Digital Daily » Mozilla

Firefox Reaches One Billion Downloads [UPDATED]

John Paczkowski — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:29:21 +0000

Once the plucky underdog in the browser battle, Mozilla’s Firefox is today the second most popular browser worldwide, after Internet Explorer.

Since it was first released in November 2004, the browser has succeeded not just in dislodging Microsoft’s (MSFT) IE from its dominant market position, but in proving that an open-source project can become a widely used consumer application. Now, it is fast approaching its billionth download and is likely to hit that milestone this afternoon.

As of this writing, Mozilla’s Firefox Download Counter is showing 999,935,615, with upward of 20 downloads every second. Though that number is for downloads-to-date, not active users, it’s still an impressive one and says a lot about the mindshare Firefox has managed to capture in a relatively short time against a rival that’s bundled with the most ubiquitious operating system on the planet.

As Mozilla CEO John Lilly told me this morning, “It’s a billion votes–a billion intentional decisions–for people to take control of how they interact with the Web. We–the whole Mozilla community, really–are really proud to have been part of building a product that’s been downloaded so many times, but more importantly, we’re all proud to have helped people take more control over their online lives by making intentional decisions.”

UPDATE: Mozilla tells me Firefox hit the one billion downloads mark at 7:47 am PDT/10:47 am EDT.

Below, Lilly and Mozilla chairman Mitchell Baker in an interview with Walt Mossberg at our recent D7 conference:

[ See post to watch video ]

Mozilla Foundation Announces Your New Default Browser

John Paczkowski — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:30:48 +0000

After four beta versions and nearly as many release candidates, Firefox 3.5 is finally here.

This latest version of the browser offers a number of new features. Among them: Private browsing, location-aware surfing, support for emerging HTML 5 standards such as plug-in-free video and audio playing, and better JavaScript performance. It’s that last improvement that’s most noteworthy since Mozilla claims that Firefox 3.5 is twice as fast as Firefox 3, and an astonishing 10 times faster than Firefox 2.0.

Nice features, all of them, and ones that certainly reflect the goal of Firefox’s creators at the Mozilla Foundation: To upgrade the Web. “What we’re actually trying to do,” Mozilla Chairman Mitchell Baker said at our D7 conference in May (see video highlights below), “…is improve the Web itself….Our main goal is to make more capabilities available, and right now, the browser is the main delivery mechanism….We’re trying to be the delivery mechanism upon which others build innovations.”

And upon which Firefox builds market share. Though it is currently the world’s second-leading browser, with a 22.5 percent share of the global Web browser market, Firefox faces some formidable competition these days from Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL) and now Mozilla partner Google (GOOG), which is bearing down upon it with its latest “don’t-be-evil” bulldozer, Chrome.

[ See post to watch video ]

China Delays Filtering Initiative

John Paczkowski — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:00:52 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Perhaps You’d Like Us to Bundle Netscape Navigator as Well–Just for Old Time’s Sake?

John Paczkowski — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:00:14 +0000

With a 20 percent share of the the world-wide browser market and 31 percent of its European segment, Mozilla’s Firefox browser has clearly proven that Microsoft Internet Explorer is not immune to free-market competition.

But the natural course of the free markets is apparently not moving fast enough for the European Commission, which is mulling forcing Microsoft (MSFT) to include browsers other than IE in its Windows OS.

Seems that the idea of unbundling IE from Windows has been superceded by a push to bundle even more browsers with it. People close to the case tell The Wall Street Journal that regulators may demand a so-called ballot screen that would present PC users with an array of browser choices, and the option to designate one of them as a default. The EC believes doing so would dilute Microsoft’s advantage in the field and certainly it would do that.

Though at this point, one wonders why that’s even necessary. In April, IE’s market share in Europe was about 48 percent, down from more than 80 percent a few years ago.

iBored: Apple's Shareholder Meeting

John Paczkowski — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:49:47 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Google: Pig Pile on Microsoft!

John Paczkowski — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:42:57 +0000

Oh, they’re all piling on now.

Google (GOOG) has thrown its backing behind European antitrust regulators’ latest complaint against Microsoft (MSFT), which accuses the software behemoth of illegally bundling its Internet Explorer Web browser and Windows operating system. Like Mozilla before it, the company is applying to become a “third party” in the European proceeding.

