Firefox reaches landmark 100 million downloads

Firefox reaches landmark 100 million downloads
Mozilla Corporation's open-source Web browser, Firefox, has completed 100 million downloads within one year of the software's release.

The no-cost web browser was launched in November last year and is currently considered to be the closest competitor to Microsoft's Internet Explorer with close to 45 million individual users.

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A nonprofit organization which focuses on open-source efforts, Mozilla believes a lot of credit for their instant success goes to the Mozilla community who've developed and publicized the product in a big way.

"Our community of developers, testers, and grassroots marketers is rejuvenating Web browsing” said Asa Dotzler, liaison for the "Spread Firefox" effort claiming it was the main reason why millions of new users make the jump to Firefox every week”.

The organization states that nearly 100,000 individuals have built, tested and promoted the software as part of the “Spread Firefox" effort.

Firefox also vows to be safer than the mostly preferred Microsoft's Internet Explorer apart from providing simple yet user friendly features which will make browsing a great experience for the net frequenters. In fact, Mozilla developers maintain that their offering is more reliable and secure than Microsoft Corp.'s dominant Internet Explorer browser.

Further, Firefox lays the claim that it is less prone to crashing as opposed to Internet Explorer, similar to the open-source Linux operating system which declared that their software is much more efficient as compared to Microsoft's Windows.

However, not everyone is not willing to comply with Firefox. According to Janco Research, based in Park City, Utah, a few lapses in Firefox's security features were exposed earlier in this year, which has led to the users becoming reluctant to use it lately.

Says Victor Janulaitis, chief executive at Janco, “the positive glow on Firefox was dulled in April” revealing that some security cracks were identified in Firefox which definitely led to a decline in its popularity.

It is interesting to note that Janco's second quarter research report had forecast a 25 percent take over in this sector by the time 2005 draws to a close. However, this has far from been the case.

Internet Explorer still rules the roost by a long, long way. The research agency states that 85 % of the internet users exploit Explorer while Firefox is a distant second with a meager 8.8 percent.

Apart from Firefox, Mozilla's eponymous open-source browser stood third with 3.3 percent of the market share in this sector while America Online Inc.'s software and Microsoft's MSN were next in line with 1 percent each.

Mozilla has plans to come out with to Firefox 1.5 in the near future.