Mozilla Hits 400 Million Downloads, About 110 Million Users
SpreadFirefox announced the open source browser has been downloaded 400 million times:
Today, you all have done it once again. With your amazing efforts, Firefox has reached 400 million downloads and demonstrated that not even the world's most powerful companies can keep people from a better, safer, and faster Web experience. You all, the grass roots and the heart of the Firefox movement, have helped hundreds of millions of people find that better, safer, and faster Web.
Of course the number of downloads isn't the same as the number of current users. From Wikipedia we get a a little more detail on the counts, most importantly these counts do not include updates:
These numbers do not include downloads using software updates or from third-party websites.[14] They do not represent a user count, as one download may be installed on many machines, or one person may download the software multiple times. According to Mozilla employee Asa Dotzler, Firefox had about 110 million users as of August 2007.[15]
The Mozilla wiki has an entry on retention:
Currently, approximately 50% of the people who download Firefox actually try it and about 50% of those people continue to use it actively. This presents an incredible opportunity for us.
the post also includes a 12-point plan for improving retention.
The Mozilla Foundation understands the difference between downloads and users and is actively trying to improve rates of use. SpreadFireFox is a cheerleader doing what cheerleaders do and that doesn't include giving a full description of the situation.
Firefox's growth is impressive and all the more reason to question the wisdom of blocking Firefox users from sites because there exists a plug-in that blocks ads. (An earlier post described the WhyFirefoxIsBlocked movement to block all Firefox users from sites, not just those using the ad blocker. As you can imagine, that generated a few comments from readers.)
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