“Google believes that the browser market is still largely uncompetitive, which holds back innovation for users,” Sundar Pichai, a vice president for product management, wrote in a post to the Google Public Policy Blog. “This is because Internet Explorer is tied to Microsoft’s dominant computer operating system, giving it an unfair advantage over other browsers.”

Really? Then how does one explain the 20 percent share of the the world-wide browser market and 31 percent of its European segment that Mozilla’s Firefox browser holds today? Or the fact that Google’s own Chrome browser has exceeded Opera in market share less than a year after its debut? Clearly, IE is not immune to free-market competition. So why bother getting involved at all? Perhaps to ensure that if the EU does force Microsoft to bundle alternative browsers with Windows, Chrome is among those chosen for inclusion.

If Windows Didn't Ship With IE, How Would You Download Firefox?

John Paczkowski — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:34:17 +0000

Mozilla is not only adding its voice to that of European antitrust regulators who claim Microsoft’s (MSFT) bundling of IE with its Windows OS is anticompetitive, but offering its counsel as well. In a post to the Mozilla blog last weekend, Mozilla Corporation CEO Mitchell Baker said that she had “not the single smallest iota of doubt” that the European Commission’s preliminary conclusion that “Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between Web browsers” is correct. “I’ve been involved in building and shipping Web browsers continuously since before Microsoft started developing IE, and the damage Microsoft has done to competition, innovation, and the pace of the Web development itself is both glaring and ongoing,” Baker wrote. “There are separate questions of whether there is a good remedy, and what that remedy might be. But questions regarding an appropriate remedy do not change the essential fact. Microsoft’s business practices have fundamentally diminished (in fact, came very close to eliminating) competition, choice and innovation in how people access the Internet.”

A brutal attack and one that’s apparently only just beginning. Baker concluded her missive by volunteering Mozilla’s advice on potential remedies. “I’d like to offer Mozilla’s expertise as a resource to the EC as it considers what an effective remedy would entail,” she writes. “I’ll be reaching out to people I know with particular history, expertise and ideas regarding these topics.”

A bit like Muhammad Ali offering tips on how to score his historic fights with Joe Frazier, no? Anyway… the EC has reportedly accepted Mozilla’s offer and will allow it to participate in the case as an “interested party.”

A note about the headline: It’s a joke. I am well aware of FTP and KDE, Gnome, etc. and their non-IE browsers. No need for lectures.

[Image Credit: DeviantART/letitbeatles]

Online Spending About as Lousy as Offline Spending

John Paczkowski — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:00:13 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

What Was That You Were Saying About Mozilla Not Being an Arm of Google?

John Paczkowski — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:06:43 +0000

Mozilla renewed its search deal with Google (GOOG) last August, signing a three-year contract that ends in November 2011. Good thing too; the agreement was set to expire this month and if it had, Mozilla would have been forced to look elsewhere for the bulk of its income.

According to the organization’s latest audited financial statement, its revenue for 2007 totaled $75.1 million, up 13 percent from 2006’s $66.8 million. And 88 percent of that came came directly from Google, which pays Mozilla to be the default search engine in it Firefox browser.

So of Mozilla’s $75.1 million in 2007 revenue, $66 million was paid it by Google. That’s quite a sum. Large enough to pique the interest of the Internal Revenue Service, which is reviewing Mozilla’s nonprofit status and “challenging certain deductions,” according to Mozilla Foundation chairperson Mitchell Baker.

An interesting turn of events for Mozilla, which this time last year was claiming it would walk away from Google if that’s what it took to remain independent. “We’ve spent a lot of time and energy making sure that Google understands that it cannot turn us into an arm of Google,” Baker said at the time. “The things that make Mozilla and Firefox a success [are] the product, and the community that cares about it. First and foremost, we would protect those things,” Baker said. “If the protection of those things would come into conflict with Google, or any of our search partners, we would opt for the community who built Firefox and love Firefox…. There are other ways to make money from a browser.”

Good to know. Because you may need to pursue them when the IRS is through with you…

QOTD

John Paczkowski — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:40:02 +0000

QOTD

It would be more surprising to me if Google didn’t do something in the browser space. After all, Google is 100 percent on the Web.”

