Firefox passes five million download mark

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Firefox, Mozilla, IE

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Firefox browser passed the 5 million download mark on Monday, beating all previous records of a Mozilla-based browser, according to the Spread Firefox Web site.

The browser beat its initial goal of 1 million downloads four weeks ago and is still being downloaded at a rate of 125,000 per day, although one posting on the Web site expressed concerns that the rate of downloads appears to be tapering off.

David McGuinness, a Mozilla contributor, said that the interest in the browser has been sparked by problems with Microsoft Internet Explorer. "Firefox is increasingly becoming the browser of choice for people fed up with spyware and other internet annoyances," said McGuinness.

Mozilla developers expect even more interest in the browser once the final version of 1.0 comes out around 9 November, according to McGuinness.

James Governor, an analyst at Red Monk, said that it is not just Web users that are interested in Firefox. software vendors are also showing an interest. "For the last seven years ISVs generally supported IE only, now that’s changing," said Governor. "We are starting to see ISVs developing Web applications which support both IE and Firefox."

At the time of writing, Firefox had an 95 percent approval rating from ZDNet UK readers. You can download it and rate it yourself here.

Talkback

Maintaining a download rate of 125,000 a day is still impressive even if it is declining from the early days. Most Firefox fans would have updated to the new release within the first week or so, the fact that the rate is still high shows that a lot of new people are being told about Firefox and are willing to try it out.

What I'd like to know is how many people who try it stick with it. Based on the feedback I've heard I do believe it has a high satisfaction rating.

via Facebook 18 October, 2004 15:18
Reply

It is great and easy to stick with once you've got it but the hard part is getting mainstream users to download it in the first place.

via Facebook 20 October, 2004 13:32
Reply

I have been using Firefox for about a month and I'm very impressed, it loads fast, brings up sites faster atleast feels that way and the ability to pic add-ons that I like not what MS thinks I like is great. The contributers of the add-ons have done an excellant job, thanks. I havent found any problem with sites not loading correctly, maybe the adds wont but thats a plus in my book, I didnt go there to read adds. Thanks FireFox and Thunderbird, finally something out there that Microsoft doesnt own.

via Facebook 21 October, 2004 02:21
Reply

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