Firefox Reaches 10 Million Downloads 600
Samhain138 writes "It seems like Firefox has finally reached 10 million downloads, just a bit over a month after Firefox 1.0 was released. Congratulations!" My favorite extensions (not all of which worked when 1.0 first came out) are all working happily now, too; the latest nightly has been working flawlessly for me all of today.
Taking it back (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Taking it back (Score:5, Interesting)
No, the work's not over yet, and I think it's time to focus attention on Thunderbird, because Outlook Express is also a security risk. Just replacing IE on a machine won't be enough, in my opinion.
Now, I've not had as good an experience with Thunderbird as with Firefox, so that's a problem. Large message databases that open very quickly with OE take on the order of 10-15 seconds with Thunderbird 1.0, which is a significant difference. That could give newbies a bad impression of TB, even though feature-wise it's way ahead of OE.
EricJavaScript is not Java [ericgiguere.com]
Re:Taking it back (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Taking it back (Score:4, Insightful)
With a DB you have fast access, and compression capabilities, but its no longer human readable.
Even if you index and mbox i think you are still going to get a lag reading a large text file.
Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
Everyone did. My site is as far from a tech-oriented site, and from the past few months of observation, Firefox has increase from ~9% of total visitor browser usage to the current 25+%.
Does MS care? (Score:3, Interesting)
Other then ASP.Net's smart navigation feature, MS would lose very little if everybody switched to Firefox.
Re:Does MS care? (Score:3, Interesting)
MS could potentially lose everything.
Firefox (gecko) is an OS-independent platform for application development. We're already seeing some fairly sophisticated apps being developed using the browser as the platform (Gmail and Flickr for example), and that trend will take off if Firefox (and technology like Xforms) reaches critical mass. Microsoft could find themselves in a situation where almost all new software development for the desktop
Re:Does MS care? (Score:3)
But those hardcore techs(XUL, XPCOM, etc... for Moz, and the ones you mentioned for IE) just rock for dev
Re:Does MS care? (Score:3, Interesting)
--jeff++
Not always (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, suppose you had
Your average (read, doesn't know what he's doing) web dev could get at that name field by using
This javascript will work in IE, but in order to get it to work under FireFox, you have to reference the field properly:
IE a
Re:Great! (Score:2)
The way I see it is this: one person's fear is another's excitement.
Re:Great! (Score:2, Informative)
Safari uses a tweaked version of the rendering engine from konqueror, not gecko.
Re:Great! (Score:2, Informative)
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/XX (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/YY
Re:Great! (Score:3, Informative)
Or do you think IE must be copied from netscape since it's UA is "Mozilla/4.0 (compatiable...)"
Rollover (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Rollover (Score:2)
Re:Rollover (Score:2)
It's just funny to me... (Score:5, Funny)
how something that used to have updates every three to four months now causes people to wet their pants like this: "the latest nightly has been working flawlessly for me all of today."
I mean, don't you all have something serious to occupy your time with? Like Half-Life 2 patches? Or writing the walkthrough?
Or, something?
Re:It's just funny to me... (Score:3, Informative)
Also, there's an implied "and counting" there since it would be a little hard for the latest nightly to have been running for much longer than a day.
Re:It's just funny to me... (Score:4, Interesting)
no, AC, it's not a "pure troll" - I don't do "pure troll." I might, at times, speak some vague dialect of troll. But this was not one of those times.
I was being serious.
Ten million downloads is impressive. And it is nice to think that people might finally be looking at non-Microsoft ways of using the Web and Net. That's wonderful. But shit, it's been over three years since I was using Nightly Builds of anything. If shit ain't working by now...it probably isn't worth working on.
Ah, now that was a wee bit offsides, now wasn't it? A bit trollish?
Still, the more trollish posts are the "none of this matters! IE still 0wnZ the m0z!" Go flame them, Cowboy. And maybe even put some of your precious Karma at risk to do it.
My post is based on ten years worth of waiting on Netscape updates. I remember being excited by 2.0. Those were the days. This is just candy for hyperactive neo-nerds of the new century. Fuck 'em. Call me at the major release dates and don't give me a shitty product, ok?