– Mozilla CEO John Lilly on Google’s incursion into the browser space

Internet Explorer's Extreme Makeover

John Paczkowski — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:00:13 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Microsoft Announces Internet SafariFox Beta 2

John Paczkowski — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:02:04 +0000

It’s taken nearly a decade but Microsoft has finally debuted the first significant overhaul of its Web browser since Internet Explorer 5. The company released IE8 Beta 2 Wednesday afternoon, and by most accounts, it’s a solid update. In fact, it might even put IE on par with competing browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari. Certainly, this latest iteration, with its new privacy and security features, adherence to Web standards, enhanced tabbed browsing and “smart address bar” (a location bar similar to Firefox 3’s “Awesome Bar”), proves that Microsoft (MSFT) has at least caught up with its rivals in the browser space. “This is a top-to-bottom makeover,” says Ed Bott. “It’s packed with usability improvements, security enhancements, and a platform for new add-ins that third-party developers are already taking advantage of.” Which is a good thing, because IE’s increasingly stale feature set has caused a bit of decline in the browser’s market share. In the last year IE lost six percentage points of market share, falling to 73 percent, while Firefox’s market share rose to 19 percent.

Firefox 3: 6.5 7 Million Downloads and Counting …

John Paczkowski — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:17:55 +0000

Looks like Firefox Download Day will be one for the record books after all.

Though its servers were initially overwhelmed by the volume of download requests yesterday, Mozilla soon had the Firefox 3 download site humming along nicely. Yesterday afternoon, it was serving up 14,000 downloads a minute and 13 gigabits of data a second. And within 5 hours it had broken Firefox 2’s single-day record of 1.6 million downloads and by 5 a.m. PDT today–18 hours into its world record attempt–it had already blown the doors off the 5 million mark it had set for itself with 6,415,252 downloads. By 7 a.m. PDT it was closing in on 7 million.

“We’re incredibly happy to have released Firefox 3 and for nearly 7 million people so far to care enough to make a positive decision to download it and use it,” Mozilla CEO John Lilly told Digital Daily. “A few more hours left in download day and then we’ll shift away from thinking about download day and back to thinking about what’s next. How to make the browser even more useful on your desktop and in your pocket, and how to help more people understand that the browser is the lens that we often look at the world through today. But it’s been amazing to watch the map though the day as countries woke up and went to sleep–really gives you a sense of how global things are now.”

Global, indeed. Worldwide usage share of Firefox 3.0 has spiked since yesterday. According to independent data compiled live by analysis firm Net Applications, 4.23% of the world’s browsers are declaring themselves as Firefox 3 in HTTP requests.

UPDATE: Firefox 3 has broken the 7 million downloads barrier. As of 7:44 a.m. PDT, 7,067,347 copies of the browser had been downloaded.

(Image Credit: Al Billings)

Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Missing White House E-mails

John Paczkowski — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:00:13 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Firefox Download Day Forces Postponement of IE Vulnerability Festival

John Paczkowski — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:07:52 +0000

After seven months in beta, the latest iteration of the application that reignited the browser wars is finally here. Firefox 3 debuts today and to mark the occasion, Mozilla, the nonprofit behind the popular open-source Web browser, is rallying users to help it set a Guinness World Record for highest number of software downloads in a single day.

There isn’t yet a Guinness World Record for most software downloaded in a single day, so Mozilla will truly have rewritten the record books if it manages to set one. The group’s hoping for 5 million downloads–not an unreasonable figure, given that Firefox 2 was downloaded 1.6 million times the first day of its release. Indeed, Mozilla’s already well on its way to reaching that goal: 1,721,775 users had already pledged to download the browser upon its release today at 10 a.m. PDT.

What can they expect from Firefox 3? More sophisticated bookmarking, endless customization possibilities, an “awesome bar,” more robust malware protection and a browsing experience that Mozilla claims is seven times speedier than Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer. Said Walt Mossberg, “Firefox 3.0 is the best Web browser out there right now” and that it “tops the current versions of both IE and [Apple's (AAPL)] Safari in features, speed and security.”

Clearly, Firefox 3.0 is a force to be reckoned with now more than ever before. As of May, the browser’s worldwide market share was 18.4%, while Internet Explorer’s stood at 73.8% according to Web metrics company Net Applications. Where will it stand after setting that world record?