(Jemal R. Brinson/NEWSCOM)
New Firefox claims victory, but is it a record?
By Chris Gaylord | 06.19.08
The numbers are in: 8.3 million copies of Firefox 3 were downloaded on its first day. But is this really a record breaker? Adobe begs to differ.
The folks at Guinness World Records still need to verify the Firefox figure – that could take days – but the browser’s creator, Mozilla, is proudly touting its “new record” for the most downloads in a 24-hour period.
Just to be clear, there is no record to beat. Guinness has never tracked this before. So when Mozilla first approached them, they set the bar at 5 million. With Firefox’s download rate reaching 233 copies per second (or 1.5 gigabytes per second) by Tuesday morning, Firefox 3 blew past its goal.
While Guinness takes the official tally, one blogger is challenging the benchmark. “I’m pretty impressed, I like it, and the downloads thing is good marketing,” writes Ryan Stewart, who works for Adobe. “But to put that in perspective, we get 8 million installs of the Flash Player … on an average day.”
Last March, Abode executive Kevin Lynch told eWeek.com that, “Right now, Flash Player 9 is being installed at the rate of about 12 million a day.”
Of course, Adobe’s numbers have also not been vetted by Guinness, and they by no means take away Firefox’s impressive day. Firefox 2.0 only got 1.6 million downloads its first day – a figure the new version surpassed in just five hours.
What will be more interesting to see now is if this burst of downloads affects Firefox’s standing against Internet Explorer. IE still dominates the field with 74 percent market share. But Firefox is catching up, growing from 14 to 18 percent over the past year. I assume that most people downloading Firefox 3 on Tuesday were simply replacing their older versions, but maybe Mozilla’s big week will let Firefox continue to nip at Microsoft’s heels.
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Comments
2. Mdeil | 06.19.08
Does Kevin Lynch realize that Firefox is a BROWSER and flash player isn’t a dedicated browser? Not the same thing.
3. Ernest Garu | 06.19.08
Yeah, right! The Mozilla software was downloaded by willing persons, by the sheer joy of trying out something new and innovative. The Adobe software FORCES you to download it (similar to IE7) and is constantly calling home (hmm I detect a pattern here). What are you journalists gonna say next? Java is downloaded even more than Flash? [:-D) another forced download. You cannot compare these things, one was freely chosen, the other is forced or else.
5. Robert | 06.19.08
Big difference between Firefox and Flash. Firefox is a voluntary download. Flash is somewhat a necessity these days.
6. Flash is a nuisance | 06.19.08
Adobe flash is a nuisance that people are forced to download (at least if they want to experience the site in its fullest).
It is like a pest or worm that resides on a fruit.
It is a plug in (pest) and not an independent standing software.
Mozilla is the only independently running software to set this record.
7. Nima | 06.19.08
lol
Go Firefox!
I agree with Ernest Garu.
They are not related at all and
Adobe always try to show off
9. Fernando F. | 06.19.08
Flash player black-mail everybody to be download: “if you want to watch this video you need flash-player”. Click, wait, done. We don’t think about flash-player till the next message.
With FireFox is different. We look forward for a new version of FireFox, since it works faster and more secure than I.E.. Plus, uses standards, and people can collaborate with all those great add-ons.
As you can see, they are not in the same category.
Also, flash is not like a real-software. It goes to the add-in folder.
10. Suhas Karnik | 06.20.08
And why do you need such an addon? Simply goto Tools -> Addons -> Plugins tab -> Shockwave Flash -> Disable.
Takes all of thirty seconds!
12. PinoyTux | 07.07.08
There are no alternatives for Flash Player - you must get it at Adobe. While for browsers, you may choose to use IE by Microsoft, but still you want to download and use Firefox.
Then again, Guinness records say that the record is for “most downloaded software in 24 hours”, Firefox is a software, and so is Flash player.
Firefox should have set the record to “most downloaded browser”.
Just my two cents.
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1. Asa Dotzler | 06.19.08
Watching the browsers that came to Mozilla to download Firefox 3, a large percentage were IE and Safari, so it’s not just Firefox 2 users updating. I think you’ll see the market share stats reflecting that next month.