Firefox made news this week as it
surpassed the 75 million download mark. Assuming that Mozilla continues to produce the browser as reliably as they are now, I have no intention of ever going back to the once-great-but-now-dreadful Internet Explorer, and with 75 million downloads already, I suspect I'm not alone. But as significant as that number sounds, it certainly does not mean that 75 million people are using the browser. Far from it.
Consider this: I have Firefox installed on 2 computers (one at work and one at home). The software is currently in version 1.0.6, and I downloaded and installed every single upgrade onto both machines as soon as they became available. In addition, I had to re-download and re-install the browser 3 or 4 times in one day when I was having serious problems with my work computer. Given these factors, I estimate that I've personally downloaded Firefox
at least 18 times since it came out of beta testing.
And I have no doubt that each and every one of those 18 (or more) downloads was counted separately in arriving at the figure of 75 million.
[Marketing Vox] Firefox Downloads Top 75 million, Mozilla Expands (via
Slashdot)