Mozilla Firefox passes 80 million downloads

According to the counter at spreadfirefox.com, Firefox has now surpassed 80 million downloads. (Well 80.1 million when I looked.) Version 1.0 of Mozilla Firefox was released ~9 months ago.

That's a great (and impressive) number, but realistically there are a few things that it doesn't reflect. 1: multiple downloads by the same individual. (Download, then download the update, then download the next update.) 2) Download once install multiple places. Since the two scenarios above are opposites, I would expect that one would cancel out the other and probably lean towards believing there may be a greater installed base than 80 million. I've installed MANY copies from a single download myself and suspect there are others who have done likewise.

Of course, installed base != (does not equal) regular users. Rather, potential users. I think the current security environment of Internet Explorer has improved (a little), but not enough to stop many people from using an alternative for web browsing. Yes there are sites that may not work 100% with Firefox (the list is few and typically can be blamed on activex and other explorer specific code), but in spite of that Firefox is spreading. Interesting to see.