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Firefox Goes for World Download Record

Posted by samzenpus on Thu May 29, 2008 07:59 AM
from the record-for-the-lamest-marketing-campaign dept.
Mozilla IT
Kelson writes "For the upcoming release of Firefox, Mozilla is preparing Download Day 2008: a campaign to set a world record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. Participants are asked to pledge to download Firefox 3 on the day that it's launched. The exact date hasn't been scheduled yet, but everything seems on track for June."

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Firehose:Firefox Goes for World Download Record by Kelson (129150)
[+] A Few Firefox 3 Followups 177 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Using data generated by the Mozilla Firefox download pledge page, the map on this blog post ranks countries, not by absolute number of pledges made, but rather on a per capita basis. This analysis yields some interesting conclusions about where open source is strongest and weakest." Anonymous Warthog writes "That didn't take long. In a blog posting from the TippingPoint DVLabs security team (of Kraken and CanSecWest hacking contest fame), they confirmed that they reported a vulnerability in Firefox 3.0 to Mozilla a mere five hours after it was released. Additionally, there was a posting on the Full Disclosure security mailing list from someone that purports to have another vulnerability in the works as well. In the grand scheme of things, this probably means nothing to the general security of Firefox, but you can be sure the browser zealots on all sides will be watching carefully." Finally, from reader Toreo asesino: "Microsoft have congratulated the Mozilla team by sending them their second cake (minus recipe) to Mozilla's Mountain View headquarters to congratulate them on shipping FireFox 3, which went live right on time last night." Congratulations are indeed due on both the browser and the release process — looks like the Firefox fever (despite some seriously taxed servers) resulted in more than 8 million downloads in 24 hours.
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  • Perhaps not the cleverest plan... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Apatharch (796324) on Thursday May 29, @08:02AM (#23584415)
    Are they trying to kill their own servers or what?

  • Patch Tuesday (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pjt33 (739471) on Thursday May 29, @08:04AM (#23584439)
    What's the current record? I'd expect MS service packs to set a pretty high bar. Also, how are they counting? If Debian get Firefox 3 through into testing on the day (which I doubt), would an install via aptitude count, or are they only counting direct downloads from Mozilla?

    • Re:Patch Tuesday (Score:5, Funny)

      by Crock23A (1124275) on Thursday May 29, @08:09AM (#23584455)
      I bet WOW patches are high ranking.

    • Re:Patch Tuesday (Score:4, Interesting)

      by unlametheweak (1102159) on Thursday May 29, @08:16AM (#23584531) Journal
      I would suspect "software downloads" would imply an independent application and not a patch or a service pack. I'm sure they have their servers prepared to get Slashdotted and Digged, etc for the marketing event. Though I wonder why Microsoft with it's money couldn't hire a marketing firm to think up something savvy like that for Internet Explorer.

      It would also be a great opportunity to promote bittorent as a mass downloading medium. Too bad it doesn't seem to be in the plan.

      • Re:Patch Tuesday (Score:5, Interesting)

        by elrous0 (869638) * on Thursday May 29, @09:14AM (#23585141)
        Bittorent doesn't allow for tracking downloads. It's one of the things that really holds it back for general use for a lot of companies. For example, a lot of internet TV shows would LOVE to use bittorent to reduce their download overhead (which is HUGE), but how are they supposed to determine their "ratings" if they're not sure how many donwloads they've had? They used to talk a lot about this over at DLTV [dl.tv].

  • So guys... (Score:5, Funny)

    by thedrx (1139811) on Thursday May 29, @08:09AM (#23584457)
    Get your botnets ready :)

  • Why would I have to "pledge" anything? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rogerborg (306625) on Thursday May 29, @08:10AM (#23584471) Homepage

    Since presumably my Firefox 2 will bug me to update to 3 as soon as it's released?

    Not to disparage Mozilla, but lately it seems like they've been a mite too concerned with press releases. They should release when it's ready, and we'll get it when we think it's ready. What's the big rush?

