Firefox 4 sees 7.1 million downloads in first 24 hours

[Emil]

Firefox 4 was downloaded 7.1 million times in the first 24 hours since its release earlier this week. This is in addition to the more than 3 million users who were already running the Release Candidate that became the final version after Mozilla decided the bugs weren't critical enough to warrant further delays.

7.1 million is the official 24-hour number from Mozilla: previous statistics you may have seen posted elsewhere on the Internet were simply estimates made by third-parties. Most of these were based on what was seen on the Firefox 4 Download Stats page, which now shows a counter over 17 million.

It's also worth noting that this number is just over three times what Microsoft achieved in the first 24 hours of the IE9 release: 2.35 million downloads. It's certainly impressive and shows the loyal following that Mozilla still has. Microsoft may have the advantage of being able to push new versions of IE through the Automatic Updates function of Windows Update, but it hasn't leveraged that yet.

While the Firefox 4 number is worth writing home about, it's certainly not what Mozilla was hoping for. The current record holder is still Mozilla, but with the previous version of its browser: Firefox 3 saw over 8 million downloads in a 24-hour period on June 18, 2008.

Despite the growing number of Firefox users (remember, even if Firefox is losing market share, the number of users on the Web continues to grow), Mozilla was not able to beat its own record. While the number is definitely worth celebrating, the organization should still be a little bit worried as it continues to lose loyal users to Google Chrome.

"As we do so much more online, we must expect so much more from our browser environment," a Mozilla spokesperson said in a statement. "We should expect it to know who we are, wherever we go. We should expect it to remember such simple things as history, passwords, open tabs, open applications – and remember those on our behalf, wherever we go online, on any device, and without the need to re-enter anything. We should expect it to move at human speed, while being completely customizable and yet so simple and intuitive, anyone can use it. We should expect it to enable us to live in the level of privacy and security WE choose to, everywhere WE go. In short, we should expect our browser to answer to no one but us!"

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/42973-firefox-4-sees-71-million-downloads-in-first-24-hours.html

 

[Lurker101]

I was one of those 7.1 million, and I must say, flash is a bit buggy in FF4

Also, I think I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to import my old bookmarks from a .json file.

 

[Trillionsin]

Interesting... many more aware users care to have Firefox updated... but for IE9, they wont see all the downloads until they start pushing it out through windows updates... for the less aware people. Does that make sense?

 

[gwailo247]

Yeah, I'm getting some crashes too. Nothing consistent, but more than before.

But then a new Flash update popped up this morning, so maybe that will fix it.

 

[Leeky]

And I'm back on FF! Yay!

Dunno whether it was the wiped hard disk, or a few changes they made prior to releasing it, but its now working and not a crash in sight.

Come to think of it, my whole system seems to be running better, and its not BSOD'ing nonstop, so probably had nothing to do with FF to begin with. :haha:

 

[Lurker101]

One more thing I'd like to add is, on my rig at least, IE9 is actually faster.

Another bug I've noticed is, FF4 sometimes fails when confronted with captcha.

 

[lawfer]

On my machine, IE9 is faster than Chrome and Opera. Firefox is even faster than IE9 (though sometimes it is hardly noticeable).

People will have to understand that, we've gotten to point where speed difference is negligible. From now on it will always come down to which browser you feel comfortable browsing with. And most people find that browser to be Firefox, as much as that might hurt you.

 

[Burty117]

Lurker101 said:
One more thing I'd like to add is, on my rig at least, IE9 is actually faster.

Another bug I've noticed is, FF4 sometimes fails when confronted with captcha.

See I'm almost in the same boat,

I have both as well and well... They are neck and neck?

IE9 loads gamespot faster but Firefox 4.0 loads techspot faster?
Its soo close! well speed wise anyway, I prefer Firefox for the customisation though and it can handle more tabs that IE9 without crashing regularly.