Adblock (Score:2, Informative)
10 million enlightened folks (Score:2, Funny)
I also hope, the firefox/mozilla team does not rest on its laurels, and create new features and innovations which can be used as the basis for the next generation of web applications (the last ones were when there was a competetion of sorts between IE and NS)
Re: 10 million enlightened folks (Score:5, Insightful)
No you don't. You need to keep up with this momentum to make Firefox a standard browser.
Make anything the one and only standard, and you're back to a monoculture, with all the potential problems that embodies. (Yes, I know that Firefox would by its nature be a much more benign monoculture, but that wouldn't prevent those problems.)
Firefox is a great app, and I'm very pleased for its success, but it's not The One True Browser. Instead, it's the browser that's good enough to show that there's a whole family of True Browsers, and that once people start coding to standards we all benefit, whether we user Firefox, Camino, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, OmniWeb, Lynx, or whatever.
Please don't get all arrogant and monopolistic now!
Re: 10 million enlightened folks (Score:3, Insightful)
its nice... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:its nice... (Score:2)
I don't know what you are doing, but I haven't seen firefox crash in several months.
I find that Firefox load very quickly, expecially when compared to other third party apps running on a windows pc.
Tools-->Options-->Downloads-->File Types. Make sure that the media play of you
Re:its nice... (Score:3, Interesting)
IE IS DEAD! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:IE IS DEAD! (Score:5, Insightful)
Total time to develop website - 1 week. Total time to hack the CSS/HTML about to get it working in at least a reasonable number of IE varients - five weeks and counting... Seeing Firefox stomp on IE's marketshare - priceless! To develop a standards compliant website, there's open source, for anything else there's Microsoft...
Re:IE IS DEAD! (Score:3, Insightful)
Provided that you only use those bits of CSS that IE actually does right, which is a fair amount to be fair, then it probably is. The same holds true for all the other rendering engines of course, each has their own quirks and issues, but at least they are getting stomped on with each successive release. Unless Microsoft changes its plans again (very possible) we're not likely to see much improvement
well the statistics are flawed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well the statistics are flawed (Score:5, Insightful)
Even so, I'd say it's pretty certain that the total number of people using Firefox v1.0 on a regular basis is *much* higher than 10m, and still growing...
Re:well the statistics are flawed (Score:2)
The OEMs have shipped tens of millions of XP systems since August with IE 6-SP2 as the default.
Despite all the fuss and fume on Slashdot, the rollout of SP2 has gone pretty well. I'd not be greatly surprised to see Firefox stall out at about it's current market share.
Re:well the statistics are flawed (Score:2)
Duh.
Including... (Score:3, Informative)
Three copies for me, one for each of my systems. Unfortunately still have to use IE at work, but working on that. :(.
Before Firefox, I would routinely, between Ad-Aware and Spybot, be cleaning up 50-100 spyware/adware infections a week between the machines. (This was with IE set to high security.) After switching to Firefox, the highest weekly total (between all the systems) has been five.
Firefox typically opens within a couple seconds of clicking whatever needs to use it. I routinely had IE take half a minute. If I needed any proof that Firefox is a superior, faster, more secure browser, this has certainly been it. I'll never use IE again.
Re:Including... (Score:2)
As long have enough quota space at work, you should be able to run firefox. You don't need to run the installer - just unpack the
zip file in your home dir...
from here [207.200.85.49].
Re:Including... (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, I use Firefox as my main browser on Windows, OSX and Linux. I rarely use IE on Windows for any reason any more, BUT it launches instantly when I do use it. This is much faster than Firefox, and understandable since much of it is already loaded after bootup. If you really were waiting for 30 seconds for IE to come up, then something is seriously screwed up on your system...
Ditto. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Including... (Score:2)
Because you might be using web applications that make use of ActiveX controls or have web pages that use other IE-specific features. If you've built an entire corporate infrastructure using IE, you might be tied to IE for a while.
EricHow to detect Internet Explorer [ericgiguere.com]
Re:Including... (Score:2)
Oh, technically, I could install it quite easily. I have admin rights to that system. However, I would not have to worry about using -any- system at work shortly thereafter, since, for one, our POS system currently relies on connecting through an ActiveX interface, and, secondly, my boss gets pissy if I change -anything- on the system unless it is obviously and totally broken.
So, short answer is, 1, we're tied to it, for now, and 2, I would prefer to use IE at work then have no work.
Re:Including... (Score:2)
Sshhhh, dammit, you said you wouldn't tell everyone!