    • Press = good (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Nerdposeur (910128) on Thursday May 29, @08:57AM (#23584947) Homepage Journal

      Not to disparage Mozilla, but lately it seems like they've been a mite too concerned with press releases.

      I think this is a cool idea. There are still lots of people who don't know there are other browsers in existence; when they open IE they say they're opening "the internet." Anything that makes the news and makes them aware of alternate browsers is good - especially if it's "hey this thing is really popular." For many people, that's the best argument for trying it.

      Mozilla seems to have done pretty well by harnessing the power of fanatic users so far - remember the big newspaper ads? And check out the "pledge map" on the site. Think how proud you'd be to see that you're one of a very few people in your country who has pledged to download it. Kind of a mix of national pride and geek pride.

      Every web developer's dream is a world where all users have more standards-compliant browsers, and IE is forced to follow suit. I say hooray for almost anything that makes that closer to reality.

  • followed by most rollbacks to version 2... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 29, @08:11AM (#23584481)
    because many popular plugins are not 3.0 ready :-(

  • Yeah! (Score:5, Funny)

    by SpanishInquisition0 (1297663) on Thursday May 29, @08:17AM (#23584533)
    Go for the record Mozilla! If you get it, you might even get a place right next to the Most Marshmallows Stuffed Into A Person's Mouth record!

  • 100% turn out from north Korea (Score:5, Funny)

    by sakdoctor (1087155) on Thursday May 29, @08:33AM (#23584691) Homepage
    Look, all 18 computer uses have pledged.

  • Only the windows downloads (Score:5, Insightful)

    by poeidon1 (767457) on Thursday May 29, @08:38AM (#23584751) Homepage
    will be counted most probably. I dont know of many linux users who download directly from mozilla website. Most would use a package from their distribution which generally is not available on the same day (and even if it is, how will they count those downloads).

  • "The worst PR is no PR." (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sturdy (1297351) on Thursday May 29, @08:41AM (#23584777)

    If they set a record - they'll be in the news.

    If they are so successful that the servers go down temporarily - they'll definitely be in the news.

    As you can see, just submitting the idea has put them in the news. This is a great idea for a company with growing market share.

  • Make a big circle with a big marker. (Score:5, Funny)

    by BForrester (946915) on Thursday May 29, @08:51AM (#23584889)
    I'm marking "Download Day" on my calendar right now.

    I have a big circle around 2008, and a thin one around 2009 too, just in case the news gets any more vague.

    • Re:I pledge not to download it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by anboni (1000474) on Thursday May 29, @08:19AM (#23584557)
      You clearly haven't worked with Fx3 yet. At first I was skeptical about the new smart bookmarks and address bar, but now that I've used it for a month or two (starting with beta 2) I'm quite pleased with it. The address bar basically does exactly the same as it always has, except now it actually does an on the fly substring search in your history instead of just giving an arbitrarily sorted list of previously visited sites. I would dare say this is one of the biggest improvements to the web browsing experience in the last several years.

      • Re:I pledge not to download it (Score:5, Informative)

        by netsharc (195805) on Thursday May 29, @08:35AM (#23584725)
        And something Opera [opera.com] invented first! (Among other things like tabbed browsing, mouse gestures in a browser, a zoom feature that also resizes images, etc, etc.). And Opera 9.50 even searches the contents of pages you have visited for more WIN.

          • Opera publicity? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Nerdposeur (910128) on Thursday May 29, @09:12AM (#23585119) Homepage Journal

            If Opera has so many great features so far ahead of everyone else, why is its usage still somewhere around 1% on a good day? If Opera can figure that out, maybe they'd get somewhere.

            Maybe they need more silly publicity stunts like this one.

    • Re:I pledge not to download it (Score:4, Informative)

      by Fallus Shempus (793462) on Thursday May 29, @08:22AM (#23584585) Homepage
      Weird, I have the release candidate, you know you can still actually use as a location bar and ignore the search, it still drops down and give suggestions of previously typed in URLs

      Don't see the problem

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