks like it’s just a wrapper to IE’s engine. So you still get broken rendering and security holes.
I’ll pass, thanks…
I’ve downloaded a couple of versions of Firefox to several computers; but I haven’t installed it yet. However, it’s not the acquisition of the Fox that will do your computer or you good, but the ripping out of IEx; and yes, it can be done. Do that, and you’ll have something to sing about.
I’ve been with Opera since 3.6x, now have 7.11, and there is nothing, NOTHING, better. Shoot, even O 3.62 is better than any ver of IE.
Just thought I’d chime in here and say I agree, the number of dowloads doesn’t necessarily equal the number of users. I mean, I know a guy who downloaded Windows once and installed it on three different comuputers, whereas I’ve downloaded it like twelve time just for the hell of it…I should probably delete those, I’m running out of hard drive space.
Isn’t this a great conversation?
I like a lot this bowser. I downloaded in several languages and linux version also.
I only miss the save page as a single file like IE, hope that next version of FF have this option, one click and voilá the file opens in a single file (html+images).
I downloaded it several times, and I use it to test my web pages only. For the rest I use Opera.
I only miss the save page as a single file like IE, hope that next version of FF have this option, one click and voilá the file opens in a single file (html+images).
It is available on Linux version Firefox 1.0 and should be on Windows’ as well. File–>Save Page As…
I tried Firefox but always go back to the Mozilla Suite. Firefox just doesn’t do everything I want and it’s a bit buggy on cirtian sites I frequent.
I’m not saying there’s anything bad about it, It’s just not for me.
What’s up with all the “me too” messages here ? In case you hadn’t notived this is Osnews not slashdot, you can reasonably assume most people here know that 25mil downloads != 25mil users. But it IS a lot, regardless of how many duplicate downloads there were – 25mil downloads registers you as a player, one of the big boys.
So then why is this news really relevant enough to be posted on osnews? Simple : this gives us ammunition to push Firefox in the workplace next time the boss bitches about some virus/worm on the loose. I mean I can just imagine PHBs everywhere thinking “25mil downloads? one of the most popular windows programs ? Why aren’t we using this yet ?” when they read this news
I decided to be contrary, and write this note with Konqueror 3.2. I have both Firefox and Mozilla’s Seamonkey. I also Purchased Opera 8 beta.
It is hard to emphasize the advantage that Firefox has over the other browsers, because of its use of extensions. Some key extensions (like Adblock) also run on Seamonkey, but Firefox’s entire interface is geared to these things.
I like Opera in many ways, but it falls down on certain Web sites (The Register comes to mind), and the complaints people have about Konqueror being too complex and too configurable applies to Opera in spades. In addition, the font rendering under Debian Linux leaves something to be desired.
What are some of the things I like about each: All are fast, but Opera is fastest on rendering. All do tabbed browsing well, but Seamonkey and Firefox with the Tabbed Browsing extension do best. Opera edges out Konqueror when it comes to quickly replacing a Web site’s style sheet with a user one. When it comes to page rendering, the Gecko based browsers win. Add the User Agent Switcher, and there are few sites that won’t work with Firefox.
A specific comment on speed. One poster complained about Seamonkey’s slow performance. That individual hasn’t used the browser in a while. It is actually quite nimble.
If I had to make a personal ranking of the browsers so far, it would go something like this:
1) Firefox
2) Konqueror
3) Seamonkey
4) Opera
I would be pretty happy with any of them.
…that some very gracious people deserivng of praise beyond all belief…..have remade Privateer.
I’ve been using Mozilla since the milestones….then I went back to NS 4. I used IE from versions 4.0 SP2 until Mozilla was in it’s .9 releases. I jumped ship then. I’ve kept IE up to date because it is a core program for Windows 2000 to function. I only use it when I use the MBSA. I download the hotfixes with Moz.
I use Mozilla on FreeBSD and on Windows 2000. Firefox is nice….but I prefer the suite. It’s just been with us longer as a usable platform. Anyway….enough typing. Now for some Privateer. = )
We’re rather more interested in the fact that wide take-up of a better browser will improve the support of popular websites for proper standards and non-IE browsers.
I wonder if those people who are so interested in how large a marketshare what they use has, are equally disinterested in having a sense of unique identity and doing things for individual satisfaction.
do you ever do this kind of “interesting” comments?
18 months ago two official sites of my university, one of them very important because it’s the site where we can check the exams and the thesis proposals weren’t working with mozilla, now they both work with firefox.
more marketshare, less incompatible sites: this is the situation, and this is the reason we mozilla/firefox users are happy.
I have trained my hamster to repeatedly download Firefox, just for the fun of it. It died after about 15,000,000 downloads. Poor thing. Hope PETA won’t find out.
“Scarier that you’ve never visited Windows Update…”
Well, it’s primarily a gaming system with win98, so I downloaded all the patches manually, and not from MS’s site.
Any Microsoft.com sites are 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file for me…
Besides, it’s on a dialup connection, firewalled, and scripting host, java, etc all turned off.
Never had a virus or spyware on this box, and I’m not excited about upgrading to MS’s spyware OS anyway…
Any Microsoft.com sites are 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file for me…
Never had a virus or spyware on this box, and I’m not excited about upgrading to MS’s spyware OS anyway…
Dude, you’ve got issues.
25 million downloads does not equate to 25 million users. My Grandma still thinks she has to download it everytime she uses the web. So, she accounts for at least 1.5 million of those downloads
I’ve downloaded and tried both Firefox for Linux and Windows.
When I have to use Windows, Firefox is my browser. When I use Linux, however, Opera is my choice. Regardless, both are much better than IE.
I’ll be conducting a workshop on Internet security soon for my community association. All participants will get a CD with the latest version of Firefox for Windows (and I will probably include a second CD with a live Linux distro, too)
why the heck would you end up downloading firefox more than once…
unless you have a completly different computer somewhere else. you should not have to download it more than once.
a little bit of orginization would help you guys out.
I have multiple computers at home and the download is so quick I don’t bother keeping a copy on my fileserver.
I also download nightlies, lots of them, and ocassionally I get sick of a certain bug so I migrate back to 1.0, which usuallly requires me to download it again.
Also I am at a University and on lab computers I really don’t care to use IE, so I download Firefox for each lab computer I’m at.
Overall, I’ve probably downloaded 1.0 around 20 times.
… to realize that bundling browser with OS does not kill competition on a browser market?
25 million downloads not enough? How about 100,000,000? What about 200,000,000?
I would love to see US government apologizes to Microsoft for trying to destroy it in the name of freedom of consumers.
Must be in the 6 o’clock news, after story about US government sending apologies to all countries it invaded in the last 50 years in the name of freedom of their citizens.
I’ve been using Firefox as my default browser in Windows for about a month now, and I really like it. You would think that IE would have tabbed browsing by now. But I guess that would expose more security holes. Thunderbird is not bad either.