Not sure at the moment how this stacks up to the latest versions of FireFox and what have you, but 100 million is a strong number I would say.
Microsoft recently announced that, as of January 8, 100 million users have installed Internet Explorer 7.0.
According to http://feeds.spreadfirefox.com/downloads/firefox.xml, FireFox has been downloaded over 287 million times since 1.0 was released. These are actual direct downloads, not updates initiated from within the program.
Does Microsoft have a similar statistic? I only have IE7 installed because it came as part of automatic updates, it’s not like I actually *want* it. 😛
Charles,
I will look into this and share any publicly available statistics. This may take a few days …
I do not think the 287 million downloads of FF are ‘unique’ users. Although the count may not include updates within the current version installed it is my assumption that new version(i.e. 1.x to 2.x) are new downloads. That sort of doubles the count …
Ah now Peter… c’mon!
IE7 is part of the automatic upgrade. Don’t sing about the download when users don’t choose to upgrade to the product. Automatic Update server puts it to you (and me).
People choose to get Firefox.
Paul,
Fair point, but is still optional as far as I know. Would be nice to know how many out of the 100M choose to (re)install FirFox then.
Peter – Im sorry but this argument does not wash at all.
People instinctivly permit updates as they think it keeps their PC safe. This includes the browser upgrade as it came along with “Automatic updates”. As for firefox – it is a choice. A reasoned choice.
Paul,
I had the choice I believe last time I checked (yesterday) on a new PC. But I do admit the majority of people ‘permit’this update automaticaly.