June 13, 2008 11:20 AM PDT
Daily Debrief: Firefox 3 looks for a million downloads
I'm a Firefox user, how about you? If you're part of the roughly 20 percent market share using Mozilla's free, open-source Web-browsing software, you're probably looking forward to Tuesday, June 17th's release of version 3. In fact, the company is hoping that 1 million of you are excited in hopes of setting a record for the most downloads in a 24-hour period.
In Friday's edition of the Daily Debrief, I chat with CNET Webware.com's Rafe Needleman about what to expect with this version. He's been using the release candidate for a few weeks and says we can look forward to faster browsing, the "awesome bar," and more security features.
Kara is a video reporter for CNET News. She brings her years of broadcast experience and shrewd reporting skills to the CNET TV team. No technology angle is too small or obscure to explore, from major industry news to technology trends to newsmaker interviews. E-mail Kara.
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First, Google doesn't provide any of the Mozilla bandwidth and server infrastructure. We've made a huge investment in that over the last 4 years and it's all Mozilla, with the help of an amazing volunteer mirror network and Mozilla's totally awesome IT team.
Second, and the more exciting one is that we're not shooting for a million downloads. We did about a million and a half downloads the first day with Firefox 2. We're shooting for at least several million downloads in the first 24 hours. I don't know what number we'll hit, but with 1.25 million people already pledged to download that day, plus all the others that will hear the news and come out for Firefox 3, I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhere between 3 and 5 million downloads.
It's going to be a crazy amount of bandwidth and server load, but with our massive volunteer network, the super cool routing and monitoring tools we built do manage that global distributed network of machines, and the top talent we have at Mozilla IT, I think it'll all go pretty smoothly.
Thanks again for the Firefox video. I'm thrilled that you're enjoying Firefox as much as you seem to be (we are all really proud of this one.) and I can't wait for us all to set that world record.
- Asa Dotzler
- A
same time ?
I'll be downloading on Tues without fail, used the RC's and I liked them but as many of my extenstions didn't work I reverted back to 2, Hoping they are updated to work with 3
and I reckon 1mil downloads will be possible
It's worth noting that Tabbed browsing was not originally on FireFox, it was part of the Opera browser I think as early as 2000 (or thereabouts) and the feature made its way to FireFox. That being said, I prefer FireFox and Safari's implementation of it to Opera and Flock's. IE's version I haven't really used for more than 2 minutes, but I was put off from the start by the little blurb that comes up when you open a new tab, that implies that tabs are an IE innovation.
I support the FireFox Download Day because if they manage to set that record, it will do a little bit to bring alternative browsers to the attention of the general public. There are still so many people who use IE because they don't realize they have a choice. But just like with email clients and operating systems, browser diversity is important for maintaining open standards, for security, and to inhibit virus proliferation.
But I'm not an expert on this, the best explanation I've seen on why people should consider other browsers is over at alternativebrowseralliance.com
I'll bet that that FireFox's 20% is the same 20% that have admin control of more than one machine, whether at home or work. So I plan to do my downloading early before the servers commit suicide and my Big Brother ISP throttles traffic for everybody due to unheard of bandwidth usage.