I mean...erm...lies, all of it!
Re:Including... (Score:2)
...
For the sake of clarity, I will not use IE again, when I will not get fired for not doing so. Happy now?
SessionSaver (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:SessionSaver (Score:2)
Re:Tabbrowser Extensions (Score:3, Insightful)
Downloads of what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Downloads of what? (Score:2)
what still is buggy (in Mac version)... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:what still is buggy (in Mac version)... (Score:2)
Re:what still is buggy (in Mac version)... (Score:3, Interesting)
Is Firefox all that good? (Score:2, Insightful)
I didn't have any of these problems on Linux. I am not sure if it is Firefox or it's extensions or plugins.
Re:Is Firefox all that good? (Score:2)
Re:Is Firefox all that good? (Score:2)
Re:Is Firefox all that good? (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the person was experiencing major slowdown to the point of hangs with firefox killed. If he really killed firefox, then how is it a problem with firefox, unless he runs a crappy OS, such as win9x.
Besides, as for your bug, this is what is really driving me to find a smaller browser on my laptop:
220 MB and and high seek time, low transfer r
Re:Is Firefox all that good? (Score:2)
Re:Is Firefox all that good? (Score:2)
1.0, Bah that's old news (Score:2)
Not to mention the best benifit, 1.0+ renders slashdot correctly
Meanwhile at W3schools, things are moving... fast (Score:5, Informative)
See their statistics here [w3schools.com].
They include the December statistics, and it has already increased more than in the past month, and it's still only 12th of December...
It's interesting to compare to the usage in e.g. January 2004.
Of course, W3Schools is a web site not really representing the Internet population at large, but it is a community that consists of a whole lot of web masters teaching themselves to code for the web we'll see tomorrow. I hope these are signs of what to come and we'll have less incompatible web sites in the future.
2004 has truly been a year the Mozilla Foundation has been doing great, and it will be very interesting to see what will happen in 2005!
Re:Meanwhile at W3schools, things are moving... fa (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, I'm bored and have a spreadsheet to hand, so I've dropped the data into a spreadsheet, generated a graph and added an exponential trendline to Mozilla. It tracks the recorded data quite nicely from January 2002 through to July 2004 at which point the recorded data actually starts to climb increasingly *above* the curve. Assuming that the current momentum is maintained, the trend line shows Mozilla passing 50% of total browser share aroun
Re:Meanwhile at W3schools, things are moving... fa (Score:3, Insightful)
MS has given up on IE. Someone is going to come up with the killer extension to Firefox and then it will gain even more momentum. Tabbed windows was a great start. At first I thought it was a stupid idea, and then I tried it and realized how wrong I was. IE hasn't
The real question is... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The real question is... (Score:2, Funny)
Whoops that was me (Score:5, Funny)
I've been trying to download it on a crappy dialup connection. Sorry, sorry.
Some Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Some Perspective (Score:2)
That's because most Linux GAIM users have it bundled with their Linux distribution, or download it from their package manager instead of through SourceForge.
Most Windows users, quite frankly, will use the official client, myself included. Somehow I feel that the official client will work better with the AIM servers than GAIM - its innate/"gut feeling"; don't bother trying to convince me otherwise. I'm glad to use GAIM when on Linux, but AIM feels better
While on the topic of extensions... (Score:2)
AI Roboform is somehow screwing up with Firefox.
Google Suggest (Score:5, Informative)
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=182
i see some problems with it but it has potential..
Firefox is great! (Score:3, Informative)
I really wish that the Extension Room [mozdev.org] was more carefully maintained though. As an example, I looked at the RSS extensions recently, and found that 2 out of 3 did not work. One was even version 0.0.1! With extensions that can't install, or even worse, cause problems, it really tarnishes the quality of the work that went into Firefox itself.
Stop Supporting IE (Score:2, Funny)
All of my friends who want free tech support from me know that if they use IE, they get no sympathy from me.
None of the websites that I develop personally are tested with IE, they get a small message saying "this site has not been tested with Internet Explorer, and may not work as expected. If you want to be sure you are getting the
Download Counter (Score:2)
Does FireFox send information when it is installed, or is it just through the Mozilla website? If the latter, then it wouldn't help for organisations that download a single copy and distribute, or downloads from mirrors (such as the default for Gentoo using emerge).
