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Posted on 10/19/2005 8:13:16 PM PDT by Panerai
st shy of Firefox's first birthday party, the Mozilla Foundation celebrated the 100 millionth download of its Web browser Wednesday.
Mozilla has seen steady adoption of its browser since its release last November. After a somewhat higher download rate immediately following its release, the browser has settled into between 200,000 and 300,000 downloads a day, said Asa Dotzler, the Mozilla liaison to the SpreadFirefox community.
"This is a great milestone. Our massive, worldwide community of grassroots marketers and users--not to mention the developers--have helped to put out a product that's really kicking butt," he said.
Firefox has enjoyed an enthusiastic user base the likes of which few companies in the tech industry experience. Thousands of volunteers help spread the word about the browser, participate in free support forums and discussion lists, and scour its code for flaws.
But the browser hasn't been without its problems. The number of reported security holes in Firefox continues to grow, and Symantec recently released a hotly contested report claiming that Mozilla browsers saw more reported vulnerabilities than Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the first half of 2005. In what could be construed as a shift in attitude toward the browser, its marketing Web site, SpreadFirefox.com, was brought down by hackers just last week.
However, the open nature of the Mozilla browsers allows the group to respond to new security threats quickly, and these developments haven't stunted adoption. If anything, Dotzler said, the company has seen a slight uptick in the past two months, which he attributed to new interest in other browsers and a renewed buzz surrounding the upcoming Firefox 1.5 release. If announcements of new security issues affected consumer adoption, it did so in both directions, Dotzler said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.com ...
Impressive, despite the tremendous counting errors involved.
I love Firefox. The guy who created it should have charged $5 a download. He'd be a millionaire now.
Well, since they keep releasing new versions, and I know I've downloaded at least seven of them, the download count certainly doesn't equal the user count. A nice try, though. ;)
I've been using Firefox for almost a year and despite all the reports of security problems, I really like Firefox, and will continue to use it
I downloaded Firefox today . . . what do I win?
I keep having popups that there are new versions, but I am getting annoyed at having to reinstall all the extensions etc. so I have just stopped for now.
I have downloaded it 3 times, and I rarely use it. I do think it is pretty cool, and have recommended that we QA test our web apps with IE and Firefox. No need to waste time with the older Netscape versions.
I've had far fewer "security" issues with firefox than with IE.
I use Firefox 99% of the time. The only thing I dont like is the bookmark system. Other than that, I get less error with Firefox than IE.
Before I switched to firefox, I only ran I.E. with activeX set to either disabled or 'prompt'. It made surfing more of a hassle, but it was the only way I'd surf with I.E.
Whatever security issues firefox may have, they're usually fixed within days and relatively minor compared to the huge, gaping holes in IE.
I plan to give Firefox a try next week.
I've read it's faster and better than IE. Is that true?
(Sorry, I can't reply to any comments until morning because the wife just called from the bedroom and she needs a massage :-) )
Firefox will have its share. As does Linux and other such distros. There's nothing like an illusion of invulnerability to breed whole populations of lazy users that don't think they need to keep up with regular patches.
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Me too.
You shouldn't have to reinstall extensions. If they are compatible with the new version, and most of them are, there shouldn't be a problem. The profile and installed extensions are kept in another folder so that they're not wiped out when the old copy of the browser is uninstalled. i've always downloaded the extensions, and kept copies of them in a separate file.
i don't know for certain, but i believe that one no longer needs to remove the previous version to upgrade to the new one.
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