Yesterday, Mozilla delivered the much awaited version 4 of its Firefox browser, after numerous delays. If you’ve taken to using other browsers or have otherwise come to doubt the momentum and influence that Firefox still has, it’s worth considering some of the numbers and statistics that are coming out regarding enthusiasm for Firefox’s new version. Mozilla itself is supplying some eye-popping numbers.
According to the live counter on Mozilla’s Firefox 4 download site, in the first 24 hours of the browser’s availability there have been nearly 7 million downloads. To put that in perspective, PC Mag reported on the number of downloads for Internet Explorer version 9–Microsoft’s latest browser–over the same time frame. After its first 24 hours of availability, there were only 2.35 million downloads–and that’s for the market share leader among browsers (although Internet Explorer has been steadily shedding share for years now).
