Firefox Racks Up 100 Million Downloads in One Month
Mozilla might have come under heavy criticism over the past few months; however, clearly a lot of people still love Firefox. Within a month of its release, Firefox 4 has managed to cross 100 million downloads. Firefox 4 was a major update for the popular open source browser from Mozilla. Not only did it modernize Firefox’s interface, but it also (mostly) fixed the performance issues that plagued Firefox 3. Unfortunately, the massive overhaul also made it a challenging update to ship. Firefox 4 slipped from schedule on multiple occasions, and ultimately, some of the planned features had to be dropped.
According to StatCounter, nearly 8% of global internet users currently use Firefox 4. While that’s an impressive figure, more than 18% users are still on Firefox 3.6. So, there’s still plenty of room for Firefox 4 to grow. Internet Explorer continues to dominate the charts, with IE 8 commanding nearly 30% of the browser market. With nearly 17% market share, Chrome 10 is the third most popular browser out there.
Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Version Market Share
Firefox 4 could well be the last big release for Firefox. Mozilla has decided to ditch the old update model in favor of a newer release cycle with faster iterations. This means that future versions of Firefox will have fewer new features in every release; however, we should get a new version of Firefox every 6 weeks. To facilitate this process, Mozilla recently launched a new channel called Aurora.
Even as Firefox continues to enjoy massive download figures, Chrome has managed to establish itself as a serious competitor, and is turning on the heat on Firefox and Internet Explorer. Opera Software has also stuck to its reputation of delivering innovative new features; however, it hasn’t quite manage to break free and make significant inroads. With Microsoft also upping its game, Mozilla truly has its work cutout. Checkout our earlier coverage to get a lowdown on the new features being considered for Firefox 5, and don’t forget to let us know if you have downloaded Firefox 4 or not.
Related Topics Similar to This Article: »
Recent Activity: »
Author: Pallab De
Pallab De is a blogger from India who has a soft spot for anything techie. He loves trying out new software and spends most of his day breaking and fixing his PC. Pallab loves participating in the social web; he has been active in technology forums since he was a teenager and is an active user of both twitter (@indyan) and facebook .Pallab De has written 909 articles for us.
The author of this post can be contacted at pallab@techie-buzz.comComment Using Facebook
2 Responses to this Article | Share your Opinions/Comments
We moderate comments to prevent spam. Moderation is done within few hours. Please try and stay on topic and refrain from using abusive language. If you think there is a problem with this post, please email the post author or send us an email at tips@techie-buzz.com with the URL and the problem you see and we will rectify it as soon as we can.
Firefox 4 has many innovations and is much better than previous versions. Does use up more system resources but i like the fact that the millions who are going to be on XP for a while aren’t being forgotten (hint hint! IE!).
Do like to try latest Opera, Chrome and Safari versions but keep coming back to Firefox! It’s so much more customizable! ;)
Grecko engine has updated to 4.0 but orca still be 6.6i wish that orca will update the Grecko engine as soon as possible