 

[Guest]

i download firefox 4, try for 5min,,, and back to 3.6.16

unable use in old PC P4 HT 3.3Ghz / 2 GB RAM / Win 7 Pro / Nvida 5200 250MB

 

[Mizzou]

Interesting... many more aware users care to have Firefox updated... but for IE9, they wont see all the downloads until they start pushing it out through windows updates... for the less aware people. Does that make sense?

I think that's a fair observation, Firefox users are likely more passionate about their choice of browser than the average user.

 

[Guest]

I like it but I have been crashing quit a bit today

 

[bugejakurt]

Great upgrade from Firefox but IE9 is better...

 

[Guest]

IE9 seems faster and less buggy than FF4.

 

[captaincranky]

Despite the growing number of Firefox users (remember, even if Firefox is losing market share, the number of users on the Web continues to grow), Mozilla was not able to beat its own record. While the number is definitely worth celebrating, the organization should still be a little bit worried as it continues to lose loyal users to Google Chrome.

Oddly, I'm quite satisfied with FF3 ! or (?). That would explain my apathy. Well, that and I don't particularly care whether I become part of a Mozilla statistic. I really don't see any advantage in being part of a log jamb at the Mozilla server. Hey, even if don't get it for two months, I don't see that counting as brand disloyalty. Nothing for the bean counters to worry about, really.

Another bug I've noticed is, FF4 sometimes fails when confronted with captcha.

I think "recaptcha" is powered with a cross site script. While that might explain the problem, I don't pretend to have a sollution. Um, sorry

 

[Lurker101]

That's quite alright because I do have a solution. Any sites using a form of captcha or recaptcha, I browse with IE9. It might be a bit of a crap solution, but it works and I actually quite like IE9.

Another thing that FF4 does that really annoys me though, is the removal of the bookmarks toolbar. Being able to just click my more frequently used sites was infinitely better than having to hit 'alt' and scroll through the 'bookmarks' menu and submenus.

 

[Lurker101]

Also, I'm not sure if it's FF4 or just Techspot, but I seem to be getting a lot of errors when I try to post via the front page.

 

[matrix86]

You aren't alone Lurker. It's not just FF4...been having the same issue in Chrome (let's see if this will post, lol)

 

[Kibaruk]

Why don't I have any error? And I play a lot with Java scripts... I'm glad for Mozila

BUT

They did released 1 day early FF4 (Unoficialy?) and at the next day it was made public and updates from within FF3 were working, do they count? Were those numbers taken into consideration for the 24 hour release? something tells me they weren't.

 

[Lurker101]

Why don't I have any error?

You're complaining because you haven't suffered any errors?

 

[captaincranky]

You're complaining because you haven't suffered any errors?

I have errors, but I'm ascribing that to the 100 or so tabs in 4 other Windows of porn I have open also. Sloooow going it be.

 

[Lurker101]

That's not an error. That's a side effect from a fapping frenzy. You can't expect your rig, let alone mere browsers to be happy with 100+ tabs of porn

 

[lawfer]

Lurker101 said:
That's quite alright because I do have a solution. Any sites using a form of captcha or recaptcha, I browse with IE9. It might be a bit of a crap solution, but it works and I actually quite like IE9.

Another thing that FF4 does that really annoys me though, is the removal of the bookmarks toolbar. Being able to just click my more frequently used sites was infinitely better than having to hit 'alt' and scroll through the 'bookmarks' menu and submenus.

They didn't remove the toolbar. You just have to enable it manually:

http://img861.imageshack.us/img861/3355/firefoxbookmark.jpg

 

[Lurker101]

Why should I be forced to hunt for that? Who seriously thought that all of the users who had grown quite accustomed to that toolbar should be forced to dredge through menus and submenus hunting down an option to re-enable a useful feature?

 

[mistermindless]

Lurker101 said:
Why should I be forced to hunt for that? Who seriously thought that all of the users who had grown quite accustomed to that toolbar should be forced to dredge through menus and submenus hunting down an option to re-enable a useful feature?

u only need to right click on the home button or refresh button to enable bookmarks toolbar..

 

[Lurker101]

And I'm expected to instantly know that when I install the latest iteration of their browser, am I?