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50 Million People Can't Be Wrong
  • Friday, April 29, 2005
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Make that 50 Million Downloads Can't Be Wrong...

Firefox: Blazing a Trail to 50,000,000

Earlier today, my browser of choice eclipsed the 50 million download mark. Congratulations to the developers for their hard work in making this possible. Your stuff rocks!

If you haven't joined the rest of us, it's time for you to get with the program and let FireFox lead you in to the future!

You really shouldn't think of it as 50 Million People, just 50 Million downloads. I myself downloaded it onto my three computers at home, my work computer, and my new laptop; and I'm not adding in the probably 10 downloads I did while trying out different Linux distros, so just for me alone that would be somewhere along the lines of 15 downloads. Add in the majority of geeks that have downloaded it more than once onto their many computers and the number of people using it can drop down to 10+ million; which is still impressive.

50 million people can't be wrong??? By that logic, we could say that 500 million Internet Explorer users can't be wrong.

I've never liked the statement "50 million can't be wrong". 50 million people can be wrong--if they are persuaded by marketing.

This is not to say I think Firefox is no good. I just don't like the argument that says I should use it simply because a lot of other people use it. I'd rather be convinced through features, not mass hysteria.

As well as you can download it several times - some people don't download it at all. In Fedora Core 3 - it is part of the distribution. I haven't downloaded Firefox for ages. Still, I use it everyday - and the most recent release as well.

The number of people that download it onto several computers is easily offset by the number of people that download it via a different method that is not counted by the download counter, such as CNet's Download.com, direct from ftp.mozilla.org, from a Linux distro's mirror site, via apt-get or emerge, etc.

And speaking about how inaccurate is that 50 million number...

I know that a lot of network admins like me, have downloaded a *single* copy of Firefox in order to distribute it along their networks (300 users in my case, many more in other's cases) that will count only as one download. Add to that all the geeks that carry a "swiss knife" tools CD from where they happily install Firefox to any and all "converts" they happen to find, and that sums another lot of single downloads being distributed to a lot of users.

Add to that that the script that count downloads ingnores any download request by Firefox 1.x clients (upgrades) and you'll see that the 50 million mark is probably more true than pessimistic people thinks.

just wait till internet exploder 7 comes out of M$'s butthole, Firefox will hit 100 million.

You people need to get a freaking life! Come on! Of all the topics (the women breastfeeding animals to be exact), THIS is the one you comment on??? Over semantics??? GET A LIFE!

Ummm... How a discussion about the accuracy of a 50 million downloads statement is "about semantics?" Even after adding the fact someone points that the number could be actually way higher?

Just askin.

(not to ask how getting interested on women breastfeeding animals is "having a life" for you)

Enjoyed Becky's comment. You rock! :)

As for Firefox, I've been using it and enjoying the absence of pop-ups and crashes. HOWEVER, I read a news item on yahoo! news yesterday that there's a big security risk related to JavaScript that basically allows hackers to take-over your machine w/o your knowledge (I'm a science geek, not a computer geek, so I didn't fully understand - check out http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/120756 for story). If anyone can explain in simple terms how I can protect my computer, please let me know.