Nightlies are currently unstable (Score:4, Informative)
I fixed the Internet for you .... (Score:2, Interesting)
Where can I get a Glibc 2.2 Build? (Score:3, Insightful)
As a side note, I find it pretty annoying that I'm getting left behind with my RH 7.3 system. I was getting by ok building
Re:Where can I get a Glibc 2.2 Build? (Score:3, Insightful)
make
First, there's no doubt in my mind that I've been coding C probably longer than you've been alive (and I'm not suggesting that I'm old).
Second, I just stated that I have been building
Third, do you really expect people to upgr
Re:Where can I get a Glibc 2.2 Build? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where can I get a Glibc 2.2 Build? (Score:3, Informative)
Since gnu c/C++ did not do this that well until recently, all unix programs typically static link to a library or dependancy.
Change a library or version and BAM! Signal 11 error or some other message appears about a missing dependancy.
The key is to include the old libraries and programs and have the kernel link it to the correct ones at compile time.
This is how Solaris and the BSD's to a limited extence work. They just use
What the failed to mention was... (Score:2, Funny)
porn - why firefox will take market share (Score:5, Funny)
But where it really shines is for surfing porn (or so I'm told). None of those dang active-x controls, and it handles the pop-ups better.
don't forget why VHS won over Beta...
Keep discovering new great things about Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
Open in Tabs. Make a bookmark folder of the websites you want to be open when you sit down and start browsing. When opening that folder the Bookmarks menu, use the last entry -- "Open In Tabs" -- and go get your coffee. When you come back, the browser is ready: All the sites are nicley pre-loaded in tabs.
RSS Feeds. If you haven't tried this yet, do yourself a favour and do so. For those clueless people like me, what you do is click the little RSS button on the bottom right of the browser, which creates a new bookmark folder. Inside that folder, the links to the stories of the day are created automatically for that site.
Yeah, I know, you've been doing this for ever, what's next, Nice2Cats will discover these things called fax machines. But for slow people like me, this is just awesome. Combine this with the adblock extension, and there is no way in hell IE can compete anymore.
Firefox still has one major issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong, I love my firefox but it's annoying as hell to constantly find out that the reason my computer has been running so slow for the past 5 minutes or the reason this game i launched is giving me 10 fps is because firefox did it again (and again, and again...like the duracell rabbit)
I'm not the only one complaining about this and I 'm still waiting for a fix. (amd64 3200+, 1 gb ram)
Re:Firefox still has one major issue (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So. (Score:2, Insightful)
so. your point?
Re:So. (Score:2)
Re:So. (Score:2)
Re:New York Times Advertisement? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:New York Times Advertisement? (Score:2)
On the same day granny gets her new tri-focals and can read your name without mistaking it for an obituary. But by then she will be the only one who cares.
Re:New York Times Advertisement? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New York Times Advertisement? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New York Times Advertisement? (Score:3, Funny)
Dunno, but are you sure that's hyphenated?
Re:New York Times Advertisement? (Score:5, Funny)
loves
should want
Re:New York Times Advertisement? (Score:2)
This got mentioned the other day [slashdot.org], too. I think it's the first time I've had any of my articles referenced multiple times in comments on different /. articles in such a short time.
Re:Not there yet... (Score:2)
So... pretty much the daily norm continued for the forseeable future? MSFT will be happy to comply.
Re:Not there yet... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, mileage may vary. In contrast, my non-geek website is showing IE's share down to about 85%, with Firefox up to 5.7% and Mozilla up to 3%. We get about 60,000 unique visitors a month, so I feel comfortable in using the log benchmarks (AWStats) as at least a semi-definitive source when I look at the browser stats these days. It's enough traffic to provide a significant data set.
Re:Not there yet... (Score:3, Informative)
Indeed. Looking at the stats for Stuff.co.nz [stuff.co.nz] - one of New Zealand's largest news sites - I see Firefox currently at around 8-9% and the total for all of Mozilla at around 13-14%. That's on traffic of around 7-8 million hits per day.
Not a geek site this one - Linux usage is around 1%.
Re:I'm stuck on Bio Chem - Help me geeks! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm stuck on Bio Chem - Help me geeks! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Monocultures are bad. (Score:2)
Re:3 copies here (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Firefox still needs work. (Score:3, Informative)