Firefox crosses 500 million download mark
Sometime last night, Firefox downloads crossed the 500 million threshold.
Mozilla congratulated itself on attaining 500 million downloads of the Firefox Web browser.
(Credit: Mozilla)It's an arbitrary but interesting milestone for the open-source Web browser, whose development is overseen by Mozilla but that's also developed and extended by a large number of outside programmers. In September 2007, Firefox crossed the 400 million download mark, indicating an average rate a bit shy of 20 million per month at present.
According to the Spread Firefox site, there had been 500,168,448 downloads as of 6:15 a.m. PST. About 12 hours earlier, there had been more than 499,900,000.
Firefox has spread widely in the years since its release. The project originally was named Phoenix to symbolize a rising from the ashes of the Netscape open-source browser project that began in 1998 but languished for many years as Microsoft's Internet Explorer solidified its lead.
Now Firefox programmers are working on version 3, which brings performance improvements and interface changes, and Mozilla also is working on a mobile version of the browser for handheld devices.
A sister subsidiary of Mozilla, Mozilla Messaging, is working to reproduce the successes of Firefox with the open-source Thunderbird e-mail software.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 



http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/022108-microsoft-open-api.html?netht=rn_022208&nladname=022208dailynewsamal
IBM may see some value in offering OS/2 "for free" like it is doing with Lotus Symphony and this might just rock the Microsoft Empire like an earthquake. ;-) !
IBM gives away Lotus Symphony, because it doesn't own it. Lotus Symphony is just a minor variation of the mediocre OpenOffice.
Which is a whole lot more than MS can say about IE. :-) I run it
on my Mac and my Linux/UNIX machine.
I downloaded/tried FF2, but prefer/use IE7.
That said, I will try FF3 when it is released. If nothing else, FF2 is useful as an "emergency backup browser".
Also, are we 100% positive (the general public) that "download" does NOT include security updates/patches (when FF2 automatically downloads and updates your point release with a security fix)?!
Downloaded it once, and installed it more than 40 times. I work for SMB's that prefer security and stability. Also love all those useful extensions...
Can't wait for a stable 3.x version.
The feeling I got was that somehow the Microsoft
OS had compatibility problems with FF.
Wonder how many feel, or can vouch, if that is
the issue.
it's one of the first things I do. I won't even use IE, I consider it
trashware for retards. The second thing I do after getting FF
installed on a PC is to hide IE so it's difficult to use.
I rarely run into one of those nasty "IE only" websites, but when I
do I just move along. I don't need anything out there that forces
me into servitude and slavery.
The only exception to this is when I'm on a Mac, I actually like
the Safari browser (although I do tend to keep a copy of FireFox
for the rare occasion when a site doesn't render properly in
Safari). But for winblows and Linux, it's FireFox or no internet at
all.
What was Vista's sales rate again? I'm thinking that (very probably) Firefox is perhaps outstripping IE in install rates...
/P
2 low-to-medium threats in FireFox neither being remote attacks, or admin priveledge gains.
3 high threats for IE containing uncounted multiple vunerabilities in each alert/patch.
~10 med-high threats in related M$ OS services, like IIS, TCP/IP, Active Directory, DirectX, OLE automation, including one so scary I won't mention it. (these threats affect all current M$ OS's from Win2K to Vista)
~5-6 low-medium threats in Office and related app software.
~1 low threat kernel flaw in Vista already
PS> there has never been any such thing as true computer network security since Y2K, regardless of anyones claims, it does not exist. regardless of whatever patch they are pushing, there are more holes, even in the patches. 5 or 6 of the M$ threats above were subsequent patches to the same software component, some fix eh?
The number of bugs in IE is unknown because Microsoft will never tell you or admit to any while Firefox is open for anyone to see. All software has bugs.
I also suspect that these may be some of the remaining appearent sources of error in FF, because the OS want FF to do something that only IE will do, (that you probably don't want it doing anyway), that gives rise to some of the errors.
Send me an e-mail windowsknowitall@hotmail.com
I'll help you with your problems in firefox, or I can give you a quick overview.
NO SPAM, PLEASE
They are 2 extreamly good browsers. (IE is even better when used with security)
I use IE7 more than FF because personally I like IE7, but I must say I am impressed with firefox. FF is technically not an internet browser, but instead a multi-function application. With the correct extensions FF can do virtually anything.
Now just imigine if IE and FF were combined into one product. (That probably won't happen) People would stop fighting over which one is better and actually use for program for it's original intent, browsing the internet.
Then again, that's like combining the 3 OS'es.
Merging Windows, Mac, and Linux would make a great product, again, that will never happen. That's only wishful thinking.
- Firefox
- by capitanqueso February 29, 2008 6:07 AM PST
- Opera is better! to me, it has paste and go, duplicate the page, show the images as they are wysiwyg, it has a practic zoom, has an interesting "insert personal data" & "insert notes", everithing that has explorer 7 & firefox was first in opera the only fault is how it show some javascript or i dont know some link images in some ordinaries pages.
- Reply to this comment
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(30 Comments)Opera Browser es mejor!, para mi, tiene pegar e ir, duplicar la pagina, muestra las imágenes como son, un práctico zoom, tiene un "insertar personal" e "insertar notas", todo lo que tiene firefox y explorer7 opera lo tenia desde antes del 2000solo falla en una cosa no coinciden algunos links con las imagenes pequeñas en las paginas mas berretas